Order

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his glory” (Matt. 6:33).

Our Lord in Scripture talks about priorities—putting things first. God created the universe with a sense of order. He established order there.

This meditation is about the virtue of order.

It’s interesting how Our Lord comes back to refer to that phenomenon frequently in His preaching: “Seek first the Kingdom of God,” as though He is encouraging us all the time to look to what is most important, to have a sense of priority in everything we do, to realize certain things must come first.

“Rising very early, he went out into a desert place and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

In His own personal life, Our Lord also had a great sense of order. His prayer came before everything. The spiritual things first.

“On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and she saw the stone taken away from the tomb” (John 20:1).

People close to Our Lord always also decipher a certain sense of what is important. They get up early to do what is important. Their heart moves them to what is right.

“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

Possibly in the course of our life we will come to know some people who may have gained the whole world but may have lost their own soul. The consequences of not having a sense of order can be very great.

We can ask Our Lord in our prayer this morning for the grace to grow in living this virtue.

Successful people in many spheres necessarily have to have a sense of order. Knowing what is truly important. We are doing the right thing at the right time.

“When Jesus passed on from there, he saw Matthew sitting at work in the tax collector's place” (Matt. 9:9).

We get the impression from this that there was a certain sense of order in Matthew's life. He was where he was supposed to be. He was doing what he was supposed to be doing. He wasn't down the road, or on the telephone, or looking at the football results, or a whole pile of other things. He was sitting at work in the tax collector's place.

Christ noticed him: this is the sort of person I need to build my Church.

God is also looking for similar souls on whom He can rely to do the great work that He wants done in the world.

We shouldn't just think of this virtue as the means whereby we stick to a timetable, or we place the tools of our trade one on top of the other.

It is a much bigger and broader concept. It embraces the whole of our life, everything we do. It gives us a sense of doing the things today, in this hour, in this moment, that God wants me to do.

He has placed me here in this particular place, in this particular job, with these particular tasks. It is in this particular thing He wants me to sanctify myself.

Whether it is attractive or whether it’s difficult or challenging or dreary or costs me my life's blood, it is here that He wants me to be.

“Here I am because you have called me” (1 Sam. 3:8).

That means that God wants me to fulfill this particular job in this particular moment.

St. Josemaría often liked the phrase, “Today, now” (The Forge, Point 163; Furrow, Point 117; Christ Is Passing By, Point 59).

Therefore, it is very good to have a little list, if necessary, of things I think I need to do today that may be different from yesterday.

As we go through the day, the to-do list may change because life is very dynamic. Things happen, things change, priorities change.

What may have seemed the most important thing at 9 o'clock in the morning, because of some piece of information that has come along or something that has happened, may have changed radically by 11 o'clock.

Order also allows for a certain sense of flexibility. “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape” (Robert Ludlum).

At times we need to be able to change our plans. We may be asked to do something else and that becomes the important thing in this particular moment.

It means we have a certain horror of procrastination. The devil can often work very effectively through procrastination: ‘I do this some other time. I don't feel like doing this in this particular moment.’

It may be that that particular thing is not the thing we should be doing but, if it is something that we should be doing, or something we should have done five days ago or five months ago, then that demands our attention.

We drop other things that we are doing, and we change that particular thing by fulfilling it.

In one of the management books, it gives a lot of importance and emphasis to writing down our to-do list and then being able to cross that thing off. It talks about the pleasure, the joy of putting a pencil line through that particular task that was pending, and that now we have fulfilled.

That author says it is like writing yourself a check, being able to cross that thing out—it is done. It is finished.

Where does our order begin? It begins in the mind, with our ideas, with truths.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about the hierarchy of truths of our faith. It says that the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is at the top of that hierarchy. The most important truth of our faith, the truth of the Blessed Trinity, how God is in Himself (Catechism, Points 90, 234).

There is a hierarchy in things, in those ideas, with the most important ones at the top: God and His plans for us, our values. That helps to order our thoughts with attention and depth.

To what idea do I need to give most attention, my whole heart and mind, in a deep way?

Before discussing something, you have to think about it.

Bishop Javier Echevarría used to say that on one occasion, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later, Pope Benedict XVI) went to Pamplona for some academic act and he was asked his opinion on something.

