It's All Grace

by Fred Vilbig

My daughter, Karyn, graduated from Notre Dame this spring. That in itself is something any parent should be proud of. But it is the back story that is even more amazing.

Karyn enrolled at Notre Dame when my business was doing well. But as the economy derailed, so did my business. We couldn’t afford to send her there. I started sending the financial aid office monthly reports showing how things were slipping, but they were not impressed. I encouraged Karyn to go to the Grotto at Notre Dame and pray the rosary. My wife started praying to St. Jude. Nothing worked, and we had to pull her out. She was really devastated.

But she didn’t give up.


She took a job washing cars and saved her money. She applied for and was accepted into City Year, a program designed to mentor inner-city children to keep them from dropping out of school. She was assigned to a middle school in inner-city Chicago. For a girl from the suburbs, that was a real education, particularly when one of the 14-year-old boys was shot dead on his porch. She wasn’t paid much, but in the end, she had earned some tuition money.

At the same time she assaulted the Notre Dame financial aid office. They didn’t have a chance. They finally put together an incredible package for her, but she was still short. Then two Notre Dame professors came to her rescue. They needed a nanny, and Karyn (# six of 11) had some experience with kids. Things worked out.

Not only did Karyn graduate (after missing three semesters), but she graduated four years after she started with her entering class. She received an award as the most outstanding student in her department. She also graduated summa cum laude. Quite an accomplishment.

But what really brought this into focus was the commencement speaker. The original speaker got sick, and so we had a stand-in. His name was Ray Hammond. He was born in a tough part of Philadelphia. He entered Harvard University at 15, and graduated from Harvard Medical School at 23. He became a surgeon.

But he realized that the healing that was really needed was spiritual. He left the practice of medicine, and became the pastor of an AME church in inner-city Boston in 1976. He has been a healing power in that community ever since.

In his commencement address, he talked about several things, but the primary theme was the grace of God. He mocked the idea of the self-made man or woman. He told the graduates to look at their parents, their teachers, and one another, and think about what each of them had done to help each graduate to get where they were that day. In his own life, he reflected on how he had accomplished what he did when friends of his had very different, sometimes even tragic, outcomes. He saw the hand of God in it all.

We don’t pick our families. We are born with a certain level of intelligence. We are born with (or acquire through watching our parents and relatives) the drive or ambition that we have. People unexpectedly offer to help in some way. I think we can all agree that these are gifts from God.

But what about the tragedies in life – the traumas, the sickness, the desperate situations that arise through no fault of our own? Padre Pio would point out to his followers that even these are graces. He told his penitents that whenever suffering comes, you should offer it to God to be used for His good purposes. He once wrote in a letter, “Physical and spiritual ills are the most worthy offering you can make to Him who saved you by suffering.”

So in the end, it is all a grace … both the blessings and the crosses. We don’t always see everything as a grace, but in fact, everything is a grace. We should through prayer try to grow to accept and rejoice in all of these graces. As Padre Pio often said, “Pray, trust God, and don’t worry.”

If only it were that simple.