How many times have you just felt like you couldn’t do any more than you are already doing? You feel like your plate is full and trying to fit one more thing in is going to push you over the edge, into the realm of insanity. When did we all get so busy? What made us so busy? What are we doing?
I often feel this way, but most often I feel this way when it involves something related to my faith life. Like finding the time to pray, finding the time for a Holy Hour, finding the time to pray outside the local abortion clinic, finding the time to just sit and dive into Scripture.
On the other hand, it is super easy to find the time to check my email, and spend unknown amounts of time reading posts and looking at pictures and liking things on Facebook, setting up new profiles on new social networks, updating my gmail settings, reading the latest news on MSN and the list goes on and on.
So I wonder what life would be like if I spent more time focusing on God and what he wants for me in my life. Yet it seems so difficult to get up and do anything about it and the thought goes through my head of ‘why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?’, yes, “Procrastinators Unite…Tomorrow!”
What if our lack of motivation to grow closer to God is really a manifestation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins, (cue the scary music and wait for it…) SLOTH? AHHHHHH….wait, sloth? You mean the cute little three toed creature that hangs from trees and move really slow, right? No, I’m talking about the spiritual or emotional apathy, the neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive and apathy as the state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion.
What would this world look like if we spent as much time practicing our faith as we did practicing for soccer, if we spent as much time learning about the Saints and reading Scripture as we do learning the stats of all our favorite football players, or if we spent as much time in the Chapel with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as we do on Facebook and Twitter and deleting junk emails? What holds us back from doing what we know to be the REALLY IMPORTANT stuff, like reaching for the Kingdom of Heaven and growing in Holiness?
St. John Baptist de La Salle said:
“You should not be concerned about anything for this present life except to make God reign in your heart by his grace and by the fullness of his love. You should be living for him; the life of God ought to be the life of your soul.
You nourish the life of your soul with God’s life by occupying yourself with his holy presence as much as you are able. What characterizes the life of the saints is their continual attention to God; this should also be true of souls consecrated to God, who seek only to do his holy will, to love him, and to cause him to be loved by others.
This should be your entire preoccupation on earth; to accomplish this should be the goal of all your work.”
St. Josemaria Escriva writes in The Way #325:
“Fight against the softness that makes you lazy and careless in your spiritual life. Remember that it might well be the beginning of tepidity…and, in the words of Scripture, God will vomit out the lukewarm.”
And finally, in Revelation 3:15-19:
“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything.’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those that I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore and repent.”
Pope Benedict XVI confirms all of these when he said:
“The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort.
You were made for greatness!”
So the time is now to step out of our comfort zones. It’s time to get up out of our favorite comfy chair and put God back in as the most important thing in our lives, yes even more important than Facebook. So as I finish writing this, I’m preparing to go spend some time in the Chapel…who’s with me?
And finally since it is All Souls Day, let’s pray:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let Perpetual Light Shine upon them. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
