Love, Prayer, Sacrifice: Our Challenge at Work
I just read some wise words about love, prayer and sacrifice that I want to share with you. This should encourage us to bring love, prayer and sacrifice to work with us today.
Father William Doyle, S.J. (1873-1917) refers to his time as one of "awful sin and hatred of God." It's no stretch to apply this description to our own time, is it? In fact, we've been talking about the rejection of God, our Holy Faith and the decline of our society and culture these past two Sundays (starting here). So now let's see what Father Doyle suggests we we can do about it starting today.
Father wisely begins with each of us and our relationship to God. Nothing changes in society and culture without a change in us. And, sadly, so few of us really love God and so few really live our Faith each day. How many times we've seen how we check God at the door before we begin our work day. And since most of us spend a good deal of our time at work, that leaves God "outside looking in" for most of our lives. If we're ever going to change our culture and society for the better, it must start with us. We have to change.
God Himself wants us to change. According to Father,
We want to be among those who, as Father says,
Are we ready to turn away from this yet? What could possibly be holding us back?
Next time we'll talk more specifically about love, prayer and sacrifice - in Father Doyle's words, the meaning of holiness - as well as what we must do once we decide that God really, REALLY is more important than this world.
Father William Doyle, S.J. (1873-1917) refers to his time as one of "awful sin and hatred of God." It's no stretch to apply this description to our own time, is it? In fact, we've been talking about the rejection of God, our Holy Faith and the decline of our society and culture these past two Sundays (starting here). So now let's see what Father Doyle suggests we we can do about it starting today.
Father wisely begins with each of us and our relationship to God. Nothing changes in society and culture without a change in us. And, sadly, so few of us really love God and so few really live our Faith each day. How many times we've seen how we check God at the door before we begin our work day. And since most of us spend a good deal of our time at work, that leaves God "outside looking in" for most of our lives. If we're ever going to change our culture and society for the better, it must start with us. We have to change.
God Himself wants us to change. According to Father,
"...our Blessed Lord wants to gather round Him a legion of chosen souls who will be devoted, heart and soul, to Him and His interests, and upon whom He may always count for help and consolation."Are we ready to join? Or are we so attached to the world, the flesh and - yes - the devil, that we won't take the first step? Yes, that first step is always up to us. Our Lord will never force us. He created us with free will. We get to choose. But once we do take that first step, He provides the necessary grace we need to continue. So now start by answering this:
"How much can I do for His love?"Notice, not how much must I do - how much can I do.
We want to be among those who, as Father says,
"...give and not count the cost, whose only pain will be that they cannot do more and give more and suffer more for Him who has done so much for them."Rather than be part of this culture and society that has turned away from God, are we ready to step up and stand out - to be counted as for God? Will we have the courage, driven by love, to take our place as:
"...souls who are not as the rest of men, fools perhaps in the eyes of the world, for their watchword is sacrifice and not self-comfort."Or will we just prefer to melt back into the secular culture, to "fit in" in order to retain our place in that declining, even depraved world that surrounds us? Think I'm exaggerating by using the word "depraved"? Then how to explain a society whose highest court declares that two men and two women now have a "right" to marry? One that has taken the term "marriage" and redefined it, twisted its real meaning, to include homosexual "unions." Not only redefined and twisted, but will soon insist that you and I accept this, and, most probably, persecute and prosecute us if we don't.
Are we ready to turn away from this yet? What could possibly be holding us back?
Next time we'll talk more specifically about love, prayer and sacrifice - in Father Doyle's words, the meaning of holiness - as well as what we must do once we decide that God really, REALLY is more important than this world.
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