LIVING IN ABUNDANCE OF GRACE
Our meditation today has the theme: Living in Abundance of Grace. We are fortunate to have a God who allows us to aim high, as high and as perfect as He Himself. We are given the possibility to think of an abundance. When we pray, we express that God is truly abundant and we also believe that He will give us abundant of His blessings.
God Himself invites us through Jesus Christ that we come to live in His abundance. We are asked to participate in that abundance. For example, He is the head and we are all members of the one mystical body of Christ which is the Holy Church. In the Church, we partake very clearly in the sacraments when the Lord Himself comes into contact and interacts with us. Through the sacraments, we experience His abundance as the main content of our faith. If He Himself is not abundant, it is very likely that He is not the God in whom we believe in. He must have declared Himself to be a non-almighty God.
The Christian community in Thessalonica grew in a spiritual life with the abundance of God's grace and gifts. This growth was pleasing and enkindling Saint Paul who had a missionary responsibility to look after and develop that particular local church. For this, Paul prayed and asked heavenly blessing for them, saying: "May our Lord Jesus Christ increase and abound in love for one another and for all." They deserve to be appreciated, supported and encouraged to maintain their growth of faith, and even to make it better. On the other hand, such behaviors like envy, hatred, indifference, unappreciation and fault-finding should be avoided.
In the abundance of grace, we really enjoy the presence of God who bestows various blessings on us. One of the most important gifts is alertness or vigilance. A vigilant and prepared person is the one who is hopeful, aware, waiting, ready, alert and eager toward God who will reveal His will at any time in life. The opposite of this gift is laziness, indifference or timidity to God's presence and action. This is a sign that people do not have a sense of abundance in the form of joy and hope on their part, as well as the great deeds of God to be bestowed upon them.
So the good news for us today should be this: God who is powerful in His abundance wants to share with us at all times. We just need to realize it, then accept and live in the abundance of His grace.
Let's pray. In the name of the Father... Thanks to the abundance of Your grace, O Father, as we come to this new day, may we feel Your glory and we have all the opportunity to act according to our calling and duties. Hail Mary full of grace... In the name of the Father..