Seek the Special Graces of This Easter Season to Help Us Live the Life of Christ

We're going to take some time to seek the special graces of this Easter Season to help us live the Life of Christ. If you're not sure exactly how we do that, well, that's going to be what we will attempt to explain with the help of a solid Catholic spiritual director.

To set the stage, let's assume we've been working our way through the Easter Season, doing our best to manage at least moments of recollection even during our busiest days at work. Has it been a successful endeavor? Well, there's still time to spruce up our Easter spirit on the job, even as we approach the 5th Sunday after Easter, after which comes the Ascension, 10 days before Pentecost. 

(Time flies, doesn't it?)

Now, our efforts need not be considered sub-par simply because most of our time and attention has been on the tasks we need to attend to during the work day. After all, our struggle to produce our best work for the greater glory of God takes serious effort. Our best typically doesn't come easy. Indeed, if it did, we'd likely wonder whether we could have done even better if we'd have put in more effort, right?

Oh, and let's not forget that our daily labor in and of itself can be a form of prayer. For example, we can begin our day offering our work in thanksgiving to Our Blessed Lord for all that has done and continues to do for us. Whatever difficulties, temptations, and suffering we may encounter - and some days can bring all three - will please Him if we have the intention of offering up our work at the beginning of our day.

Any of us can do this. It's really simple. There's no special knowledge or "technique" needed. Just mentally say the words, in your own way.

For those of us already in the habit of doing this, we offer some words written by Rev. George Zimpfer that might help us to enhance our offering. We can make it our intention to consciously imitate Our Savior in all our thoughts, words, and deeds throughout the day. And isn't that exactly why He came to live amongst us for the 33 years of his life on earth - so that we would find in Him the supreme example of how to live?

His Passion, Death, and Resurrection were the culmination of those 33 years. But if we spend a little time reading the Gospels each day (as we should be doing), you know that most of the words written down for us by the Evangelists recall the so-called "public life" of Jesus Christ. And from those words, we not only derive His teachings, but we see His example, the perfect example of what it means to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect - something He urges each and every one of us to aspire to.

Here is our first pass at an explanation of exactly how we each of us can live the Life of Christ, courtesy of Rev. Zimpfer: (And yes, he was a Catholic priest, not a Protestant minister.)

“The life we live is our greatest prayer. And that life does not consist so much in knowledge or activity as it does in knowing how to use what we have learned, in our mental attitude toward our activities, our interpretation of them. If we would be truly spiritual, we must seek to fashion our own life upon that of Jesus, to think and act and speak with Him as Pattern and Guide. Our true life, as the Kingdom of God, is within us. What we do and how we do it are simply expressions of this spirituality."

See how important our spiritual life is? It's not just something we "have," the result of daily prayer and  devotions. It's the source of all our thoughts, words, and deeds. If we have no spiritual life, we're no better than puppets directed by the world, the flesh, and devil. So our first lesson here: Prioritize our spiritual life. It must be front and center from the moment we wake up, throughout the day, until we close our eyes on the day's activities.

A robust, living spiritual life will color everything in our life. And that holds true for our work, no matter how busy we are. We stand a better chance of producing our best work when driven by our spiritual life. It will guide us if our work entails collaboration with others, no matter the state of their souls, their religion (or lack thereof), their personalities, etc. Whether they consciously realize it or not, when our work is an expression of our spirituality, they will - in some small, perhaps unknown way - be the beneficiaries of the life of Christ.

I know, it does seem like a bit of stretch for us lowly creatures who have trouble managing to say our rosary every day, or attend to our Scripture and spiritual reading, who struggle to concentrate in our efforts to spend a few minutes in meditation, or in kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament. But there it is.

Considering it's only our first pass at an explanation of exactly how we can live the Life of Christ, it's not a bad beginning. More next time...And since we're still in the Easter Season...

Happy Easter!