Note: We do not advise using this illustration in a sermon. In fact, we strongly advise against it, but we thought it a great meditation for us clergy, considering subjects of Law and Grace. Here it it:

In Mary Gordon's novel, Final Payments, a book addressing the repression of many young Catholics of the 50s and 60s, a young woman named Isabel Moore has just buried her father after several years of illness, during which she was confined to his bedside. For several months, she flounders, trying to discover what she has the aptitude to do with the remainder of her life. She finally accepts employment as a social worker, going into homes to check on the welfare of ill and elderly people kept by individuals or families under contract to the social services department. One day she is visiting…