Take This to Work During Easter Week

As we posted on Easter Sunday, every day this week, Easter week, is a first class feast day. Each day we celebrate Easter. Of course, most of us will be at work Monday to Friday, so it's not exactly like Easter Sunday. Nevertheless, we continue to encourage you to keep the joy of Easter alive, despite your having to put your mind to the business at hand.

Here's something to remember that might help you do just that: your Lenten discipline. Okay, so maybe you've had enough of those special penances and sacrifices you observed during Lent. But let's not let turn our backs on Lent now that Easter has arrived. After all, the whole purpose of those special observances was to strengthen your spiritual life, to help you grow closer to Our Lord, right? And if you were reasonably faithful during Lent, you likely have - even if you don't notice it at the moment - increased in sanctity, which, let's remind ourselves yet again, is the entire point of our lives on this earth.

With this in mind, we look at some specific suggestions I recently read that encourage us to continue our sacrifices, even as we celebrate this glorious Easter Week. Take these to work with you today. Remember them when you get home tonight. Keep them close to you.

First, we remember that everyday life swarms with abundant opportunities to sacrifice, basically little acts of self-renunciation, which can be broken down into: 

• religious duties
• duties of our state in life
• work
• obedience to authority

Our challenge here will be to perform these duties out of love for God, rather than just to get them done and over with. If you look at these areas, you can, I'm sure, parse various duties of your religious life, your work life, and your personal life (including getting up when the alarm clock rings!), that provide plenty of opportunities for sacrifice and mortification. But these include not only attention to the details of the circumstances of our particular lives, but charity in our dealing with others. For example, we can bite our tongue when tempted to say something nasty about someone; be pleasant and cheerful even if you're not feeling particularly great that day; give time to someone in need; in general, forget yourself and think of others.

Some specific bodily mortifications:

• get up at a specific time (that alarm clock)
• don't give in to laziness
• putting up with a little heat or cold
• eat stuff put in front of you even if you don't particularly care for it

(That last one's a challenge in a world of endless food "choices," and an aversion to leftovers these days; but I always remember my mother telling me to eat what's on my plate. Thanks Mom.)

Each one of these is a victory of the spirit over the flesh.

In addition to bodily mortifications, here are some spiritual mortifications:

• control your whims
• stop your vain day-dreaming
• avoid gossip and uncharitable speech
• be patient
• avoid curiosity (the useless kind, not the kind you need to solve problems)

There's more, but this should help as a starter kit. Take it to work today and apply some or all of these as you go through your busy day.

Ideally, Easter won't represent a time of laxity, of falling back into bad old habits. Rather it will be time to celebrate your little victories during Lent, and spur you on to greater victories throughout the year. After all, your eternal happiness depends on it, doesn't it?