What Might Have Been and Still Might Be

"What might have been and still might be" seems to capture the struggle to keep our spiritual life alive and well as we go through the paces of our daily work. We all know how important it is to remain spiritually "awake" throughout the day, even when we're extremely busy or pressed with meeting an important deadline. But knowing something doesn't equate to actually doing something. 

So keeping spiritually awake in the midst of the work day continues to challenge me. Perhaps that's true for you as well. More often than not, at the end of any given day, I'm likely to look back at the engagement of my spiritual life as what might have been.

Not great. But then again, there's always the hope that it still might be. For now, let's recap some recent efforts to promote our spiritual engagement.

During Lent and Easter, we tried to incorporate these Holy Seasons into our days as best we could - perhaps with some success, perhaps will little. Whatever our perception of success or failure, we need to remember that if our intention was good, Our Lord surely knows this and appreciates the effort.

With the commencement now of the days after Pentecost, our struggle to sanctify our work doesn't end. Indeed, it never ends. So these "regular" days of the Liturgical Year - days that will now pass in succession, one upon the other, until the first Sunday of Advent, our next extended grace-filled Season - bring us yet another opportunity to beef up our spiritual life at work.

And so, with all this in mind, here's something to launch us Catholic men at work into these days after Pentecost. We'll do that with a bit of what may likely be a fictional re-cap of how things went for us from the Easter Season through Pentecost and beyond:

The Easter Season has ended. Pentecost has passed. These grace-filled times accompanied some of us even as we labored each day. We somehow managed to keep Easter present for the 40 days from Easter Sunday until Our Lord ascended into Heaven. With daily recollection, the grace of Our Risen Lord infused our hearts and minds as we began our day and remained with us even in our busiest moments. We thus could end our day at work tired from our labor, but refreshed by His spirit, guided by His example.

Thus the Resurrection lifted us up out of the material world and its concerns. We understood that the supernatural must enhance and sanctify the natural. Our spiritual life took its rightful place at the center of our day's work as we offered all our labors for the greater glory of God.

After the Ascension we prayed the Novena to the Holy Spirit in the days leading up to Pentecost, opening our hearts and minds to the promptings and counsel of the Holy Spirit. Our daily entreaty to Him took on renewed life:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful

And enkindle in us the fire of Thy Love.

Send forth Thy Spirit and we shall be created

And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

Okay, so that's a bit idealistic - at least for some of us. As such, it may be an example of what might have been. As such, we have to take the position that it still might be - if we're willing to put in a serious effort, always seeking and cooperating with God's grace.

But idealistic as it might be, it's trying to capture that ideal in a concrete way. And doing so, it provides a kind of roadmap for us now in the post-Pentecost days. We can - and should - make a daily effort to

• keep Our Lord present in our work throughout the day,
• assisted by an active, engaged spiritual life, as best we can, even when we're super-busy,
• by always seeking to see all things in a supernatural light - put another way, as God sees them

None of this takes away from our efforts to produce excellent work, on time, meeting and exceeding the expectations of our boss - or ourselves, for that matter, if we run our own business.

The fact is our spiritual life never takes away from our work life; it enhances it far beyond anything we might imagine at the moment.

Another way to say this: Our spiritual life doesn't interfere with, or take away from, the rest of our life. Next time we'll take at some specific examples of this that will apply to our work...