Balancing work and prayer

BALANCING WORK AND PRAYER

Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB

            There may be a time when we are all so busy with our work that we need to slow down our pace and try to look at ourselves inwardly. The time for rest and reflection is important as it serves as an antidote for the stressful lives we live in. But how does one achieve it? The answer is found in the Gospels.

            Christ, too, was involved in a life of service. However, He knew how and when to take the time to nourish His life in moments of exclusive presence to the Father in prayer. The Evangelists tell us that Jesus repeatedly disappeared from the crowd to go off by Himself to pray. He had to make time in His life for moments of reflection. In these moments, He discovered the will of the Father for Him and found the inner strength necessary to live out His will.  


            Jesus tells us by His example that I need to take time periodically to slow down my hectic pace, to enter into the depths of my being and then to get in touch with the true self I am – with Christ in me. During these moments of quiet reflection and prayer, I slowly discover the Father’s will, in turn as it is with my unique individuality and concrete situation. As I develop the ability to discover His appeal, the apparent opposition between spiritual life and worldly involvement diminishes. My primary concern becomes the living out of God’s will as it is manifested in my situation. Gradually, this inspirational dimension permeates all my activities. Just as a candle is of little value without a wick, so my work life risks losing its witness value without a deepening of the contemplative dimension. Candles come in various shapes and sizes. Whether they are used for decoration or for light in an emergency, all candles possess a common element: the wick. Small and insignificant as it may appear, the wick makes the candle what it is. Without it, a candle remains a useless piece of wax. Like the candle, I too need a wick, the wick of a deepening spiritual life. Without this dimension, my involvement in the apostolate risks becoming mere activism.  

Popular posts from this blog

In the world yet not of the world

Image
  IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF THE WORLD MARIO D’COUTO           Being in the world and yet not of it is something that can be a struggle, at least for me and what I mean by that is in as much as we desire to be good and to do good, God is not going to put a glass jar over us and say that just because we choose to love Him and follow Him more closely, that He is going to shield us from the temptations of this world. To make things clear though, this is not to say that the world in itself is bad or evil nor are the things found in the world either but how we deal with it is what will make us or break us. We all have responsibilities and important things that need our attention. If we are not careful though, our hearts and minds can be consumed with the task of keeping them afloat. Rather than centering ourselves in Christ and letting the other elements of our lives take their rightful place around that center, we can end up shifting our attention fr...
Read more

The Gift of Life

  THE GIFT OF LIFE  Mario D’Couto  The above video may seem to put human existence in a rather pessimistic way as if to say that our lives did not really matter and while no doubt there is some element of truth in it, I still feel that if lived well, there is meaning and purpose to our lives and that none of our lives is some sort of haphazard creation.  As I celebrate my gift of life tomorrow, I suddenly began to think that if we compare ourselves to the vastness of the universe and everything else that exists in it, we may perhaps be nothing more than a tiny dot floating on the surface of the earth and yet in as much as such a thing may appear insignificant, the One who created everything chooses to have a personal relationship with that tiny dot, that is, ourselves. This is something truly uplifting, which gives meaning and purpose to our lives and our existence. At the same time, it is also a reminder for us to stay grounded especially in those moments when w...
Read more

Are you creative?

Image
  ARE YOU CREATIVE? Mario D’Couto                         Can you imagine a world without creativity? What would the world look like if there was no creativity? Well, for all we can expect, it would be pretty boring and dull. There would be no speech, no songs, no tools, no ideas such as love, freedom or democracy. It would be an existence so mechanical and impoverished that none of us would want to be a part of.             To achieve the kind of world we consider human, some people had to dare to break the thrall of tradition. Next, they had to find ways of recording those new ideas or procedures that improved on what went on before. Finally, they had to find ways of transmitting the new knowledge to the generation to come. Those who were involved in this process we call creative. What we call culture or those parts of our selves that we internalized from the social...
Read more