Fashioned by God's Grace

The following phrase from this morning’s opening prayer to the liturgy touched me deeply: “…grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you” (Today’s Missal, November 27- 2011- March 31, 2012, p. 208).   What a prayer.  May my heart be fashioned by you, O Lord, not by my ego! What a difference that will make, as I am asking that I be fashioned  today, and every day, by my God-self, my Spirit-self, that I be fashioned by obedience to the will of God, not by obedience to  my ego’s desires.  In the Gospel, Peter is acting from his ego when he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him for teaching that the “Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days” (Mk 8: 27-33). Peter, along with many others, was still looking for a Messiah who would rise to the heights of an earthly king and restore Israel back to the people and free them from Roman occupation.    How many times in our lives do we not interpret a situation only from the human perspective and not see it as God sees it or not see the Spirit at work in us inviting us to realize an inherent grace.  Take for example, an experience of being treated disrespectfully, putdown, treated as a child. Good can come from such an evil.  The pain of the situation can lead to a transformative experience, if I use it to stand up for my truth calmly without resorting to passive aggressive behaviors, equal putdowns, stuffing my feelings and turning against myself.  Every situation has an inherent grace that empowers us to accomplish God’s will in our lives, that is, our transformation into Christ and into the ways of Christ in all of our interactions.