Actual Grace

Sister Paul Mary turned her piece of chalk sideways and slashed a long, wide swath of white across the middle of the blackboard. “We’re all born with original sin,” she said.

Then she rubbed a big black felt eraser back and forth until only a faint shadow of white dust remained. “Baptism washes away our sin,” she said. She drew a bottle and, turning her chalk sideways again, filled it in neatly with white. “Baptism fills us with grace.”

To my second grade eyes, the grace looked exactly like the sin, except there seemed to be less of the grace.

Pictures teach louder than words, especially for children. I learned that grace was rather limited and controlled while sin was apparently unlimited and uncontained. Grace had to be constantly replenished as you used it up to wipe away the unrelenting sin. Never enough grace. Always too much sin.

This past October, we were taught a new lesson in grace. Charles Carl Roberts IV walked into a schoolhouse and slashed a long, wide swath of darkness across the Amish community. After releasing the boys and adults, he threatened to kill the ten remaining girls. The girls responded by asking him to pray with them. A picture of grace.

When he refused, 13-year-old Marian Fisher stepped up to him and said, “Shoot me and leave the other ones loose.” Marian, full of grace.

After the madman shot the girls, killing five and severely wounding the others, the grandfather of two sisters killed told an interviewer he bore no anger toward the killer’s family. And he had forgiven the killer. “How is that possible?” asked the reporter. “Through God’s help,” replied the grandfather.

After shooting the girls, Roberts killed himself. There were 75 mourners at his funeral. Half of them were Amish. The Amish have received over a million dollars in donations since the shootings. They have pledged some of it to help Roberts’ wife and his three children. Overflowing grace.

The Catechism says grace “escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith.” Perhaps it can also be known in the pictures of grace we see. Pictures such as the Amish give us. Pictures of unlimited, uncontainable, unrelenting, almost unbelievable grace.