Some Help From Father Willie to Start the Day

Today we'll turn to our good friend Father William Doyle for some help in facing the challenges of our work day. First, some background:

We've spent a lot of time recently with the Rule of St. Benedict to counter distractions, disruptions, and outright threats to our spiritual and material lives. We drilled into the Rule from this perspective. As it always does, the Rule provided clear guidelines and suggestions to apply to our specific circumstances.

One of the challenges we face during these difficult and turbulent times in both the world and our Holy Church is simply going about our business each day in an ordered, measured fashion. Of course, the world, the flesh, and the devil have always thrown their weight against we who would follow Our Lord and His Commandments. As for the disorders in our Holy Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ has been assailed in varying degrees at different times throughout history. Our times may be particularly difficult, but they are not unprecedented in their intensity. 

But it's important that we remind ourselves that we have been born at this time in this place according to God's Plan. That Plan may be mysterious to us, but that too is not unique to us. It's fundamental to our understanding of our life in this world.

With this understanding, and without minimizing either our shared challenges, or those that are particular to each of us, we now face our day at work. The work day needs our full attention and effort. It always does, no matter what pops up to gum up the works. And here's where Father Willie can lend a hand.

As he has so many other times over the years, Father William Doyle hits the target with wise words written over a century ago. He understood the interplay of our spiritual life and the practical matters we all have to address each day - like our work. His specific focus here is on the religious life. But it won't take much imagination to apply this to our layman's work as well as our individual spiritual lives.

What more insignificant than the ordinary daily duties of religious life! Each succeeding hour brings with it some allotted task, yet in the faithful performance of these trifling acts of our everyday life lies the secret of true sanctity. Too often the constant repetition of the same acts, though in themselves they be of the holiest nature, makes us go through them in a mechanical way We meditate, we assist at holy Mass, more from a sense of duty than from any affection to prayer. Our domestic duties, our hours of labour, of teaching, are faithfully discharged — but what motive has animated us in their performance? Have we not worked because we must, or unconsciously because the bell has rung, rather than from the motive of pleasing God and doing His will?

Most of us can easily identify with the idea of "ordinary" daily duties. These include those tasks we all have to do that are repetitive in nature. Maybe some (or all) of these sometimes seem or feel somewhere between boring and a real pain in the neck. I know. I've got a list of them I can rattle off. The hours that pass each day bring a collection of basically "trifling acts," as Father Willie calls them. But if we read his words attentively, we found that in these "lies the secret of true sanctity."

It all has to do with how we go about attending to these trifling acts. Do we take a mechanical approach? Are we motivated only by a sense of duty (albeit a worthy motivation)? Or are we motivated by pleasing God, by doing His will?

It makes a difference. 

So where does that leave us as we approach the work day today? How about we simply re-read Father Willie's words - then get on with our business. That should set us straight.

Happy Easter!