?Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God. Grace is the peace of friendship with God?and if it does not necessarily bring us a ?felt? peace, it nevertheless gives us every reason to be at peace, if we could only understand and appreciate what it means. Grace means that there is no opposition between man and God, and that man is able to be sufficiently united within himself to live without opposition to God. Grace is friendship with God. And more?it is sonship. It makes us the ?beloved sons? of God in whom He is ?well-pleased.?? (Thomas Merton. The New Man. New York: The Noonday Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961, p. 41-42)
In what ways do you resonate with what Merton says about grace? Where are you hesitant or resistant? From the vantage point of entrusting yourself fully to Jesus Christ, can you begin to see yourself living without any remaining opposition between you and God?
