I feel ashamed at times that I do not profit more by His nearness, but I know that he makes allowances for weak, inconstant nature.

COMMENT: Fr Willie occasionally wrote about what he called the “abuse of grace” – the idea that we fail to profit from all of the graces that God gives us. We are all almost certainly guilty of this failing to one degree or another.

In Ireland, and possibly in other parts of the world as well, May is the month in which children traditionally receive Holy Communion for the first time. In this part of the world it is a very big deal, but not always in the best way – it can become a secular rite of passage with little spiritual meaning for the child and the family. In Ireland, the worrying thing about First Holy Communion is that it may be years before some children will receive the their Second Holy Communion…

But those of us who do attend the sacraments, and have been doing so for some years, have no cause for complacency. How many times have we received the Eucharist since our First Holy Communion? Most adults will have attended Mass at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of times since receiving the Lord for the first time. Have we profited by His nearness during all of these years? Many of us have already received the Eucharist more frequently than many of the saints did. Is there interior and exterior fruit in our lives that gives testimony to all of that grace that was on offer for us? 

If we are concerned about the state of the world or the state of the Church, let us look at our failure to profit from the nearness of Christ in the Eucharist. We are called to holiness. We simply cannot reach this by ourselves, but we can make strides in that direction by relying on God’s grace and removing obstacles to the workings of that grace in our souls. Those who are holy really impact the world around them for the better. The lives of the saints prove this for us beyond doubt. If we are dismayed at the state of the world, or the state of the Church, then we need to examine ourselves on our efforts to correspond to God’s graces.

Thankfully it’s never too late. As Fr Willie says, Jesus “makes allowances for weak, inconstant nature”. If we try to profit more from His nearness, we will slowly begin to reform ourselves, and our world.