“Brothers and sisters:
Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
It’s with these words from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that today’s first reading begins. He goes on to write:
“The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.”
These are powerful words and put another way, God sent his son to the earth, to become one of us, to give us the gift of love and the gift of truth. He died for all of our sins and gave us a way out. A way to make it to Heaven. A lifeboat, so to speak, in which we can achieve that which we could not achieve by ourselves. This is our gift, and this gift is immeasurable. It cannot be quantified. It never ends. It is infinite. Paul states that we have each been given an amount of grace equal to this gift, meaning that the amount of grace we can receive from God is immeasurable. It cannot be quantified. It never ends. It is infinite. But we have to ask for it. We have to seek it. We have to want it.
Grace has many meanings. Simply put, grace is elegance or finesse. In Christian terms, grace means “the free and unmerited favor of God… and the bestowal of blessings…”
As Catholics, we not only have these actual graces, those times when God steps in and provides special favors or a blessing, or when He gives us subtle nudges (or at times a “kick in the pants”) telling us to do something or providing an answer we’ve been seeking. But we also believe in the sanctifying grace which stays in the soul, perfects the soul, makes us more holy, and worthy to make it into Heaven.
Furthermore, the Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions grace “…also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church…”
St. Paul continued to write:
“And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the extent of the full stature of Christ.”
In other words, we each have been given special graces – gifts, talents, and abilities with which we can do Gods work in our families, parishes, and communities. We can use these graces to spread God’s will and Christ’s gospel to the world.
Finally, the Church provides the sacraments from which we can receive Christ’s grace, which, when we receive these graces regularly, works towards building that sanctifying grace within our soul.
Whew! That’s a lot of grace! Why do we need all of this grace? Because we can’t get into Heaven without it! In the United States we used to have those American Express credit card commercials where they said, “American Express – don’t leave home without it!”
Well, the same holds true about grace. Don’t leave our earthly home without it. It’s our passport, our ticket into heaven. We’re humans. We sin. We need to ask for forgiveness. We need to ask for God’s grace to forgive us. It doesn’t matter how much we’ve sinned or what we’ve done. We simply need to ask for forgiveness.
In the Gospel today, Jesus said:
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!
Some people feel that calamities and disasters in today’s world and over time happen because of the sin in this world. While there are definite consequences caused by sinful actions, the fact of the matter is, bad things happen. And bad things happen to good people as well as to not so good people. To paraphrase Jesus, people don’t suffer in life because they are greater sinners. The world is not perfect and bad things do happen. But, we don’t know when these things are going to happen, and we don’t know when our number will be up. When that time comes, we need to make sure we have enough sanctifying grace to make it into Heaven. So, how to we do this? Well, Jesus tells us how in the second part of the Gospel reading for today in the following parable:
‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”
We are each that fig tree. A lot of us bear little fruit, or not much at all. As the reading says, we need to cultivate and fertilize the ground around us if we want to bear fruit.
Our souls are the same way. We can receive the special graces, those special favors from God in our lives and reap the benefits. We can receive those signs and that “kick in the pants” from time to time. But if we fail to use those special graces we’ve been given to do God’s will, or fail to listen or act when we see those signs, sooner or later, we’ll stop receiving them. We need to act on those special graces we’re given, and utilize the sacramental graces we have within the Church so that we sanctify our soul and become the person God expects us to be here on Earth.
We need to go to confession and receive the Eucharist to receive Christ’s full grace. And then we need to go out into the world and spread his grace. Those are the two sides of the coin. This is how we sanctify our soul, and we need to do this regularly. The fig tree will not produce fruit with a single application of fertilizer. You have to spend time, remove the weeds, enrich the soil, and regularly apply fertilizer.
The same holds true for our soul. One confession a year is not enough. One Mass once in a while is not enough. Receiving God’s grace through regular confession, regular prayer, and regularly receiving the Eucharist in a state of grace is what cultivates and fertilizes our soul, and allows us to bear fruit, and earn that ticket to Heaven when the time comes.
