More on Shaking up the Work Day
Our last few posts share a common theme: shaking up the work day. We began with practical suggestions to get ourselves out of a rut, eventually progressing to the recognition and understanding that the "gold standard" to which we aspire in every thought, word and action, even at work: the imitation of the life of Christ. To even aspire to such a standard, never mind approaching it, requires some degree of "shaking up" for most of us.
Having acknowledged how daunting this might seem to most of us less-than-sainted types, we left off last time with this:
A good place to start might be a recent Sunday post. There we shared comments by Archbishop James Leen that noted how St. Paul "speaks of being buried with Christ, of suffering with Christ, of rising with Christ, of being glorified with Christ, and so on. For the Apostle, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection were not events anchored in the sea of time, but events perpetually re-enacted in the Mystical Body." Recall that the Mystical Body of Christ includes the Church Triumphant (saints in Heaven), the Church Suffering (those in Purgatory) and the Church Militant: us. And so we might ask how we ourselves might re-enact the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord in our own lives here on earth. If we find we need some guidance here, we can turn first to Archbishop Leen:
That being said, let's all agree on a couple of points before we proceed: If you're not yet a saint, you do want to be one. That means developing your spiritual life. Without aspiring to be a saint, to develop your spiritual life such that it infuses every part of your life - including the time you spend working - you're aiming far too low. As Archbishop Lean says regarding the saints: "They did not content themselves with admiring the life of the Savior, they aimed at living it themselves." And thus we understand that aspiring saints should now follow their example. If you believe this to be unreasonable or impossible, recall again that
Having acknowledged how daunting this might seem to most of us less-than-sainted types, we left off last time with this:
...we don't rely on ourselves here; we understand that our natural abilities and efforts will only take us so far. We know that only with God's grace will we get where we want to go.With that in mind, it's time now to pull it all together and see exactly what our imitating the life of Christ might mean, as well as how we can apply our understanding to our daily work.
A good place to start might be a recent Sunday post. There we shared comments by Archbishop James Leen that noted how St. Paul "speaks of being buried with Christ, of suffering with Christ, of rising with Christ, of being glorified with Christ, and so on. For the Apostle, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection were not events anchored in the sea of time, but events perpetually re-enacted in the Mystical Body." Recall that the Mystical Body of Christ includes the Church Triumphant (saints in Heaven), the Church Suffering (those in Purgatory) and the Church Militant: us. And so we might ask how we ourselves might re-enact the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord in our own lives here on earth. If we find we need some guidance here, we can turn first to Archbishop Leen:
"To the extent that the life of the first Adam is destroyed in the member of Christ, that is, to the extent that the life of the flesh and its concupiscences has been subjugated in him, the life of grace derived from Christ has freedom to develop: according as it does, the Christian in his life becomes identified with Christ and re-lives the life of Jesus. The Saints understood things thus. They did not content themselves with admiring the life of the Savior, they aimed at living it themselves. At times God deigns to give outward proofs of the actuality of this mystery as when He traced the marks of the Passion on the body of Saint Francis of Assisi. We must live the mysteries of Christ’s life, in the due order of these mysteries. All this living should subserve in us, and lead up to, the Resurrection.”Those of us who like our information punchy, doled out in little bits and bites will need to slow down our metabolism a bit and read Archbishop Leen's words slowly and carefully. If you're running out the door to work, or just glancing at this in the midst of a busy day, you'll likely miss the meat of what being said here. So if you're willing to read, to absorb, and possibly to learn, by all means do so, remembering that in most of our endeavors our reward will be commensurate with the time and effort we invest.
That being said, let's all agree on a couple of points before we proceed: If you're not yet a saint, you do want to be one. That means developing your spiritual life. Without aspiring to be a saint, to develop your spiritual life such that it infuses every part of your life - including the time you spend working - you're aiming far too low. As Archbishop Lean says regarding the saints: "They did not content themselves with admiring the life of the Savior, they aimed at living it themselves." And thus we understand that aspiring saints should now follow their example. If you believe this to be unreasonable or impossible, recall again that
...we don't rely on ourselves here; we understand that our natural abilities and efforts will only take us so far. We know that only with God's grace will we get where we want to go.In addition to God's grace, and fortunately for us, we have many solid, orthodox Catholic spiritual guides in addition to Archbishop Leen whose writings can help us here. Next time we'll turn to one such guide to try to better understand more specifically just what imitating the life of Christ might look like. Meanwhile, let's remember the responsibility we bear today in this glorious enterprise of imitating the life of Christ. Take a few more minutes to consider how much effort we typically expend to subjugate the life of the flesh and its concupiscences to assure the life of grace derived from Christ. If your answer matches mine, we've got much work to do.
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