The world around me is exquisitely beautiful today. Here in Kentucky, as the temperatures drop at night, the trees outdo each other in glory. Everywhere the view is gold and crimson. Images in Scripture of the New Jerusalem as a city of gold do not excite me, but walking in the gold of autumn trees fills me with a deep, rich sense of the glory of God.
Many, perhaps most, Catholic Moment readers do not live in Northern hemisphere temperate climates where now the season changes in a panorama of color. But, I hope you can look at the picture today and imagine the beauty of walking about in a landscape of gold, because the landscape around me leads me to consider God’s glory in “grace,” the topic of today’s first reading.
I remember being in the Kentucky woods last spring when COVID began to change our world. The trees were just budding then, turning the world around me into this tender, vibrant, life-giving green. Spring woods are tonic for me. Being surrounded by God’s action of turning gray and brown to bright color always energizes me to a point of spiritually dancing about in the joy of being alive.
I noticed last spring how the woods danced—just like always. Trees greened the landscape, tiny wildflowers sprinkled themselves underfoot, and animals rejoiced in warm winds and gentle rains. The green was comforting to me—God went on with his business, no matter what was happening in our homes and hospitals. I was reassured of God’s presence and care—as I needed to be.
I was reminded of grace then, too.
What is Grace?
While the catechism defines grace with some simplicity, it remains one of God’s great Mysteries to me. The catechism says, “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. Grace is the participation in the life of God.” (CCC 1996-1997) Participation in the life of God? Such a Mystery!
Today’s selection from Ephesians is a foundation for this core concept of our Catholic faith:
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.
My soul sometimes questions, “How can this be? How could God love the world that much that he came to earth in Jesus, who was “the Christ,” to give His life for us—before we knew it or could respond to such a gift? How can God go on, day after day after day, century after century, no matter what we as humans do or don’t do, giving his life for us, to us—to all the world through us?
The thoughts overwhelm me….but then, now in October, I am drawn to the trees, just as I was in spring, to rejoice in this grace which is too much for me to comprehend.
The Trees as Metaphors of Grace
I watched a squirrel bury an acorn in the yard last week. Maybe he will remember where he put it; maybe he will forget and it will sprout next spring. There’s a lifetime of difference between a new-this-spring oak seedling and the four trees that grace my yard. Grace is planted in us at Baptism. When we are baptized, we are claimed by God. Grace is planted in our souls, but God is not like the squirrel. He does not return to consume the grace he planted. He plants, that we might have life. That grace is an “indelible mark” on our soul—it cannot be taken away. It is a free gift to us.
Grace grows and matures in us. We become trees of God’s life. We grow through the seasons of our lives. Sometimes, grace flourishes and fills us with life, love, and growth. It is spring. Sometimes, we are busy doing God’s work and will. We take grace for granted, as I do the green of trees in summer. Grace is a background landscape to our daily affairs—even though, like the green leaves on the trees, it is working through our cooperation to give God’s breath of life to the world, as well as to us.
And sometimes, there is a season of glory. Changes in our environment change what we do. There is the great beauty of the moment, a sense of the fullness of grace, of the power and wonder and magnificence of God’s love and incorporation of us into his love. It is autumn glory. We see the fullness in grace within us, within the church, within others.
But then, just as one November morning I will wake up to see the leaves disappeared in the winds of the night, grace can seem absent, dormant—gone! Winter comes. Nights are long and days are gray and cold. Our souls feel empty, like the landscape of winter woods.
But the trees are still full of God’s life. They are hunkered down, taking a rest, yet still very much alive. Their life is hidden now—but no less real.
Pondering Grace
The catechism goes on to say, “The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it…God’s free initiative demands man’s free response. (CCC 1999, 2002—See the catechism 1996-2005 for a fuller outline of our understandings of grace.)
The metaphor of the trees breaks down here. Trees do not have free will. We do. God gives grace, but we must cooperate with it for it to truly bloom in us. I can look at my life and recognize times when I was not cooperating. Hopefully, these days, I am both cooperating and appreciating God’s great gift. In today’s Gospel, Jesus refuses to get into matters of earthly inheritance. He notes that our future does not depend on how much we have accomplished on earth. Our treasure and our future are rooted in our life in God, our free response to what God plants in us.
Prayer:
Lord, thank You for Your gift of grace. I am blessed to be baptized and have Your life in me. Help me, today, to freely accept and freely share Your gifts to me. Help me to remember that Your gift remains—spring, summer, fall, or winter. As today’s psalm refrain says, “The Lord made us, we belong to him.” Your grace makes me Yours. Use it to lead me, guide me, Lord, until I am fully formed in Your image and until I have done my part to build Your Kingdom.
