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March 1, 2021God’s Amazing Grace
Confirm the hearts of your faithful, O Lord, we pray, and strengthen them by the power of your grace that they may be constant in making supplication to you and sincere in love for one another.
(Prayer over the People for today’s Mass)
In my early years of theology studies in the Dominican Order I never quite understood what the word “Grace” meant. It sounded really important and holy, and I knew that Dominicans were always talking about GRACE in their homilies, but I just never GOT it. For me, “Grace” was the prayer you say before a meal.
The beautiful hymn Amazing Grace – so much a part of our southern religious milieu – has always been my favorite Christian hymn, but even so, if someone would have asked me what “amazing grace” meant I probably would have said, “I think it means that God is really amazing.”
I had a black College friend named Dwayne who had one of those: “It’s time to go to church” kind of voices. Dwayne loved to sing, and he had a beautiful, deep African American singing voice. I used to love to sit with Dwayne and a couple of friends and let him sing until we had to go to class! No one had to explain African American Music to me. We watched it flow out of Dwayne like a beautiful river.
Once I was in the Dominican Order, I got some more help when someone pointed out to me that the word gratuitousness comes from the root word “grace.”
In other words, Grace has something to do with receiving God's gifts gratuitously, freely. After all, isn’t God’s love always a free gift. All we have to do is open our hearts and let the grace flow like a river.
I realized on that day that Grace isn’t something you can buy, and it was that simple insight that opened my eyes to the world of GRACE! I understood that we don’t have to DO anything to receive the love of God. All we have to do is open our hands and hearts and just let it flow. That’s what Grace does – it flows freely into our hearts and minds and hands and feet ... and if we wait long enough, that very same grace flows out of us as Good News for people who long to taste God’s Amazing Grace. And that’s exactly what Dwayne taught me. “Brian,” he said, “Give your heart some room to breathe; then sing a note or two. The rest is up to God.”
I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “Lord, great and awesome God, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you and observe your commandments!” (Daniel 9:4)
