The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle, very soft -- and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep. It changes our hearts radically. The faithful discipline of prayers reveals to you that you are the blessed one and gives you the power to bless others.
~ from THE ESSENTIAL HENRI NOUWEN by Henri Nouwen and Robert A. Jonas
You looked with love upon me And deep within your eyes imprinted grace. This mercy set me free, Held in your love’s embrace, To lift my eyes adoring to your grace.
There is no authentic and sincere spiritual life without faith, hope and love; but there is no faith, hope, and love without mystical experience or, what is the same
thing, without grace.
The gift of nature is the gift of "being"; the gift of grace is the gift of "well-being." Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature. At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God. Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us but to what is false in us. It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth.
~ from THE CHRIST OF THE CELTS by J. Philip Newell
This much I have learned: within the sorrow there is grace. When we come close to the things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. This is the point of healing: when we have told the story, we can leave the story behind. What remains is hidden wholeness, alive and unbroken.
Probably one of the first strokes of grace in my life is my father's become totally paralyzed when I was eight years old, because it led me to become the kind of person I am now. Sometimes we understand grace only in retrospect. If someone were to ask me what grace is, I would probably respond, "It's all grace."
The state of grace is a condition in which all growth is effortless, a transparent, joyful acquiescence that is a general requirement of all existence. Your own body grows naturally and easily from its time of birth, not expecting resistance but taking its miraculous unfolding for granted; using all of itself with great, gracious, creatively aggressive abandon. You were born in a state of grace; it is impossible for you to leave it. You will die in a state of grace . . . You cannot "fall out of" grace, nor can it be taken from you.
~ from THE NATURE OF PERSONAL REALITY by Jane Roberts
We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble . . . But the moment comes when our eyes are opened and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, friends, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty.
~ from BABETTE’S FEAST AND OTHER ANECDOTES OF DESTINY by Isak Denisen
