Christ in Us at Work
We've been talking about the problem of letting work distract us from what's really important: to know, love and serve God, which is another way of saying to grow in sanctity. We saw what can happen when work takes up so much of out time and attention to the exclusion of our spiritual life. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way - even for those of us who do, in fact, spend long hours at work, whose work requires great effort each day.
If we Catholics don't already know it, wet need to know that God is in everything. But more than simply knowing it, we need to live it. A while back, we talked about how we Catholics sometimes go about our business each day as if God didn't exist. The extreme example of this would be those who go to Mass on Sunday and simply never give God another thought the rest of the week. I certainly hope you're not the sort that lives like that, barely scraping by, so to speak, as a Catholic. But even if not, so many of us easily become so absorbed in our work and we can easily forget that God is in everything we do. We put ourselves in the spotlight and hardly give a nod to Him Who created us and - most importantly - Who loves us and desires our love in return. We noted then:
Let's start by remembering what Our Lord did after His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven: He sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Let's remember that it was only after the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and all those gathered in the upper room on Pentecost that the clear understanding of our Holy Faith and the conviction that come with that clear understanding finally manifested itself in the Apostles. And it was only after this that the Apostles went forth into the world - fearlessly - to teach the Good News of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.
So with that descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, not only His Blessed Apostles, but all of us as well, were given the ability to possess God "interiorly" - in a manner which allows for our clear understanding of our Holy Faith and the conviction that such understanding can engender in each of us. This is the one way we stand up to the world, the flesh, and the devil as did Our Lord after those forty days in the desert. (Our Blessed Lord Himself allowed the devil to tempt Him with the world and the flesh after His forty days in the desert, in the human nature He took on at His Incarnation.) It is the one way we possess to remain faithful Catholics in our every thought, word, and deed every minute of every day. We can't do this on our own, so Our Lord sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in us. As long as we remain in a state of grace, we can summon the life of God in us, His Holy Spirit, to light and guide us. That's why we say the prayer each day to the Holy Spirit:
If we Catholics don't already know it, wet need to know that God is in everything. But more than simply knowing it, we need to live it. A while back, we talked about how we Catholics sometimes go about our business each day as if God didn't exist. The extreme example of this would be those who go to Mass on Sunday and simply never give God another thought the rest of the week. I certainly hope you're not the sort that lives like that, barely scraping by, so to speak, as a Catholic. But even if not, so many of us easily become so absorbed in our work and we can easily forget that God is in everything we do. We put ourselves in the spotlight and hardly give a nod to Him Who created us and - most importantly - Who loves us and desires our love in return. We noted then:
...if God is in everything, and you just rush through your day never seeing Him in everything, then you are spending your life rushing past God over and over again, without the slightest acknowledgment that He even exists. How would you like it if everyone in your family, or even everyone at work, just rushed past you every day, day after day, without even saying "Hello"?The problem, we noted then, was that we don't develop our "interior life" sufficiently. And when we don't, we're a wide open target for the world, the flesh, and the devil - those three major mortal threats to our souls. So let's take a look again at this "interior life" that was once taught to all Catholics, but has been pushed into the background in recent times (the reasons for which we won't address now).
Let's start by remembering what Our Lord did after His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven: He sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Let's remember that it was only after the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and all those gathered in the upper room on Pentecost that the clear understanding of our Holy Faith and the conviction that come with that clear understanding finally manifested itself in the Apostles. And it was only after this that the Apostles went forth into the world - fearlessly - to teach the Good News of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.
So with that descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, not only His Blessed Apostles, but all of us as well, were given the ability to possess God "interiorly" - in a manner which allows for our clear understanding of our Holy Faith and the conviction that such understanding can engender in each of us. This is the one way we stand up to the world, the flesh, and the devil as did Our Lord after those forty days in the desert. (Our Blessed Lord Himself allowed the devil to tempt Him with the world and the flesh after His forty days in the desert, in the human nature He took on at His Incarnation.) It is the one way we possess to remain faithful Catholics in our every thought, word, and deed every minute of every day. We can't do this on our own, so Our Lord sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in us. As long as we remain in a state of grace, we can summon the life of God in us, His Holy Spirit, to light and guide us. That's why we say the prayer each day to the Holy Spirit:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful
And enkindle in us the fire of Thy love
Send for Thy Spirit and they shall be created
And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth
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