Channels of Grace

During the 70's, I think, there was a show called The Millionaire, where an intermediary would find deserving people and present them a check for a million dollars.  The money came from an unknown source, a millionaire, who was never seen on the program.  Last year, Secret Millionaire updated the old concept by sending real millionaires into poor areas to find deserving groups.  After volunteering in soup kitchens, youth outreach groups, and homeless shelters, the millionaires would return with huge checks to help the groups.

I think most of us at one time or another have dreamed of winning the lottery or the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes so that we, too, could give freely to those in need. We have all "figured out" what we would do if we won a million dollars.  (I always think I would first pay off the student loans my kids still carry from their college years, so they could begin to live on what they make now.)

No one I know is likely to win either the lottery or the PCS, least of all, me.  However, in the spiritual realm, the people I know are indeed rich, wealthy beyond all measure.  We have both inherited and acquired wealth in the spiritual realm -- not that we have "earned" it -- who could?  But we have received more than we could ask or imagine.  What if we thought of ourselves as "channels of grace," much like the intermediary on The Millionaire?  The wealth does not belong to us, but to Someone Who wants desperately to bless the people all around us -- everyone we know and those we meet even briefly.  We hold in our very hands and souls untold wealth; how can we give it away?

I do not know the answer to the question, but I stand here with my hands full of God's blessings.  Who wants it?  How can I share it?  All I can do is to consider myself the channel, the intermediary, knowing the Source, knowing His desire to bless others, and stay alert for people who need or want the blessings I hold in my heart. 

St. Francis of Assisi divested himself of all his worldly goods in order to be free of them.  Rather, each day, he gathered up the blessings of God given through prayer and nature--the light of the sun, the beauty of the moon; the gift of seas and of stars, and the blessings of prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

Where there is hatred, let me sow your love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

 

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.