More Spiritual Thoughts and Exortations to Bolster Our Work Life

For five days starting next week we post our annual "A Practical Guide for Planning Designed for Catholic Men." It will help you plan your work and personal life in preparation for the coming year. For now, we continue our look at some thoughts and exhortations for our spiritual lives that will also bolster our work lives. The premise here is simple: if our spiritual lives are in order, if we advance in our spiritual lives, our work will reflect that.

We all need a strong, clear mind to guide us each day as we apply our skills and talents to our work. A soul in the state of sanctifying grace, will illumine and enliven the mind helping us to be diligent in our appointed service.

Look at these personal attributes: confidence, simplicity, courageous, free-spirited (sense of liberty), decisive and not worried about making mistakes.  So many “gurus” tout “systems” to get you out of your fear of failure, your worry and anxiety.  They will free you from what’s holding you back so that you will forge ahead and be successful.  They preach self-actualization or personal development. 


But these attributes describe the truly devout person, not the “self-actualized” person.  We’ve been convinced that being holy holds us back.  We’re told that Catholics have all sorts of psychological conflicts and neuroses; that freedom, or liberty of spirit, lies in freeing or developing, our personalities or our “inner self,” or a host of other constructs.  In fact, being holy, being devout frees us to be ourselves. 


With unshakable faith and attention to the present moment we can fearlessly act and accomplish anything we set our minds to – if that is God’s will for us.  And there’s the catch.  We must learn to act fearlessly and accept the consequences of our actions.  (After all, isn’t taking responsibility for our actions a sign of a mature individual?  Isn’t denying or shirking responsibility a sign of immaturity or, worse, of someone who lives a life of lies and deceit?)  And those consequences may include failure in achieving our end, our goal. 


God may permit us to fail at times; not to discourage us, but to draw us ever closer to Him.  Material success, fame, advancement in our profession are not, in themselves, evil.  Only when they inordinately take up our time and attention do they begin to turn evil.  And when the love of money or success displaces our love of God, then they are truly evil. 


If we learn to act fearlessly and take the consequences, we are acting without fear of failure.  If failure should come, we turn our minds and hearts in exactly the same direction to which we turn when we succeed: to God.