Propelling Our Spiritual Lives at Work Into 2024 - and Beyond - 2

More to propel our spiritual lives at work into 2024 and beyond. 

For a good boost, we turn to Fr. Joseph Schryvers, a familiar spiritual guide for those of us who regularly visit this blog.

A quick prequel:

As we noted in our first 2024 post, the New Year brings so-called "resolutions" for many of us. These may provide a boost to some area of our life we really need to address. Losing weight or getting in shape spring to mind; or maybe it's eating healthy or, more seriously, cutting down on our intake of adult beverages or eliminating "recreational" drugs (if there can be such a thing).

Or maybe some of us have identified an area of our lives we'd like to enhance or even excel in. All you one-time musicians who had to get a steady "day job" to support your family may be thinking it's time to get back to serious playing, singing, writing. Aspiring novelists - or writers of other genres - may have reached an age where it's now or never. 

Whatever your particular aspiration here, I hope the New Year's Resolution does its job.

Of course, many of us who've given up on such resolutions may have done so as members of a rather large club: those who make such resolutions and watch the urge to pursue them dissipate within months, if not weeks or days, as everyday post-holiday life fills the hours and minutes with much to do that needs doing.

But whether we make it a New Year's resolution or not, we should all share a desire to get serious with our spiritual lives. And in that spirit, we'll let Fr. Schryvers take the podium and point us in the right direction.

Warning: This isn't cotton candy or a frothy milk shake. It's a stiff drink of serious spiritual reality that we all need if we're going to strive to get to Heaven by becoming a saint. Keep this close during the work day as a ballast. No matter how distracting or difficult today's tasks may be, this is the stuff that really matters in the end: 

    “Death speedily ends everything: greatness, riches, and pleasures all vanish like smoke. Christian soul! Bring death  before you as though in a few moments you were to meet it. Death is the passage from time to eternity, from the known to the unknown, from appearance to reality, from the transitory to the immutable. This passage you must cross over alone without help or assistance from any creature. No one can accompany you beyond the door of the tomb; the good and bad actions of your life alone will go with you. Your relatives and friends will shed a few tears, and say some prayers over your coffin, more concerned probably about their own trouble than about your eternal destiny. After some time their grief will subside, remembrance will fade as occupations distract them, and thought of the dear departed will soon be almost blotted out. As you have forgotten those who have preceded you into eternity, so will you be forgotten. Ah! In the face of death all is vanity except Jesus Christ. All friendships, even the most solid, even those of friends who have pledged eternal fidelity to each other are transient. All other friendships may break down, His will always remain.

   “Judgment follows death. The Judge shows Himself to the soul and the latter sees, as in a luminous picture, its whole life – the bright sides and the dark, its virtues and its vices; and these are minutely detailed in the clear light of eternity. The soul pronounces its own judgment and realizes that its judgment is just. Oh! That first meeting face to face with Christ! That first encounter of the Eye of the Almighty! Shall this first look be one of benevolence or one of reproach; a look of reprobation or one of salvation? A smile from a friend and brother, or a lightning-flash of malediction? O Jesus! I scarcely dare think of it. What ought I not be prepared to do in order to insure that at such an awful moment Your first look on me may be one of welcome! If we could only remember that we must render an account of everything! If we could only realize that on this decisive moment our eternity depends; and that moment depends on this present one! … What is this world, with its approbation or its smiles or its disapproval, in comparison with the overwhelmingly serious issue of our judgment? What will the praises or contempt, the honors or the persecutions of men matter to me at that moment? Vanity, nothingness, ephemeral wisps of vanished mist!” - Fr. Joseph Schryvers, C.SS.R. (1876-1945)