Glory to God
Our readings instruct us to give glory to God. I wonder, how do you give glory to something that is already all glory? And if I could give glory to God, is it something that God would want since He is all glory? These are good questions. With difficult questions, it is often better to look for simple answers.
We start with ourselves. Where do we find glory in our lives? There is an old song called Glory Days. These are two friends who have not seen each other for a long time. They go to a bar for a beer and talk about what happened in high school. They call those memories their glory days. They remember playing baseball. They remember looking young and beautiful. They remember finding someone special and getting married. They remember their dreams of the past. These memories are full of glory for themselves.
I believe we can do the same for our spiritual life. I am thinking of all the sacraments that we have celebrated in the last two weeks. We have had many First Communions and confirmations. With Divine Mercy, the graces of confession have overflowed. With each of these sacraments, our young people gave glory to God by accepting God’s grace. Perhaps our young people did not realize the abundance of God’s grace, but that is fine. It is still available to them when they can accept it. All is glory given to God.
When our young people received the sacraments, I saw the happy faces of their families. They were glad to see their children receive the graces they once received a long time ago, when they also received those sacramental graces for the first time. They also gave glory to God. And as they grew and were more able to understand God’s abundant grace, they were able to glorify God by continuing to accept the sacramental grace He gives.
We give glory to God when we support our families by encouraging them to grow in a relationship with the Son of God, Jesus. And the relationship is that we love our neighbor as Jesus loved us. All our sacraments and all our efforts to love one another give glory to God. These make up all our memories, not to give glory to ourselves, but all glory to God who blesses us with His abundant grace. These, then, are our glory days. Share your glory days with your children. They need to know how God works through you.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen