Our Response to Grace

Lectionary Readings

“Jesus said to them, ‘There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves’” (Mt 14:16).

Recently I went to the retreat house at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama for a few days. This shrine is on the grounds of the Poor Clair monastery where Mother Angelica’s order is located; that’s where Mother Angelica is buried, in fact. It’s very near the EWTN studio where they record their Masses and other programming. I was staying at a retreat house they have for clergy, and it reminded me of the very first time I visited there.

It was during Covid, and not a lot of retreat centers were open. But I really needed a retreat. As clergy, we are mandated by canon law to make a retreat each year. But these were unusual circumstances. I don’t have to remind you of what a stressful time that was, in many different ways. I was stressed out, and agitated, and anxious about so many things. So I make the drive down to the shrine, check in to the retreat house, drop my things off in my room, and I have a little time before they are going to serve the evening meal, so I decide to go into the chapel and pray Vespers, or Evening Prayer.

I grab my breviary and head into the chapel. It’s a really beautifully appointed little chapel. I sit down in one of the pews, look around and take everything in, and before I start to pray I fix my gaze on the crucifix behind the altar, breathe out a sigh, and say, “Lord, have mercy.” And as soon as I say that, at that very moment, I feel a wave of peace flow over my body and I hear God say clearly in my head, It’s all mercy.

I haven’t received a communication that clear in prayer ever before or since. But it absolutely changed the way I think about mercy. I used to think about mercy primarily in terms of the forgiveness of sins. And that is a mercy that we need from God. But mercy is broader than that. Mercy really just means “help.” If someone is hungry and you give them food to eat, that’s mercy. You are assisting them in their need. If someone is lonely and you keep them company, that’s mercy. If someone is sick and you give them medicine, that’s mercy. If someone is tired and you give them rest, that’s mercy. And yes, if someone sins against you and you forgive them, that’s mercy.

When I heard God say, It’s all mercy, what I realized in that moment is that everything God does for us, everything God gives us, all the graces, all the blessings, but also all the struggles and challenges and every circumstance of our lives — all of creation, in fact — is a mercy from God, because God gives it to us for our good, because he loves us. Last Sunday we read Romans 8:28 that says “God works all things for the good of those whom he loves,” and when I’m struggling, I often like to add to that verse the words, “even this,” as a reminder that everything is a mercy.

Everything we have; our resources, our bodies, our souls, even the air we breathe, is a gift from God, because he is the creator of all things and there is nothing outside of his power. A major theme running through the story of salvation is God asking his people to trust him. Trust me, he says. I will take care of you. I will supply your needs. Whether it’s Israel sojourning through the desert, relying on the mana God gives them; or Jesus reminding his disciples that God takes care of even a little sparrow, so surely he will take care of us; or St. Paul telling Christians to give thanks and rejoice even in the midst of suffering and persecution, God wants us to trust him. He truly is working all things for our good, therefore all things are part of his mercy.

This is the meaning of “grace.” Grace is a word that simply means “gift.” The Church teaches that we cannot be saved without grace, because salvation is a gift. Salvation from what? From sin and death. Who can forgive our sins? God. Who can raise us from the dead? God. Who can offer eternal life? God. This is what God made us for, in fact — eternal life with him. We can’t achieve that on our own. We can’t bridge the gap between heaven and earth. But God can. And he gives us that as a gift.

That gift comes in the form of his Son, who gives himself fully on the cross. The cross is a beautiful thing when you consider it as grace, or a gift. As God, Jesus reveals to us on the cross God’s own heart. “God is love,” as St. John says. And love is a gift; love is a gift of yourself to the one you love. Jesus gives himself fully for his beloved — that is, you and me — when he gives his life on the cross. But as Man, Jesus also takes his humanity and offers it on our behalf as a gift to the Father.

