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The Catholic New World

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July 9, 2006

Full of grace

"Hail Mary, full of grace …”

As a Catholic, I have heard, and said, those words more times than I can count. As part of the Hail Mary, I recite them 50 times on a trip around the rosary. I say the Hail Mary as much or more than any other prayer, especially when I’m feeling challenged by my kids.

Jesus may have been divine as well as human, but somehow I think Mary was at her wits’ end at least a few times when it came to raising him.

But it wasn’t one of those challenging times when I was called to really think about that prayer. It was one of the idyllic times of being a parent, one of the sentimental-greeting-card times.

I was cuddled on the couch with Caroline when she was about 31/2 years old. Frank was asleep, and it was dark outside. We’d read a bedtime story (or four) and were listening to Mozart’s Coronation Mass while we said prayers,

“Hail Mary,” we said together. “Full of grace …”

“Mama,” she asked, “What’s grace?”

“Well,” I said. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

But I had to try.

“Grace is a gift from God,” I told Caroline. “Grace is what God gives us that helps us to be good.”

And, not for the first time, I wondered why no one told me I needed a theology degree to deal with a preschooler who was doing her best to delay bedtime.

I also wondered what someone with a theological background, or at least more religious education than me, would say.

Apparently I wasn’t so far off the mark. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the church.” (2003)

Of course, grace has plenty of secular meaning, too, usually having to do either with beauty of form or movement, or with clemency granted. It comes from “gratus,” the same Latin root as “gratitude.” Always, it is something good and something bestowed, not earned.

When Frank grew old enough to participate in our bedtime prayers, his reaction was a bit different.

When we said, “Hail Mary, full of grace …” he chimed in with, “That’s my baby cousin!”

Grace—or Skylar Grace, to use her full name—is a gift to her parents, and to our whole family. Somehow, having her and Caroline and Frank around makes me think more about how many ways God gives us grace in our lives.

Michelle Martin is a Catholic New World staff writer.

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