“Grace is everywhere!” breathed the dying priest in George Bernanaos’ novel, Diary of a Country Priest. It is indeed everywhere, but do we always see it?

“I call it the ‘Last Best Word’,” says Philip Yancey, author of the book, What’s so amazing about Grace?, “because every english usage I can find retains some of the glory of the original.”

Grace literally means “thankful” or “pleasing”. We use the phrase “Grace marks” when, in an exam, we don’t actually deserve the marks, but we get them anyway. Grace is a free and unmerited favour that costs nothing to the receiver, but everything for the giver.

We live in a world of ungrace. A world in which we must work our way up, receive punishment for what we did wrong. A world where forgiveness struggles to live on. A world where those who are the richest, not the poorest are annually listed in a magazine. Grace suggests exactly the opposite. It opens its arms to the wrongdoers, forgives those overcome with guilt and a feeling of unworthiness. Grace comes from outside, says Yancey, as a gift and not as an achievement.

In 1987, an IRA bomb buried a twenty year old woman (Marie Wilson) and her father, Gordon Wilson five feet under the rubble. Her last words were “Daddy, I love you very much”. She died a few hours later. Heartbroken as he was, Wilson said, “I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them.” No one will ever forget what Wilson confessed, a newspaper proclaimed, his grace towered over the miserable justification of the bombers. Remembering his daughter’s last words of love, he decided to live his life on that very plane of love. He met with the IRA, personally forgave them, and asked them to lay down their arms. “I know that you have lost loved ones like me,” he said. “Surely, enough is enough. Enough blood has been spilled.” He was later made a member of the Senate of the Irish Republic. His spirit exposed by contrast the violent deeds of retaliation, says Yancey, and his life of peacemaking came to symbolise the craving for peace within many others.

Forgiveness is the heart of Grace. It offers us a way out. It may not settle the questions of whose fault it is or how fair it is, but however, it allows the relationship to start afresh.

Forgiveness, in fact, says Solzhenitsyn, is how we differ from animals. Not our capacity to think, but our capacity to repent and to forgive. We forgive not to fulfill some higher law of morality, says Yancey, but we do it for ourselves, just as Lewis Smedes points out, “the first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness… when we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner set free was us.”

Forgiveness can loosen the stranglehold of guilt in the offender. Magnanimous forgiveness, says Yancey, allows the possibility of transformation in the guilty party.

Forgiveness however, is not the same as pardon, he advises. You may forgive the one who wronged you, but still insist on a punishment. If you can bring yourself to the point of actual forgiveness, says Yancey, you will release its healing power on both you and the person who wronged you.

Grace does not excuse sins, says Yancey, but it treasures the sinners. True grace is shocking, it is scandalous. It shakes our conventions with its insistence on getting close to the wrongdoers, touching them with mercy and hope.

God bless!