Good Advice About Work from a Hermit

I found some good advice about work from a hermit, St Anthony the Abbot. Born in Egypt in 251, he lived to the ripe age of 105, most of the time living in isolation as a monk, praying and working alone. Even though he desired solitude, his holy example attracted other men and over time St Anthony gave these men advice about how to live a consecrated life of prayer and work. His advice formed a stable rule for his monks, and he became known as the Patriarch of Monks.

While St Anthony's advice was intended to guide monks, we who work "in the world" can learn an important lesson from him. An article in The Wanderer by Carole Breslin summarizes the basic advice St Anthony gave those first monks:

Pray every morning as though you would die before evening and pray every evening as though you would die before dawn. Fight the Devil by calling on the name of Jesus. Do all work and pray as though it were the last thing you will do on Earth.

We Catholics know that our lives are in God's hands. Most of us have no problem understanding that none of us had anything to do with how and when we came into this world. Sometimes, though, we need to be reminded of the other side of the coin, that the day and time when we leave this world is also in God's hands. That's why the Church traditionally taught us to meditate on the Four Last Things: Heaven, Hell, Death Judgment. The purpose of this teaching was - and is - to remind us that we all die; we need to be prepared.

Did you notice I didn't say, "We all die someday" or "We all die eventually"? The reason is for that is simple. Someday and eventually both give us the impression that death won't come anytime soon. Tell that to my friend who was found dead one morning by the guy who usually picked him up by car to go to work. My friend had a heart condition, for which he had surgery a few years ago. He recovered nicely and was pronounced fit as a fiddle. His death was a shock.

I suppose you could say that this fellow was already sick and we shouldn't be shocked. Perhaps. But what about this?

She was 35 years old and just four weeks before had given birth to a beautiful young daughter named Isabella. The whole family is mystified by the causes and shocked.

I'm quoting from an investment column I read. The author is speaking about his younger sister. She simply and mysteriously died. Here we can all agree that her death was a shock.

The point of all this isn't to be morbid. Far from it. I'm just being dead serious here (pun intended). So with all this in mind, take St Anthony's advice to heart:

Do all work and pray as though it were the last thing you will do on Earth.

He's not exaggerating.