His response was, "I need to think about it.” He said, “I need to give it a bit of thought before I answer that question.” He was rather impressed with that answer.

Other people might have said: “You know, my opinion is this or that” or “I feel like this about that.” Cardinal Ratzinger was very careful about expressing opinions without having thought about them.

We think about things before acting. Our reason organizes our feelings. There is a hierarchy in the will, a hierarchy in our loves, where God comes first and then others and, lastly, ourselves.

We may have to make an effort to love those who need it most.

There is a story of a priest who went to visit some families in his parish. There was a little girl in the family, and she had a lot of dolls.

He asked the little girl: “Which of the dolls do you love the most?”

The little girl picked out the ugliest doll that was there of all of them.

He was a bit surprised and asked her: “Why do you like that doll?"

“Because all the other people come here—they all love all the other dolls. But this doll is not loved, so I love this doll.”

The priest said he learned from this that we have to go out of our way to love those that need it most and may be a little bit unloved.

Order means that we do one thing at a time. A very practical idea. We don't have ten hands. We put our whole heart and mind into what we are doing at this particular moment, and then we go on to the next thing.

St. Josemaría once asked some people to fulfill a job for him and he ordered the jobs that he wanted done, one to ten.

He called back some time later to see how it was going and was told: “We did number one, but then we thought number three would be easier than number two, so we did number three. Then number five looked like it could be finished quickly, so we did number five. And then we went to number eight."

He told the people: “If I have numbered things, it is in that order that I want them done.”

Sometimes we have to pay attention to the order that other people may place things when they give them to us, beginning with what we ought to do, not what we feel like doing.

Very often, living this virtue can mean conquering our feelings, seeing literally with great reason what is the most important thing and, with charity, being ready to change things if something else happens.

Somebody needs our time, our hand, our help in some particular thing.

We try to have order in our head, order in our heart, order in the use of our time, which is a treasure. And if we try to use it well, we will be asked to account for every bit of time, this treasure that God has given to us.

Some receive five talents, some three, and some one (cf. Matt. 25:15). God wants us to make use of every hour, every opportunity.

That is why if we plan things well and have them written down, we may be able to fit in this little job here and that other little job there.

What is planned gets done.

If we write things down, then we have a plan. It focuses our attention on certain things; takes those nice intentions or nice idea out of the clouds and makes it a reality on that little piece of paper in front of us.

Keep order and it will keep you. Order helps to make us more effective. One of the goals we have to try and cherish in the course of our life is to be more effective. More effective in our work. More effective in our apostolate. More effective in our family. In the practice of virtues. In our growth and formation. In study. In being the better human being that God wants us to be.

The life of the saints is full of order that made them to be the very effective people that they were.

We are told in The Way: “Virtue without order? Strange virtue!” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 79).

One of the things that helps to impose a certain order in our life is our plan of life—our norms, our customs—because we know these are the most important things.

When we are generous with God in putting these things first, many other things fall into place.

There was a get-together in Dublin many years ago with Blessed Álvaro del Portillo.

A lady stood up and said, “Father, I have eight children and I have to do the cooking, and the cleaning, and the marketing, and drive my children to school, and this, that, and the other. How can I find time in my busy day to fulfil certain norms of a plan of life?"

Blessed Álvaro said: “Your list is very impressive. It's true you are a very busy person. You have many things to do. But you have left something out of your list. You have left God out of your list. You put God into your list, and you will find you have time for all the other things.”

In many ways, that is the secret of our life—to be always putting God first, no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, no matter what the circumstances—the norms of our plan of life.

There was an earthquake in Japan one time, and in that particular center there was a lot of physical damage. Everything was in a mess.

The director was heard to say, “The most important thing we have to do today is to fulfil the norms.”

People might have thought the most important thing we have to do is to put all these papers back in the drawers and filing cabinets and get everything into its place. But, no, even in times of earthquake certain things come first.

It is very difficult to attain order without a plan of life: a plan that covers our work, our study, our family obligations, our friends, our relaxation and rest—all these things.

It helps us to do what we should be doing. It helps us to conquer the ever-present temptation of laziness. We all tend in that direction.

But when we have a list of things to do and prioritized and maybe a time beside them, setting a date and a time, that’s like a background check against our laziness: ‘I know what I should be doing. It is a push to get this thing done.’

