“There are different kinds of gifts but the same Spirit; different forms of service but the same Lord; different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone…One and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.”  St. Paul articulates this litany of various kinds of blessings, and emphasizes that the Holy Spirit is the source of them all, and that they all have a place in the plan of God.  The Lord distributes gifts and graces “as he wishes.”  This doesn’t mean that God’s blessings are arbitrary.  He’s not random or sloppy.  He’s perfectly good and perfectly wise and he always has the big picture in mind, which means that God providing gifts and graces “as he wishes” will always be in perfect accordance with what’s best.  We have the abilities and natural talents and capacities that we have, that the Holy Spirit has given to us.  If we just aren’t naturally disposed for something, we have to remember that that’s not a moral failing.  If I’m not naturally athletic, or if I don’t have a gift for numbers, or I don’t speak well in public, those aren’t moral failings.  The morality comes in with what I choose to do with the gifts that I do have.  If I don’t try to identify my gifts and try to use them to their full extent; if I keep my light hidden under a bushel; if I have a false modesty or a fear that paralyzes me from acting boldly, then that’s where the moral failing does come in. 

God distributes gifts as he wishes, but we have to remember that he has actually done so, for everyone.  Every person is unique, and every person’s gifts have a unique role to play in the marvelous plan of God.  And God doesn’t make mistakes or do things by accident.  If you are here on this earth, he’s got things for you to do, and he’s given you the gifts to do them.  And the things that God is asking you to do may seem very ordinary sometimes, or maybe even all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.  It’s critically significant that Our Lord revealed himself for the very first time, at a normal ordinary human event: something very beautiful, but at the same time very common: a wedding reception.  God wants to bless human events with his presence, with his grace, and with his love. 

For our own lives, that means, going to work or school every day even when it’s tedious; our family life with all its joys and struggles; our relationships with our friends and neighbors: God has given us the gifts and graces we need for those situations that he’s led us to, and he wants to be there with us himself.  And he is there himself.  Always.  We should train ourselves to be ready to recognize and accept the presence of God.  We have moments in our lives, when people or situations point us toward God, and cause us to reflect and to marvel, those times when we see and feel the presence of God clearly.  But there are also so many moments too when we run right past God as he is powerfully and silently at work.  We should try to see him in those moments.  He’s there, even in the everyday, even in the ordinary.  Everything has meaning in the plan of God, and he gives the gifts and graces necessary for whatever situation we find ourselves in.  Our whole world, everything we experience, can be an offering and a prayer directed to God.  We give him thanks that he is so powerfully and wonderfully at work in our world and in our lives, and we ask the grace to see him standing with us every day, in everything.