A Lenten Thought About Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory
Those of us who have already spent a good chunk of our lives working
have likely known good and bad times. A mix of success and failure may
not be part of your plan, but, for most of us, that's the way things go.
We'll use the phrase "snatching victory from the jaws of defeat" and
its counter, "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," to illustrate.
Starting with snatching victory from the jaws of defeat - the happier of
the two - I recall the time my company was trying to convert a
promotional free trial period of using our service into a permanent
arrangement. Things weren't going well. Although I was the new kid on
the block, with little experience in marketing, I managed to figure out
how to get the job done quickly and efficiently. I'll skip the details,
but simply say what looked like a disastrous defeat turned into a great
victory for our sales team.
On the other hand, I can also recall being laid off. It came at a
particularly bad time. I had endeavored to switch careers into an
industry with which I had no background or training. But it seemed to
promise the modest security I sought for my family. After a bumpy start,
and after quite a bit of struggle, I did rather well on the job. The
future looked bright. But then the company was taken over by a private
equity firm, I was laid off. The day the hammer fell was my birthday;
and we just had our third child. Since my wife stayed home with our
kids, I was it when it came to financial support for the family. What
once looked bright turned dark and cloudy. What I once saw as a victory -
learning the tricks of the trade in a completely new industry - turned
quickly to defeat. Worse, as I looked to reinsert myself with another
company in that industry, my only choices involved moving my wife and
children far from our families - something neither of us wanted. We
therefore decided not to go that route. Time to reinvent the wheel
again.
Today's Station of the Cross puts it all in perspective. As you may
remember, to help sustain our Lenten discipline at work, we continue our
journey with Our Lord during Lent, posting the Stations of the Cross,
one at a time, using St.
Alphonsus Liguori as our guide. (Click HERE for
a complete pdf of St. Alphonsus's version of the Stations of the
Cross.)
Station 12: Jesus Dies on the Cross
St. Alphonsus writes:
Consider how thy Jesus, after three hours’ Agony on the Cross,
consumed at length with anguish, abandons Himself to the weight of His
body, bows His head, and dies.
O my dying Jesus, I kiss devoutly
the Cross on which Thou didst die for love of me. I have merited by my
sins to die a miserable death; but Thy death is my hope. Ah, by the
merits of Thy death, give me grace to die, embracing Thy feet, and
burning with love for Thee. I yield my soul into Thy hands. I love Thee
with my whole heart; I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit
me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do
with me what Thou wilt.
Relating this to our work day:
St. Alphonsus pulls no punches here: We're all going to die someday.
No matter what this day brings along the continuum from failure to
success, the thought that some day you will die provides the perspective
we need to take it all in stride. It thus behooves us to go about our business today with this in mind. We might even see Our Lord's death as the greatest example of snatching defeat from victory and snatching victory from defeat.
His disciples likely saw it as the former. For many of them, their
master was the embodiment of their hopes for a Messiah to overcome both
their sins and oppression by Roman rule. Less than a week before He had
had been carried triumphantly before them into Jerusalem, with the
crowd's "Hosannahs!" ringing in their ears. Now this. Of course, He
would soon snatch victory from defeat on the third day, when He would
rise from the dead.
The next time things don't go your way at work - or even when they do -
you might remember this. Rather than concern yourself with either
failure or success, be concerned instead with whether your daily labor
is for His greater glory.
We conclude today's thoughts with the simple, moving exhortation with
which St. Alphonsus Liguori approaches each Station of the Cross:
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