You see, a gift demands a response. We lose sight of this sometimes in our conversations about grace, because we want to emphasize the sheer gratuity of God’s gift, meaning it is not something that can be earned — which is true. But a gift, especially a valuable gift, also demands a response. There are expectations that go along with accepting any gift. You all know what I mean. A parent might say to a child, “I’ll give you money for college — that’s a gift — but I expect you to make good grades.” When we give something good we want the recipient to use it for good, even if those expectations are unspoken. The people of ancient Israel were no different from us in that regard. They knew that when God gives to us, those gifts come with expectations; that we will be thankful, that we will be faithful to the covenant; that we will be obedient to the law and so forth.

The readings today are all about graciously receiving gifts from God, and learning to trust God to supply our needs. The prophet Isaiah says, “All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!” The psalmist says, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” It seems like a clear message that we are to rely upon our good and loving God for everything, right?

And then we come to the gospel, where a great crowd has gathered around Jesus. We are told that his heart is moved with pity for them, and he heals their sick. And when evening comes, the Apostles tell Jesus to dismiss them so they can go to the villages and feed themselves. Given everything I just said, and what we heard just now from Isaiah and the Psalms and even St. Paul who says nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even hunger, how would you expect Jesus to respond? The Apostles say, “Send them away so they can feed themselves.” And you would expect Jesus to say, “No. Let them stay. I will feed them,” right? “I will supply their needs.” But that’s not what Jesus says at all. He says, “Give them some food yourselves.” You feed them. That’s the twist the Apostles didn’t see coming.

You feed them. And they protest, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have.” It’s not enough. There are over five thousand people! It’s not enough! And truly it isn’t. But Christ works a miracle. He takes our limited, insufficient human resources, and when we apply them to God’s purposes, makes them more than abundant. But we have to use our gifts for God’s purposes. We have to take what we have been given, and give it away. This is the response to grace that God wants from us.

He says it plainly throughout the gospels in so many ways. If you want God to forgive you, you need to forgive others. If you want to receive God’s mercy, then be merciful yourself. The greatest commandment is to love God, and that means loving your neighbor. “Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says. Take what you’ve been given, and give it away.

We see the same pattern repeated in the liturgy. The priest speaks the words of Christ when he says, “My peace be with you,” and we respond by what? Offering each other the sign of peace. The whole Mass, in fact, is all about giving away what we’ve been given. We come to Mass to receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. And how do we respond? By going home and living our lives like everyone else, going about our business like nothing has happened? No! By going out as missionaries to share Christ with others. That’s what we are sent out to do at the end of every Mass, to take what we’ve been given and give it away.

But we don’t want to give it away! We don’t want to give our time, we don’t want to give our money, we don’t want to give our attention, our care, our resources, our lives, because giving feels like losing and we’re afraid of what it might cost us. God asks us to give our all and we just don’t feel like we have enough. I feel it, too. I’m right there with you. But what Jesus shows us in the multiplication of the loaves and fish is the same thing he tries to teach us when he says, “To save your life you must lose it” — but not just lose it, you have to “lose it for my sake” Jesus says (cf. Mt 16:25). You have to take what you’ve been given, and give it away. You have to give away, not the five loaves and two fish that you first brought to the table, but the loaves and fish that have been blessed by the Lord and multiplied by grace — that’s what God asks us to give as a blessing to others, to give what we’ve been given. You have to love people and serve people not with your own love alone, but with the love of Christ in you; with the power of Christ at work in you. That’s the secret! That’s enough! That’s how you can give yourself away without losing yourself, because by giving yourself, you are really giving Christ.

Everything we have, we have received from God as a gift, and the most precious gift he offers is his Son. This gift is free. We did nothing to earn it. But to receive this gift well, this is what God asks in return: that we give it freely to others. Freely we have received; freely we are to give. Christ is God’s gift. And for us to become Christ, to truly have Christ live within us, we must become gifts, too, taking all we have and offering it to God to be blessed, broken, and given away in love; because each time a Christian makes a sacrifice of love for another, Christ is multiplied in this world.