God’s Grace and our Effort

God, as we know, loves us as only He, our Creator, can. The reason for our continued existence, from the moment of our conception, is that He holds us, constantly, in His Mind; in fact, everything that exists, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, down to the smallest undiscovered particle, exists because it is ever in the Mind of God. Even the most loving and conscientious of earthly parents cannot have this infinite view of the Life of their offspring or see clearly how and when we will come to face Eternity. Small wonder then, that the Church, founded by Our Lord to protect and guide us in His stead, is very definite in Her Teachings. As any loving parent will direct their children’s lives towards Good and train them to perceive and avoid what is (even if outwardly attractive) evil and, therefore, harmful, so the Church makes very clear to us what must be done and indeed what must be avoided if we are to reach Heaven as planned.

God’s creatures are, as Matthew underlines in his Gospel, a ‘mixed bunch’. Due to the Original Sin of our First Parents, Adam and Eve, we do not, naturally, incline to Good. We can become very worldly, in danger of coming to believe that our destiny is entirely our own affair and that, whatever we do or do not do in this life, ‘everything will come right in the end’, seemingly believing that we know better than God!

God has given us Free Will; we can learn what (and why) things are good or evil and so choose the way we will go. Chillingly, this means that we can choose not to go to Heaven although, thank God, we cannot do this by mistake! The Parable of the Harvest is a graphic illustration of our continual struggle, torn between Good and evil, i.e. our life on Earth. This freedom of choice will exist until, at the end of time, the entire Human Race will appear at its Judgement before God.
 
At harvest time, anything which would spoil the crop sown by the farmer, or perhaps render it harmful to consumers, will be removed, leaving the pure product intended in the first place. In the same way shall we be judged. This is something which, sadly, may be glossed over or even dismissed on the grounds that, ‘God Loves us too much to send us to Hell’; the truth is very sobering. God 'sends' us nowhere. In His infinite Love for us, He treats us as the intelligent, rational beings we are. He sets clearly before us what must be done (and, conversely, not done) if Heaven is truly our goal, providing us with the Grace of the Sacraments, including His own Son's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, to enable us to strive against evil.

This reflection on the Parable of the Harvest was painted by the Italian artist Domenico Fetti (1589-1623) in c.1622. It currently hangs in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid

God, unlike His creatures, cannot change. Our love for Him cannot be forced; it must freely come ‘from the heart’. However, all is not ‘doom and gloom’. As the psalmist says, God knows us ‘…through and through…’. Unlike the often subjective media, He truly sees our good points and our bad; more importantly, He sees our intentions in making decisions and whether it is through ignorance or wilful rejection of the truth that any of us depart from the, ‘...straight and narrow way…’. God will keep calling us to Him until our earthly life is over. Let us continually beg Him, challenging though life may well be, for the Grace to enable us to stay on (or get back on) the road to Eternal Happiness!