Death and Grace

This is a sort of meditation I wrote about a week ago that I hope you find useful. It is followed by some further insight I received from my new spiritual director, Fr. Wechter, this evening which really connects the meditation with my previous entry on suffering.

God asks us to die to ourselves - our own desires so that we may follow his will. Usually his will is something we would like to do, but we do not always realize it when he asks us. Sometimes the dying process is not altogether pleasant. Sometimes the things we need to die to are very good things; things good in the eyes of God, just not things God wants us to do right now. Often when we are in this process there is a temptation to replace the old with new. But that is not dying - it is stalling. When we are asked to die, we must act - first by asking God for help. We must decrease so that He can increase.

Something I have found challenging is the desire to do all things - to be on the frontline - a multitasker for God. But he has asked me to form myself. He has asked me to patiently grow closer to him forming my heart, and to apply myself to my studies, forming my intellect. While I know this is what he wants, it is sometimes frustrating, because I don't feel like I'm really doing anything at all. Though I understand that the experiences of praying in the chapel, and getting up at 6:00 am every day for mass, and studying philosophy are all important experiences, they don't feel important compared to evangelization and missionary work. This is of course where prayer and dying to myself comes in.

A great thing pointed out to me this afternoon was that one of the ways we can earn graces is by doing just what I've described - dying to your own will and living as God asks us. This essentially is what merits grace - cooperating with the grace already given us. And by living the will God has for us, we have a significant impact on the entire body of Christ. Knowing that my dying will benefit the entire Church as well as myself gives me a new motivation to persevere.

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!