How to Make Progress at Work and in Your Spiritual Life
Our Lord walked His talk - straight through His life here on earth from His birth through His public life, His Passion and Death, and, finally, His Resurrection. He is the perfect model of "progress."
When we make progress in our work, we can't go back; we shouldn't even think of going back. The same should hold for our spiritual lives: no going back.
At work, when I develop new skills through my diligent efforts, I do so in order to use those skills. I spend time learning and practicing these new skills until I'm really good at them and I know how to use them in some practical way. That's how I make progress.
During Lent, I demonstrated some degree of discipline, along with a certain amount of self-denial, in order to increase my prayer, fasting and alms-giving. To the extent I was able to do that, I made some spiritual progress. I changed. My old selfish self was diminished (somewhat) and I was able to become more of the "new" man that St Paul talks about - the man that God created me to be. That's how we make progress.
Recently at work, I worked on increasing my understanding of economics, as well as the economic principles that guided our country since it's founding - for better and for worse. It's important that I did so in order that I increase my effectiveness in my profession. Now that my knowledge is increased, I need to apply that knowledge each day to my work, even as I continue to increase and deepen that knowledge.
During Lent, by the grace of God, I was able to consistently practice the discipline of fast - not having any two meals equal to my main meal - every day, save Sundays. I also did not eat meat, except on Sundays. I think this helped me to become less self-centered (at least a smidgen!), and helped me to grow closer to Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother. Now that I've grown closer to them, I need to continue to do so. I don't want to "re-lapse" into the same self-centered patterns that marked my life before Ash Wednesday.
I hope your Lent was helpful in changing you too - albeit just a smidgen. And I hope that you don't re-lapse into who you were before you changed.
Think of it this way. We simply have to constantly improve our knowledge and skills at work, just to stay competitive, to continually demonstrate our professional and commercial value to our customers and employers. The world changes and so must we.
And so it must be in our spiritual lives. Unless you're already a saint, we all have to change, day to day, and grow closer to Christ, maybe even become saints while we're still in this world, before we die (either that or we'll get a good dose of Purgatory and make our final changes there). Our Lenten practices helped us change a little more urgently - at least I hope they did.
So there's no going back to the old ways, to the old man. We're making progress, gents, and now's the time to keep on making progress. It's time to use whatever knowledge we picked up through our Lenten activities. As the Rev. George Zimpfer said:
“The life we live is our greatest prayer. And that life does not consist so much in knowledge or activity as it does in knowing how to use what we have learned, in our mental attitude toward our activities, our interpretation of them. If we would be truly spiritual, we must seek to fashion our own life upon that of Jesus, to think and act and speak with Him as Pattern and Guide. Our true life, as the Kingdom of God, is within us. What we do and how we do it are simply expressions of this spirituality.”
When we make progress in our work, we can't go back; we shouldn't even think of going back. The same should hold for our spiritual lives: no going back.
At work, when I develop new skills through my diligent efforts, I do so in order to use those skills. I spend time learning and practicing these new skills until I'm really good at them and I know how to use them in some practical way. That's how I make progress.
During Lent, I demonstrated some degree of discipline, along with a certain amount of self-denial, in order to increase my prayer, fasting and alms-giving. To the extent I was able to do that, I made some spiritual progress. I changed. My old selfish self was diminished (somewhat) and I was able to become more of the "new" man that St Paul talks about - the man that God created me to be. That's how we make progress.
Recently at work, I worked on increasing my understanding of economics, as well as the economic principles that guided our country since it's founding - for better and for worse. It's important that I did so in order that I increase my effectiveness in my profession. Now that my knowledge is increased, I need to apply that knowledge each day to my work, even as I continue to increase and deepen that knowledge.
During Lent, by the grace of God, I was able to consistently practice the discipline of fast - not having any two meals equal to my main meal - every day, save Sundays. I also did not eat meat, except on Sundays. I think this helped me to become less self-centered (at least a smidgen!), and helped me to grow closer to Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother. Now that I've grown closer to them, I need to continue to do so. I don't want to "re-lapse" into the same self-centered patterns that marked my life before Ash Wednesday.
I hope your Lent was helpful in changing you too - albeit just a smidgen. And I hope that you don't re-lapse into who you were before you changed.
Think of it this way. We simply have to constantly improve our knowledge and skills at work, just to stay competitive, to continually demonstrate our professional and commercial value to our customers and employers. The world changes and so must we.
And so it must be in our spiritual lives. Unless you're already a saint, we all have to change, day to day, and grow closer to Christ, maybe even become saints while we're still in this world, before we die (either that or we'll get a good dose of Purgatory and make our final changes there). Our Lenten practices helped us change a little more urgently - at least I hope they did.
So there's no going back to the old ways, to the old man. We're making progress, gents, and now's the time to keep on making progress. It's time to use whatever knowledge we picked up through our Lenten activities. As the Rev. George Zimpfer said:
“The life we live is our greatest prayer. And that life does not consist so much in knowledge or activity as it does in knowing how to use what we have learned, in our mental attitude toward our activities, our interpretation of them. If we would be truly spiritual, we must seek to fashion our own life upon that of Jesus, to think and act and speak with Him as Pattern and Guide. Our true life, as the Kingdom of God, is within us. What we do and how we do it are simply expressions of this spirituality.”
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