7th Sunday after Pentecost 12.7.15 Carried by grace
If we came across a large amount of money lying on the ground would we turn it in to some trusted authority, or would we pocket it?
Clearly one action is right and the other wrong.
If we do the right action it might be only for fear of getting into trouble; or it might be because such an action would come easily to us, as the obvious course of action. We have been trained in that much virtue at least.
In life we face several major points of decision and a lot more smaller ones. Every day we would face at least a few times when we have a choice between a better and a worse action.
How we decide will depend on various factors but much will depend on what sort of person we have become to that point, on our degree of character and sense of right.
It is better if we can habitually choose the right course because it has become a matter of course for us to do that. (Like Our Lady, for example).
Our Lord speaks today of good trees bearing good fruit - He wants this to be our habitual and normal state… good people doing good things all day long, without much turbulence.
It is God Himself that enables us to be like this. He gives us grace, firstly sanctifying grace which is the state of union with Him whereby we see things the way He sees them.
Then He gives actual grace which is the special impetus to help us in particular situations.
This is like having ‘wind assistance’. We are propelled in the right direction and carried a large part of the way.
Everyone will hit upon the right course of action sometimes but without union with God (being in a state of grace) there is a danger we will do good only when it suits us (and also make light of sin).
Unless we are in union with God our actions, though ‘good’ by human standards, do not have the supernatural quality that grace would give them. The main reason for doing good is to please God, just as the main reason for being sorry for sin is that sin displeases God.
If we are to be good and do good it requires an ongoing union with God, and then specific interventions by Him which will enable us to handle each situation in the best way possible.
We want to be good in private as much as in public; in our interior attitude as much as in our external behaviour. We want, above all, to be good simply to please God. Our actions, words and thoughts will all reflect His will.
As our union with Him increases this becomes more and more the normal state of affairs.
We come to find that being good is not such hard work as it might first seem, but actually a pleasure.
With heart and mind locked in union with God we find it ‘natural’ to rise above the usual sordidness of human nature.
It sounds easy when put like that, but we find it hard in practice when very few other people are concerned much about God’s will.
We have to go against the wind much of the time, the wind of popular opinion, of what is considered normal.
To be Christ-like in such an environment takes a lot of application but there is a lot of grace available and we can still do it. We go against the wind but the grace carries us where we need to go.
We can be not only good trees but trees which grow as our capacity to understand and carry out the will of God increases.
May He bring each and all of us to this state of happy and fruitful union with Himself.
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