Anne Lastman

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: regarding grace, Grace is a favour, the free and undeserved help” that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal lie.  CCC1996. 

It occurred to me that we often use the word “grace” usually in a very positive situation  and really don’t think much about the word.  It’s a saying that we’ve become accustomed to and slips out of our mouth automatically  without ever stopping to think about what  we have just said.  Grace is a divine gift, a spiritual essence directly from the divine.  A particular attribute of God the  creator who whishes to assist us on a journey which we must all understand and undertake in order to reach him.  Overall, it’s grace which guides, leads to the arrival at the place donor of such a gift. 

Grace is that gift or touch of God which cannot be denied even by the most virulent anti God person.  Always, even for such a person there is a touch of the divine so gently whispered that it plants the seed of that whisper which will eventually lead to the place where that grace and seed came from.  This makes sense when we say “there for the grace of God go I” 

Why is it that the grace of God was able to prevent a difficulty which presented  to two  persons and yet only one was able to respond to that touch, that whisper, only one responded to that grace present within them and another did not, and which led to end result being different?  In an instant, that grace,  that whisper was heard and moved, whilst the other heard the same whisper but did not recognize it and was not moved by it.  That whisper, grace, prevented the outcome and in a moment of understanding one is able to say “there for the grace of God go I” 

That moment of clarity was for him “grace”  A whisper unearthed an understanding that the misadventure had been avoided because of a seed of divine help which had been implanted in him. Perhaps we might even be able to say that the will had been compliant in allowing the divine whisper to be heard and the outcome become a blessing rather than an action.

Was it the freed disposition of one of the two different souls? Was it a preparation of one soul more than another? Was it a recognition of that divine whisper, grace, that seed sprouting just a little more?  Whilst the other had not yet nurtured that seed?  It’s impossible to know, but what we do know is that grace is a divine gift of assistance.  We can’t see it, we can’t touch it, we can’t taste it, we can’t feel it, we simply cannot use our senses to grasp  grace but our soul’s recognition of it is instant.  This is the voice, music, vision, or food of the soul. Grace. Help for the journey.

Some would say that one individual had, throughout time, prepared the soul to hear the whisper of grace. Through ways of holiness, graciousness, love, divine responses, works of mercy, and a dialogue with the soul and its guest within which all  were responses to companionship with the creator Father.  All the interactions and the soul’s responses to the interactions with its creator helped to grow a soul with “ears to hear”

A soul, the receptacle of grace,  is never a shadow of the human being, but like a human being, it grows throughout stages until maturity, and along with its travel onward towards the one who’s given 

him the grace, and whispered to him,  gathers much needed assistance to return to its original place and again  become enfolded within its creator.

The question asked is “does grace exist and available to all? Or is it only for people who don’t sin, are pure, go to heaven?  

When the word grace is used there is an understanding that it is something from God or the Divine, but  not much more attention is given to it because of its nature, unseen, untouchable, cannot be tasted, cannot be heard or felt, and because this is so, it becomes only a saying or expectation and not appreciation of soul and grace and gentle whisper. That divine whisper, I call grace, is like dawn, it exists but cannot be touched. It can be seen  but its  after effects can.  It welcomes the new day,  shows nature  which is filled with the glory of God and hence its beauty and grace and with its own song and whisper.  

The word “whisper” is a good word for grace.  We see the importance of whisper even in scriptures “ After the earthquake came fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, came a gentle whisper and God was heard in the whisper and again when Elijah heard the whisper, Elijah pulled his cloak over face and went out and stood in the mouth of the cave. Humbled, quiet and changed”  (1Kgs 19:11-12). In grace there is so much awe that only a  whisper becomes possible and in such a way that one can only stand in awe humbled and changed.

Whilst the human being often expects a booming voice of God coming from the heavens he is not to be found in the “booming” but in a tear flowing down an innocent face. There is God not in the noise of thunder of belief and expectation.   

But again, we might ask and still work through the question, what is grace?  Is it obstinacy, inquisitiveness, desire for learning, or a desire to meet the mystery called grace.  Can grace be heard  through the clutter, noise, cacophony, rebellion, rejection of divine ways? Can the whisper be heard in a life of noise? Not noises of the living, but the noise of life with its loudest noise,  rejection of divine leading to sin. Can I/we become like St Paul said, “but by the grace of God I am what I am” and further “His grace which was bestowed upon me not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than them all. Yet not I but the grace of God which was within me “ (1 Cor 15:10)

How was it in him? How do we understand grace being in us? Perhaps it could be seen and understood and believed that “grace” is an attribute of God Himself, and it’s found in creation, especially in the ones who were created in His own image and likeness and his descendants.  Grace breathed /whispered into the human.  The breath of God breathed into every creation so that no creation is found grace-less and devoid of their Father. Whatever may transpire in the life of the creature, grace, that whisper with its gift of change is always a gift from the creator Father, who never asks for it back or for payment and never refuses to give the gift, and absolutely never “lords” it over one of his creatures.   His gift of grace via whisper is always available.

In the first instance for engendering life and future needs it’s given through his “whispers.” Like Elijah at the mouth of the cave, the “whisper” comes to change but its not seen, the whisper  like Elijah saw is not to be found in noise but in silence.  The soul cherishes silence because it is able to hear  the presence of “grace” a presence which calls to change.  Like Elijah the whisper changed him. Whispers of grace, heard in silence and deeply recognized, always change no matter the depth of negation. 

The signature of grace we could say is “whisper” of God which changes. Grace cannot be seen or heard in thunder but in the silence of the soul’s eternal abode.  All of life’s events, happy or otherwise are always enfolded by a mantle of silence which calls to change. Sufferings, endurance of sufferings and acceptance of such with thanksgiving, these moments are moments filled with whispers of grace.   Engaged suffering is a moment of communion with grace, which strengthened and uttered the whispers and assisted in that moment where hope threatened to go.

Obstacles which life presents are situations of temptation to put a barrier between soul and its grace, whisper but it’s a moment when that choice is made which is able to lead to the change or lead to noise making the presence of grace go unheard. A human frailty?  An echo of sin past which wishes to blanket the noise so that the whisper is muffled. Not lost but muffled.    

Grace is  granted for our journey with its many obstacles and falls along the way.  Grace or the whispers are the gifts given to help to rise up above the obstacles and continue.  Grace, whispers, is given when a choice presents itself and the possibility of wrong is present. That grace is whispered calling into doubt the temptation and foil its lure and further  assists  in the disposition to hesitate so that the whisper of grace may be heard and a change effected.

Grace and  the whisper never abandon their protégé and supernatural and divine assistance is always present and removes barriers so that the soul, the residence, cave?  It can change and implants a desire not for noise but silence to hear the whisper, while on its journey back home.

Grace gives the ability to do so.

God was not to be found in thunder, noise, but breeze, whisper, the same as the first breath given to Creation.  It can only be heard when the soul is silent.