Three Sunday Thoughts from Two Saints and a Military Chaplain to Start the Week Off Right
Let's begin our Sunday some thoughts from two saints and a military chaplain. Each will comment on an aspect of the answer to the question: Why did God make us?
Every Sunday a new week begins. It's not just another day. Besides being "the Lord's Day," Sunday provides us with the opportunity to begin again. Today we begin at the beginning by recalling why God made us. The Baltimore Catechism provides, I think, a complete answer in its succinct way: to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.
With that knowledge, what are our plans to know, love, and serve Him this week? Do we have a ready answer? If not, or even if we do, here are three thoughts from impeccable sources to help us to enhance our answer.
Our first saint, St Ignatius of Loyola, goes right to the heart of why God created us. He then helps us to understand why God created everything that surrounds us as we work our way through our brief time on earth.
Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
St Josemaria Escriva puts it slightly differently. Notice how he emphasizes our role as workers:
Our Lord has given us as a present our very lives, our senses, our faculties, and countless graces. We have no right to forget that each of us is a worker.
As we enjoy our Sunday respite from daily toil, our saints refresh our minds and remind us of both why we were created, and why we work every day.
With such refreshment in hand we turn to our old friend, Father William Doyle. Building on the basic foundation provided by our two saints, Father will succinctly provide the practical application that we will use this week - and thereafter - to fulfill our purpose and perform our work in accordance with the God's Wlll. He does this by explaining how he has put theory into practice:
I have begun to try to perform each little action with great fervour and exactness, having as my aim to get back the fervour of my first year’s novitiate.
There's nothing complicated or difficult in this specific application. Begin with that very first task that awaits our attention. We will put aside all other distractions and apply ourselves with that same fervor and exactness.
Notice too how Father wishes to recapture the fervor of his first year in seminary. If you read about his life, you will find him literally bounding up the stairs of the seminary on his first day. His behavior was striking enough to attract the attention of his superior at the time, who would recollect this years later. Father desired, with his whole heart. to be a priest and good one.
Perhaps over the years, performing his many duties, he lost a bit of that initial fervor. While only natural, rather than excuse that loss of fervor, Father pushes himself to do all he can to recapture it. Because Father's writings betray an overwhelming desire to become a saint now, perhaps that accounts for his noticing even the slightest slackening of his fervor. He knows that the saints did nothing in half measure, when it came to their work and their spiritual lives.
Those of us who might - despite any misgiving - desire to become a saint (and shouldn't we all?) might draw inspiration from Father Willie as we begin a new work week tomorrow.
Happy Sunday!
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