MY BISHOP has just granted a sabbatical.

My Spiritual Father has said to use the time to “ write, pray, paint “.

Yesterday I traveled far to visit a friend, coping with a sudden death in the family. The return trip took place in the dark.

Age has dimmed my eyes.

I usually take easy routes when driving at night.

On those twisting back roads the slower pace allowed for reflections about the directive to spend these sabbatical months writing, praying, painting.

My heart was moved for silence, so I turned off the radio and tried to still my mind.

What came to my heart, over and over again was the line from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans where the Apostle stresses the apparent paradox that where the more there is sin, even more so there is grace [ Rm. 5: 20 ]!

The Apostle is stating that every moment of our lives is offered as a moment of beginning again.

It IS in God, the Trinity, specifically in Christ who through His Holy Incarnation in His Holy Ascension has taken time into the Trinity, that each moment is the moment of beginning, again, again, again, so long as there is breath in us.

This book is  a witness to this truth :  HIS MERCY is greater than our sin IF we but, with every breath, cry out to Him for His mercy.

The tragedy is how long it takes us to realize this and turn to Him.

The joy is, once we truly turn to Him, sin loses its allure and the Holy Spirit is free to glorify Christ within us, thus making real the truth that the glory of God is the human person fully alive, for, we are fully alive when we no longer live, Christ lives in us.

I do not claim that is accomplished within me, rather I do witness to the truth the Spirit is at work, tirelessly, to complete what was begun at my Baptism, this configuration to Christ.