Wonders & Grace
Wonder is a way of responding to life’s mysteries. It makes the heart transparent, receptive, and hopeful. In wonder we can bow down, and beneath the overflow sense the grace that seeks us.
Along with wonder is the way of beauty, in Latin called the Via Pulchritudinis. Wonder intrinsically springs from an appreciation of beauty: in the natural world, in art, in literature, in music, and in those moments when life itself is understood as a profound treasure, beyond words and images.
Wonder is found nestled in the smallest of moments: the glance of a loved one, starlight on still water, or the kindly sound of birdsong after a long, dark night. Wonder is transformative, redemptive, and healing: it brings peace, a trustful repose, and surrender that expands the heart.
Grace is pure gift, the inflow of Divine will, the breakthrough of love and mercy which we are invited to receive and then give away; to let flow through us and into a broken world, only then to be replenished, again and again.
Faith is not “the darkness prior to reason” (1); it is not credulity or superstition. Faith is not irrational, deceptive, unsophisticated, or merely wishful. Faith is a response to divine revelation (2). It illuminates the world with a transcendent light. By laying bare the sacredness of life, faith reveals our journey.
A luminosity beyond comprehension begins to glimmer and invite us into its sphere. No longer (spell) bound by the surfaces of things, we are invited into the meaning and purpose of things.
Faith is supra-rational, “beyond reason and inclusive of it.” Faith properly enters in where reason has exhausted its fullest expressions and capacities, has encountered a reality that is beyond its control; a reality that “beguiles … from the far side of reason.” (3)
In what St. Terese of Lisieux called the loving trust of her little way, we may step out on the pathway that is made of light, where faith reveals itself as a mysterious memory of the future, stamped on our hearts, and as our innate response to eternity; the threshold of which we are always crossing, whether we know it or not.
This is our human condition: by whatever name, it is inescapable. Our lives happen within a terrain we can barely fathom. We are on sacred ground.
In the light of faith Christ becomes the lamp of our heart, and we embark on the adventure of our lives. When we allow this light to be our guide and we give ourselves over to its radiance and mercy, we set off on a pilgrimage.
To walk in faith is to know in the deepest down way that we are made in the image of God, and are called to a new creation. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (4)
References:
(1) Bishop Robert Barron, Faith & Reason
(2) Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs
(3) Bishop Robert Barron, “Proclaiming and Encountering Christ in the 21st Century”; @ Biola University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mkehI385e4
(4) John 10:10
Images:
Harald Sohlberg, Fisherman’s Cottage, 1906; Art Institute of Chicago; CC0, Public Domain Designation; additional artwork and collage by Juliette Pierce Kent
Virgin Annunciate, Fra Angelico, 1450; Public Domain; additional artwork and collage by Juliette Pierce Kent.
Additional Images by Juliette Pierce Kent.