A Sunday Thought About Traditionis Custodes to Start the Week Off Right

We've avoided commenting on Rome's recent issue of Traditionis Custodes. You could have accessed plenty of informed commentary if you had reliable sources - so you didn't need our input. We did have good sources, and we had  nothing to add. 

So today's comments won't focus on the document itself, or the public responses to it. Instead, we'll just offer some personal reflections.

First, over the decades since Vatican II I've learned it's important to develop intellectual and emotional discipline along with a measure of distance. Discipline will help you to avoid jumping to conclusions without careful consideration as well as prevent you from reacting emotionally, in the moment, to the detriment of your inner peace and stability.

In order to avoid jumping to conclusions you must take a deep breath and exhale slowly when a document like TC comes out. If you read it, you must do so either slowly, or do so multiple times, or some combination thereof. And unless you have specific experience and expertise in areas like theology, church history, how the church is governed, can verify the accuracy of the translated language that you are reading (English, Italian, French, German, and so on), and can do all this without your blood pressure rising as you do, you can't interpret what you've read in a reliable manner.

As for reacting emotionally, it's almost always a prescription for jumping to conclusions, writing or saying things you'll regret later, or creating a level of anxiety that will only accomplish the destruction of the inner peace and stability that forms the foundation of a grounded spiritual life. When emotions rise and threaten to gallop away, you might try reining them in by reminding yourself that you're on this earth to know, love, and serve God in order to spend eternity infinitely happy in His Divine Presence - or some such expression of the true nature and purpose of our short sojourn in the Valley of Tears.

Next, defer any temptation to project what the future will hold. In the short space of less than a week, I witnessed reports that ranged from all Traditional Catholics being shunned from regular parish life, corralled into a bare few dedicated venues if they insisted on attending the TLM to various Bishops assuring Traditional Catholics that all will remain as is for the time being, extending even to some Bishops claiming they had canonical authority to ignore or override the document as a matter of law. (Excuse my clumsy expression of that last legal point, but I hope you know what I mean.)

Finally - and this is key - recall that the bulk of our time should be dedicated to ora et labora - prayer and work - as Saint Benedict might put it. How much is "bulk"? It's a personal thing, of course. We all have different circumstances, different obligations, different work loads, etc. So here's a suggestion: 95%.

95%?!! I think so. Here's why:

Recall that when it comes to our work, we can make all of our work a prayer. We've talked about this many times. But if you haven't considered making all of your work a prayer yet, here's a simple way to do this: Begin the day by offering up all of your work to God - all of it. Simple? 

But what happens when the work load presses down, urgent matters call for your immediate attention, you become totally absorbed in the task at hand because you're trying to do the best job possible? Simple again. That doesn't mean your work ceases to be a prayer. God knows your intention - the one you directed to Him as the work day began. It's your intention that matters. He knows you can't constantly keep your thoughts on Him. You don't need to pray with words or in your thoughts constantly as you work. Sure, it would be great if - from time to time - you can recollect yourself and think of Him, say an aspiration like "All for Thee," or "I love You, Jesus" from time to time. But even if the day goes by and can't or simply didn't, you still intended for your work to be a devoted to Him.

So that takes care of work time.

What about personal time? No different. Offer all your daily personal and domestic affairs to Him. Same deal. So everything you do outside of work time now becomes a prayer.

Same for sleep. Say your prayers at night, and the rest follows.

What about relaxation, fun, pleasure? That too. Don't separate what you consider relaxing or fun (good, clean fun) or pleasurable (legitimate pleasure, not sinful stuff) from your prayer life. Don't segregate that time from God. 

You get the point right?

What about the other 5%? It's just a bone - a recognition that none of us is perfect. So really, we could legitimately say 100% of the time.

Think about it. You just accounted for 100% of your time. There's no time to spend on debates, controversies, anxiety, worry, etc.  

A document issued from Rome exists. Learn what you can about it. React to it in a manner that is consistent with your Catholic Faith. Don't worry about what you can't control. Then go about your life as you normally would.

Happy Sunday!