Graced encounters mark every moment of the day, no matter what the day is like — but do we recognise them?

Karl Rahner, a twentieth-century Jesuit theologian, says that grace is everywhere and everywhen.

Rahner also implies that grace is God is love. Love and grace are intertwined in this wisdom of who God is — a triune relationship that underpins “integral ecology,” made famous in Laudato Si’.

Graced encounters

Graced encounters are recognised moments with this “everywhere and everywhen God,” who bursts through mundane and sometimes dark periods of our lives.

Training the heart to notice is the work we need to do to discover Grace, God, Love, in every breath we take.

An ordinary day begins

In a recent day in the life of a woman, recognising these graced encounters became a lifeline to sanity.

Being woken by a little ray of sunshine (a 13-year-old forever pup) bouncing on the bed, saying, “Time to get up,” after choosing to grace her with her presence instead of staying with her other human, and canine brother, next door!

A coffee, breakfast and prayer — leisurely or not — and then the gift of warm water on a cool summer morning.

Into a Zoom meeting reviewing a recent long retreat with others, recalling the graced moments, and the challenges that were also graced.

The remaining tasks were two deadlines: one enjoyed, the other a source of frustration as she waded through essays where AI was often the favourite research tool and an unreferenced guru.

Grace in the details

What were these moments?

The first was giving thanks for hearing aids, recently acquired while directing that long retreat.

The next three hours were absorbed in creating an advertisement for a voluntary role she has, and finally, the long stretch of the day: marking assignments.

Six graced encounters

Here are six graced encounters in these final six hours of the working day.

First, the listening ear of a colleague, who graciously acknowledged the challenge and frustration of marking papers with suspected, but not provable, AI.

Second, the conversations with the person for whom she was marking, and their gratitude for the assistance given.

Third, a walk-around break graced with the joy and delight of that 13-year-old pup running around the backyard with her brother, leaping like a gazelle in a cheeky dash for the fenced garden, knowing she should not be there.

Fourth, a text asking, in the context of care for creation, “What was that word you used instead of stewardship?” The response: “companionship!” A gentle reminder from Pope Francis’s Laudate Deum that we are companions to creation, and this is the gracious stance we can take, even when marking papers.

Fifth, one writer’s grateful acceptance of an opportunity to resubmit.

• Dr Ann-Maree O’Bernie RSM is the Director of Adult Faith Formation and Lecturer in Systematic Theology at the Australian Institute of Theological Education.