Continuing to Shake Off The World With Some Solid Resolutions From a Saint

As we burrow deeper into 2025, we continue last week's theme of shaking off the world. This go-round includes some solid resolutions from a saint that we can apply to our work each day.

St. Gabriel Possenti has also been called St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. He was born Francesco Possenti and lived from 1838 - 1862. His life was short, only around 24 years. Those of us who have long passed that age can be taken aback at how much was accomplished in so short a time. And, with God's grace, we see that "accomplished" does not mean how much money he made, how far his career advances, how many worldly honors were heaped up on him, etc.

We might also consider that this man, hardly past his teen age years, came to make such resolutions. 

And let's not slip into excuses about how this saint lived in a different time, or that he didn't have to deal with the pressing responsibilities to earn a living, raise a family, save for retirement, or the myriad other considerations that might convince us that saints somehow had or have a leg up on us regular gents. Okay?

By the way, you may notice that some of St. Gabriel's resolutions remind us of Father Willie. But, of course, why be surprised that one saint might be similar in some ways to another, despite them being completely unique individuals created by God to know, love, and serve Him. 

Hmmm...that applies to us too, doesn't it?

In any case, let's dive into St. Gabriel Possenti's resolutions and see how we may take these with us into our work day, starting with two that may not at first seem to apply for us "men of the world":

I will keep my rule, even the smallest thing.
I will not neglect any of my spiritual exercises.

The Passionist order, of which St. Gabriel was a member, had its rule, While we workers out in "the world" do not follow a clerical rule, we can nevertheless apply this resolution to our work. For example, we all have (or should have) certain work habits, processes, perhaps mandates from our boss or customers, etc. These entail following specific steps in some timely fashion. In our particular business, our week typically includes certain repeated tasks on certain days. We must be faithful in our performance of these tasks on those days. 

Regarding spiritual exercises, we may not perform these on the job (although that is possible), but we do carve out time in our day to perform at least some spiritual exercises. Ideally, we have a more or less fixed set of exercises, performed at more or less fixed times. Whatever our individual practice, these must not be neglected. No matter how busy our work or personal life may get, we musn't let this serve as an excuse to let go our spiritual exercises, whether this be daily prayer, meditation, reading Scripture and good spiritual works, etc. 

So yes, we can take St. Gabriel's resolution regarding keeping our rule and not neglecting our spiritual exercises and apply these to our work day.

These next few are simple and their connection with our work should be obvious, needing no commentary: 

I will shun idleness.
I will be punctual.

These are but the first few of St. Gabriel's Resolutions. But they've helped to launch us into an exploraiton of the whole list which we will find in our next post.

For now, let's simply remember that saints come in a shapes and sizes. And while we may not yet be fully formed saints, we can, even in our normal work days - think, speak and act in ways that demonstrate our desire to climb the sacred ladder to holiness. The saints, like St. Gabriel, can serve as example for us to learn from and emulate, even if at first glance it might seem their lives are too different than our own.

St. Gabriel Possenti, pray for us!