On Being Passionate About Your Work
Last time we talked about whether it was important that you love your work. Today we'll take a different angle: Are you passionate about your work?
I know someone who's had a successful career - very successful. He's managed to amass a small fortune. He's now finishing up his career and will soon live off the money he's managed to save and invest wisely. But he's not going to just do nothing. He's looking for "meaningful" work. He says he wants to work at something he's passionate about. In his case, it means something in the non-profit world. The work he did for all those years that provided his small fortune just wasn't all that meaningful. It wasn't his passion.
Being passionate about your work falls into the same category as loving your work. You can do just fine without it. (See our last post.) That's not to say that doing what you're passionate about wouldn't spice up your work life a bit. It's just that we don't need to obsess on this. If you're passionate about your work, great! If not, so what? An honest day's wages for an honest day's work will suit most of us just fine.
But as we saw last time with loving our work, we need to take a different stand when it comes to our spiritual life. Here passion, like love, becomes essential.
We might remind ourselves here of Our Lord's view of those who are are less than passionate in the practice of their Faith:
“The sole purpose of life is to love Jesus passionately. From henceforth, Christian soul, you must act like the miser. You must have no other thought, no other desire, than to amass a huge fortune of Love, not so much for yourself, as for Jesus, Who lives in your heart. There rises before you a mountain of gold; your actions, your desires, your affections, your thoughts, your least movements, can be transformed into the purest gold of Charity – you have only to touch them by the magic of your good will…St. Gerard Majella wrote the following sentence on a strip of paper: ‘I have only this short life in which to sanctify myself; if I allow it to slip by unprofitably, it is lost forever.’ And he left his home and devoted himself entirely to God. Remind yourself, that the time for amassing these treasures of Charity is limited, and that you do not know how soon it may end for you. If St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. John Berchmans, St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. Lucy, St. Agnes, had deferred, to a later period of their lives, the work of their sanctification, they would not be in the enjoyment of such great glory in Heaven today.
"You must furthermore consider that the quantity and quality of this gold of Divine Charity, amassed during life, will be and will continue exactly the same during eternity. Love in Heaven is not substantially different from love on earth, but the love you have in Heaven is not meritorious love that can add additional luster to your crown of glory, and your love in Heaven will not rise far above the love you bear to God on earth. What a loss to God and to you, if, by your own fault, you love Him less through endless ages! St. Therese animated herself by this thought: ‘That others should surpass me in glory in Heaven does not matter to me; but how could I endure that anyone should love You, Jesus, more than I?’ Very well, you little soul; make up your mind that you will not be surpassed in love, even by the Seraphic Therese.” (Fr. Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R.)
Now that's how our spiritual lives need to be! Don't brush this off or take it lightly. Re-read these words if they're not sinking in and moving you, heart and soul.
Passionate or not, we'll all go about our business today. But let's all remember that when it comes to our spiritual lives, passion rules!
I know someone who's had a successful career - very successful. He's managed to amass a small fortune. He's now finishing up his career and will soon live off the money he's managed to save and invest wisely. But he's not going to just do nothing. He's looking for "meaningful" work. He says he wants to work at something he's passionate about. In his case, it means something in the non-profit world. The work he did for all those years that provided his small fortune just wasn't all that meaningful. It wasn't his passion.
Being passionate about your work falls into the same category as loving your work. You can do just fine without it. (See our last post.) That's not to say that doing what you're passionate about wouldn't spice up your work life a bit. It's just that we don't need to obsess on this. If you're passionate about your work, great! If not, so what? An honest day's wages for an honest day's work will suit most of us just fine.
But as we saw last time with loving our work, we need to take a different stand when it comes to our spiritual life. Here passion, like love, becomes essential.
We might remind ourselves here of Our Lord's view of those who are are less than passionate in the practice of their Faith:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, not hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16)Here's something from a fine spiritual writer to help us better understand the role of passion in our spiritual lives:
“The sole purpose of life is to love Jesus passionately. From henceforth, Christian soul, you must act like the miser. You must have no other thought, no other desire, than to amass a huge fortune of Love, not so much for yourself, as for Jesus, Who lives in your heart. There rises before you a mountain of gold; your actions, your desires, your affections, your thoughts, your least movements, can be transformed into the purest gold of Charity – you have only to touch them by the magic of your good will…St. Gerard Majella wrote the following sentence on a strip of paper: ‘I have only this short life in which to sanctify myself; if I allow it to slip by unprofitably, it is lost forever.’ And he left his home and devoted himself entirely to God. Remind yourself, that the time for amassing these treasures of Charity is limited, and that you do not know how soon it may end for you. If St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. John Berchmans, St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. Lucy, St. Agnes, had deferred, to a later period of their lives, the work of their sanctification, they would not be in the enjoyment of such great glory in Heaven today.
"You must furthermore consider that the quantity and quality of this gold of Divine Charity, amassed during life, will be and will continue exactly the same during eternity. Love in Heaven is not substantially different from love on earth, but the love you have in Heaven is not meritorious love that can add additional luster to your crown of glory, and your love in Heaven will not rise far above the love you bear to God on earth. What a loss to God and to you, if, by your own fault, you love Him less through endless ages! St. Therese animated herself by this thought: ‘That others should surpass me in glory in Heaven does not matter to me; but how could I endure that anyone should love You, Jesus, more than I?’ Very well, you little soul; make up your mind that you will not be surpassed in love, even by the Seraphic Therese.” (Fr. Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R.)
Now that's how our spiritual lives need to be! Don't brush this off or take it lightly. Re-read these words if they're not sinking in and moving you, heart and soul.
Passionate or not, we'll all go about our business today. But let's all remember that when it comes to our spiritual lives, passion rules!
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