Our culture has forgotten what grace means, says bishop
The “only vocational question which really matters” is, “do we believe in the grace of God?”, according to the Bishop of Shrewsbury.
During his homily at the Chrism Mass tomorrow at St Columba Church in Chester, Bishop Mark Davies will say: “I remember the bishop who ordained me to the priesthood asking me as a 24 year old only one question: ‘Do you believe in the grace of God?’ I have often reflected this is only the vocational question which really matters.”
Bishop Davies will say that Christians must be prepared to ask themselves if they are willing to stake their lives on God’s grace. He said: “If the place of supernatural grace disappears from our horizons no one could hope to overcome the gravity of our culture or our own weakness in to live a holy life in marriage and in family; an apostolic life in the world; the gift of a whole life (which seems so little) in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life of women and men especially celebrated this year. In our Christian calling we must always ask ourselves anew: do we believe in the grace of God? Are we ready to stake our lives on what God’s grace makes possible?”
During his homily, Bishop Davies will observe that today’s “dominant culture” is frightened of commitments such as marriage.
He will say: “The dominant culture around us now all but despair of life-long commitments and often see the promises of marriage as fearful and uncertain; chastity, our contemporaries often see chastity, pure love within marriage as much as outside of it as near impossible to attain; and the celibate priesthood or the consecrated life as almost reckless adventures in the face of human weakness. And all because one part of the equation is never reckoned upon: the grace of God which alone makes our vocations possible.
“At World Youth Day in Madrid Pope Benedict spoke to our Shrewsbury youth together with more than a million young people urging them not become paralysed by a culture of fear, “be neither afraid of the world” he said “nor of the future, nor of your weakness … I urge you to ask God to help you find your vocation …” (Prayer Vigil, Madrid 20th August 2011).”
The full text of Bishop Davies’s homily is below:
In February this year this church of St. Columba was filled with couples celebrating Christian Marriage: 2,495 years of married life in anniversaries alone. After Mass I asked one couple how many years of married life they were celebrating and they repeated a phrase that I often heard from adults in my childhood but we rarely hear today: “but for the grace of God” they said. Acknowledging that their long and faithful marriage was not their achievement but what the grace of God had made possible for them. And this is surely more than a pious expression but a clear and sober statement of the reality of every Christian vocation. “But for the grace of God” none of the vocations we are celebrating in this “Year for Vocations” in the Diocese would be possible. In our reflections on the vocation of marriage and the family how easily we can fall into thinking of this vocation merely in terms of sociology or psychology and fail to take into account the grace of God by which marriage and every vocation becomes possible. Grace which is in the words of the Catechism: “the free and undeserved help that God gives to those who respond to his call …” (CCC 1996). This is the good news for the poor, the healing of human hearts which Isaiah’s prophecy announces allowing us to see how every vocation is a call of grace: “the Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, the Lord has anointed me … and sent me” (Isaiah 61:1)
The Fathers of the Church explained how Christ receives the Spirit not for Himself – for the Spirit is His – He receives the Holy Spirit for each one of us! (cf St. Cyril of Alexandria commentary on St. John’s Gospel Bk.5). And the Fathers pictured how the anointing of the Holy Spirit, signified by the oils blessed this evening, flowing down from Christ the Head onto the whole Body of the Church with an abundance of gifts and graces, above all, in the Sacraments. However, in the unfolding drama which St. Luke recounts in the Synagogue of Nazareth God’s own people reject the greatness of their calling. They could not see how the salvation of God was manifest among them in the ordinary realities of family and working life. “This is the carpenter, surely,” they said, “the son of Mary … And they would not accept Him” (Mk 6: 3,4). Nazareth becomes the scene of a Divine vocation rejected.
And this drama continues today whenever we fail to recognise the vocation of marriage and the family as a call to holiness; the vocation to the priesthood and the consecrated life as gifts of Christ to His Church; the greatness of the lay vocation, of a Christian in the world to transform the secular order and not to be conformed to it. On one of my first parish visitations I was standing at a church door at the end of Mass and over-heard an elderly lady as she went passed say to her daughter: “I can’t believe he is so ordinary.” Words which can be understood in many ways! However, God’s grace and calling is always seen in our ordinary lives and especially when we are able to live and persevere in a way we never imagine is possible. Like the amazing sight of an aircraft rising effortlessly into the sky so often seen along the M56. Something which seems impossible to our eyes happens by the upward force of “lift” overcoming weight to hold and raise an aircraft into the sky. And tonight in this “Year for Vocations” I want to suggest something similar is true of every Christian calling by the hidden power of grace.
The dominant culture around us now all but despair of life-long commitments and often see the promises of marriage as fearful and uncertain; chastity, our contemporaries often see chastity, pure love within marriage as much as outside of it as near impossible to attain; and the celibate priesthood or the consecrated life as almost reckless adventures in the face of human weakness. And all because one part of the equation is never reckoned upon: the grace of God which alone makes our vocations possible. At World Youth Day in Madrid Pope Benedict spoke to our Shrewsbury youth together with more than a million young people urging them not become paralysed by a culture of fear, “be neither afraid of the world” he said “nor of the future, nor of your weakness … I urge you to ask God to help you find your vocation …” (Prayer Vigil, Madrid 20th August 2011). St. Andrew of Crete who certainly never saw a 737 take-off expressed this vision of grace in stirring words at the beginning of Holy Week: “because of his love for humanity, he will not cease until he has raised human nature from the ground, from one degree of glory to another, and has manifested it with himself on high” (Or.9). Without the grace of God we would be left permanently on the runway and never rise towards a higher goal!
I remember the bishop who ordained me to the Priesthood asking me as a 24 year old only one question: “Do you believe in the grace of God?” I have often reflected this is only the vocational question which really matters. If the place of supernatural grace disappears from our horizons no one could hope to overcome the gravity of our culture or our own weakness in to live a holy life in marriage and in family; an apostolic life in the world; the gift of a whole life (which seems so little) in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life of women and men especially celebrated this year. In our Christian calling we must always ask ourselves anew: do we believe in the grace of God? Are we ready to stake our lives on what God’s grace makes possible? We cannot easily revive the sayings of past generations like “But for the grace of God …” However, we surely need to give our witness, our own testimony to the grace of God in all our Christian vocations.
