The Wind Blows

I have been thinking about grace lately. The grace that belongs to this moment that I am living in now.

Ronald Rolheiser (RR) writes that it is difficult to live inside the present moment “because the past and the future won’t leave us alone.” It is easier for me to spend my time in prayer regretting, resenting, or being nostalgic. As RR says “The past is forever sowing restlessness into the present moment.” The future, too, is a problem for me, as I am either dreaming up the most vainglorious triumphs or strung out with anxiety of what is to come. RR again: “the future impales itself into the present”.

Jaques Philippe in his beautiful book Interior Freedom writes “All we have is the present moment. Here is the only place where we can make free acts. Only in the present moment are we truly in contact with reality.”

Here, in this moment now, is the grace that God wants to give us. It cannot be wrestled from him; it cannot be manipulated; it cannot be demanded. It is already here. We can only open ourselves to recognise it and receive it. As Jesus says in today’s gospel: “The wind blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit”