Just Doing My Job During Lent
"Just doing my job," I thought recently. Working on a tough assignment, a most challenging assignment, I've had to call on every bit of knowledge, experience and, strength to provide my very best professional expertise and assistance for a client in great need of my services. While I'm pleased, even grateful, that they've expressed sincere appreciation for my efforts, after all is said and done I'm just doing my job.
It's not that I'm minimizing my efforts. But reminding myself that I'm "just doing my job" keeps things in perspective. It will allow me to put forth the same effort into all my work, even where the assignment isn't as tough, or the challenge as great. It will help me get up each morning with the steady, determined spirit I'll need to provide excellent work each day, which for me, as a Catholic, translates into my working for the greater glory of God.
The same can be said for our efforts during Lent. Have you made special sacrifices during this holy season? Well, to take nothing away from your efforts, you're really just doing your job, aren't you? Yes, your prayers, penance and almsgiving flow from your love of Christ, He whose suffering and death we will soon recall in a special way. But it's really no big deal to put forth the special efforts we do during Lent, when you consider Our Lord's love for us. That's why I'm comparing it to just doing your job.
In fact, consider the spirit of sacrifice that has motivated your Lenten discipline. It's a wonderful spirit, isn't it? It takes us out of ourselves, that same self that keeps us from loving God as we ought to, as we want to. That "self" of ours stands in the way of drawing closer to God or, more accurately, serves as a kind of barrier as God tries to draw closer to us. And so those sacrifices that mortify our self-will, our inordinate desires that put us at the center of the universe and keep God at bay will serve their purpose if they create the tiniest crack in that self-centered shell that blocks God's advances.
If I think of my special Lenten discipline as "just doing my job" it helps me to realize that whatever I've done isn't really anything extraordinary. OK, maybe I won't keep that special fast once Lent ends, but the spirit of that fast won't just disappear, I hope. That spirit of sacrifice, I hope, remains when Lent ends and the Easter Season takes its place. While the sacrifices may not be "special" they won't just disappear. And that's the key here. Sacrifice remains an integral, fundamental part of my life, a spirit permeating each day of my life. My struggle against self doesn't stop with Easter. And so my efforts to mortify my self-will and inordinate desires won't cease with that first new light, the "Lumen Christi" that shines on us during the Easter Vigil Mass.
And so I continue these last days of Lent "just doing my job," and will continue "just doing my job" when the glory of Easter lifts us all out of ourselves and turns our hearts and minds to Him who suffered, died and was buried, only to rise from the dead so that we might live in eternal happiness with Him forever in Heaven.
It's not that I'm minimizing my efforts. But reminding myself that I'm "just doing my job" keeps things in perspective. It will allow me to put forth the same effort into all my work, even where the assignment isn't as tough, or the challenge as great. It will help me get up each morning with the steady, determined spirit I'll need to provide excellent work each day, which for me, as a Catholic, translates into my working for the greater glory of God.
The same can be said for our efforts during Lent. Have you made special sacrifices during this holy season? Well, to take nothing away from your efforts, you're really just doing your job, aren't you? Yes, your prayers, penance and almsgiving flow from your love of Christ, He whose suffering and death we will soon recall in a special way. But it's really no big deal to put forth the special efforts we do during Lent, when you consider Our Lord's love for us. That's why I'm comparing it to just doing your job.
In fact, consider the spirit of sacrifice that has motivated your Lenten discipline. It's a wonderful spirit, isn't it? It takes us out of ourselves, that same self that keeps us from loving God as we ought to, as we want to. That "self" of ours stands in the way of drawing closer to God or, more accurately, serves as a kind of barrier as God tries to draw closer to us. And so those sacrifices that mortify our self-will, our inordinate desires that put us at the center of the universe and keep God at bay will serve their purpose if they create the tiniest crack in that self-centered shell that blocks God's advances.
If I think of my special Lenten discipline as "just doing my job" it helps me to realize that whatever I've done isn't really anything extraordinary. OK, maybe I won't keep that special fast once Lent ends, but the spirit of that fast won't just disappear, I hope. That spirit of sacrifice, I hope, remains when Lent ends and the Easter Season takes its place. While the sacrifices may not be "special" they won't just disappear. And that's the key here. Sacrifice remains an integral, fundamental part of my life, a spirit permeating each day of my life. My struggle against self doesn't stop with Easter. And so my efforts to mortify my self-will and inordinate desires won't cease with that first new light, the "Lumen Christi" that shines on us during the Easter Vigil Mass.
And so I continue these last days of Lent "just doing my job," and will continue "just doing my job" when the glory of Easter lifts us all out of ourselves and turns our hearts and minds to Him who suffered, died and was buried, only to rise from the dead so that we might live in eternal happiness with Him forever in Heaven.
Blessed Final Days of Lent to All
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