We can lose sight of the spiritual nature of our calling to teach, to lead, to serve. As Catholic educators, we walk on the sacred ground of human lives. Parents entrust their children to us, and the dreams these young people have keep them awake at night. We enroll them into our community of faith and show them how to pray with us, break bread with us, sense the sacred, live the moral life, and grow in their relationship with the One.

And on top of these critical responsibilities, we grade papers, attend meetings, update our certification, meet deadlines, and pay bills back at home.                  

Collecting moments of grace is a practice that can help us remember the spiritual dimensions of the work and the life. All of us have been given a token of appreciation from someone who valued our work—we keep these objects on our desks, in a drawer, or on a shelf as reminders of a moment of grace. But most moments of grace come without concrete objects, so the practice of collecting them requires a special kind of awareness.

There are at least four different moments of grace that we can collect within the daily experiences of our callings:

Moments of “coming to know” are present whenever a student or colleague shares his or her soulful longings, passions, dreams, or treasured interests. When someone gives us a generous amount of self-disclosure, they are letting us inside their hearts. When someone graciously and subtly gives us these “coming to know” moments, we must stop long enough to capture the moment and appreciate the trust they have in us.

Moments of reverencing the work show up when others give us a verbal compliment or a warm touch or embrace, or we can see it in the grateful way a colleague, student, friend, or family member looks us in the eye.

Moments of vulnerability remind us of the spiritual nature of our callings when we encounter someone overwhelmed by a situation, distraught over an event, or unnerved by a task. Moments of vulnerability are moments of grace that invite us to make a spiritual response of tender strength and strong tenderness.

Moments of grace can be captured when we realize the secret of the mystics, who kept heart and sustained the Spirit throughout a history of plagues, famines, inquisitions, and oppression. The secret of the mystics can be found in the belief that the present is sacred and the ordinary is holy.

It is easy to lose sight of the spiritual nature of our work when we place too much attention on the future or allow only the extraordinary to give us pause.

There are so many different moments of grace to be collected. And we should bring them out of our memory boxes when the vocational weather of our lives gets rough—to remind us of the spiritual dimensions of our calling to teach, to lead, to serve. But it takes practice.

R.D. Laing, in The Divided Self, once wrote that the failure to notice limits the extent of what we think and do. And this failure to notice can ultimately affect our thoughts, words, and actions.

Be aware. Be mindful. Be present. And always notice those moments of grace.