We are taking a few days this week to do some renovation work here at the Catholic Center.  We are tearing down wall paper, repainting some rooms, doing some minor electrical and general repair work, planting some pompous grass and doing other yardwork. 

Yesterday we did quite a bit of work and have more to do the next couple of days.  But it is coming along. 

Looking at the stripped down walls and the ladders propped here and there I have been reminded of an insight of one of my professors in seminary (Sr. Sara Butler) on the Catholic understanding of the work of God’s grace in our lives: grace rather than being seen as just a “covering over” of self and sin is in fact better likened to the action of renovating a house from within.

God’s grace works from the inside out and, bit by bit in God’s time, it restores and reclaims the whole person – scrubbing down and fixing what needs to be fixed.  All done, in order to make of our whole selves a worthy and welcoming home for the Lord to come and dwell within.   

God wants all of who we are restored to full relationship with him and nothing less, it seems, will do. 

I find this quite comforting.