The featured image was composed during a painful moment of personal loneliness.
It is inspired by a famous icon titled, “The Hospitality of Abraham” which images the biblical story of Gen 18:1-18. Three visitors sit at table with Abraham and Sarah under the Oaks of Mamre. It is one of the earliest biblical “theophanies” of God, as Trinity; Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
We all experience loneliness and there are many triggers; Sin, Shame, Desertion, Loss of Spouse or Family, Disability, Depression, Old Age, Approaching death, etc. In this desolation, we are most vulnerable to the evil lie that we are alone in our pain and damned to eternal victimization where there is no Hope.
Truth is that we are never alone.
Through Baptism, Grace infused by the Holy Spirit enters into our soul – heals it and makes it holy – enabling it to live within the Body of Christ and to act by and through Love.
This Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become his children, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. In a most simple understanding; Grace is a participation in the life of God. And yes, it cannot be known except by faith which leads us to a response to its invitation.
To live a life of faith, is to recognize that we are never alone in our human experience but have access to a participation within the divine life and relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God gives us the gift and the capacity to make our own happiness out of our own situation.
Was there ever a mystifying occurrence in your life, of either joy or tragedy, that caused you to consider that maybe something greater than yourself was at play?
Perhaps you considered it coincidence, …perhaps divine Grace.