Some might complain that order leads to routine or makes our existence monotonous. People who think that way are usually people who may be moved by whims, doing what they feel like at any given moment. They may have a horror of a timetable.

Most teenagers sort of feel that way. They don't realize that by acting on whim and caprice, they can end up hardly capable of accomplishing anything. They’re victims of their own imagination.

Without order our lives would be superficial and barren. But with this virtue, we are in training, we are in tune to be able to accomplish the great ideals that Christ has placed in our life—which are the greatest ideals that any human person could have on this planet.

Order helps us to be able to fulfil those ideals, to make them a reality so they are not just dreams; they are hopes. We take them out of the clouds, and we make them realistic, they materialize in our life and our ideals in our spiritual life.

We have heard the concept of heroic minutes. Getting up at the right time, going to bed at the right time.

A little girl said once that she thought her mommy didn't know anything about raising children, because she always told her to go to bed when she wasn't sleepy and to get up when she was sleepy. But yet that mother was imposing order.

That habit of the heroic minute, of getting up on time, helps us to do so many other things on time,

Punctuality: a glorious virtue. We try to live it in our life, to give an example of punctuality to everybody else in the world.

We lift up the whole of society by living this virtue, helping people to realize that other people's time is important. It's a way we respect their dignity.

We can ask Our Lord in our prayer for the grace to have a great sense of punctuality. If ever we are going to be late by a minute or two, maybe, to send a message with all the means of social communication which we have.

If ever we have to keep somebody waiting for a few minutes, we transmit a message to them when we apologize or when we send a message to them: ‘I value your time. I respect your time, which is part of your dignity.’

We help many people to give great importance to time.

There was a radio talk show one time and some executive was talking about the reality of time and suggested that instead of telling people that we would meet them at 8:15 or 8:30 or 8:45, he said, "I will meet you at 8:11 or I will call you at 8:41.”

Then call that person at 8:41, and they realize this person really values their time and gives great importance to that reality.

We transmit messages in this sort of ways.

Our day can be full of heroic minutes, starting on time. With respect to punctuality, we have been encouraged to always try and arrive to things a few minutes beforehand, not on the dot. It is being there a few minutes beforehand.

We can use our time doing other things, waiting for this particular activity to start. That is what punctuality means. Finding peace in living that virtue, sanctifying those moments.

A great help to living order can be to write things down. In our 20s and 30s it may be easier to remember things but, a bit later in life, it becomes a bit more difficult.

To have some sort of a notebook or scratch paper or something where you write things down can be a great help to living order. We sort of declare war on the words, ‘I forgot.’

We all forget things from time to time but, if we write things down, there is a much less chance that we might forget them.

Hopefully we have to say those words less frequently. If we forget something, usually it is because we did not write it down.

Things written down can be a great use to living this virtue well. A great aid to our memory. Discipline our thoughts. Helps us to have a certain priority there in the things we have to do.

When some new idea comes, if we write it down, we won’t forget it. It will be there. We will be able to place it in a certain order later on; waiting for the appropriate moment to consider it a bit more, perhaps in our prayer. Then, to put it into practice.

It might have been a very good idea. We might have remembered a birthday, or an anniversary, or something special that somebody asked us to do. The fact that we remember possibly means an awful lot to that person.

‘Oh, you remembered! You greeted me on my birthday. You wrote it down some place. You give me enough importance that I am there written down somewhere in your phone or in your diary, or something, or contacts of people.’

It puts a certain order in apostolate. We may not be able to phone this person now, but maybe in six months' time we might get around to it. They will be impressed by the fact that we remembered, or we did this particular thing.

St. Augustine said: “Order is an arrangement of like and unlike things whereby each of them is disposed in its proper place” (St. Augustine, City of God).

Order is having things “in its proper place.” Doing the right things at the right time. It means putting things back in their proper place. Returning books. Sometimes fulfilling little favors that other people asked us to do.

The correct arrangement of things with regard to their end, both human and supernatural. It’s part of the virtue of prudence, which disposes practical reason to discern every true good in every circumstance, and to choose the right means of achieving it.

The prudent person looks where they are going. Order helps us to look where we are going. What is it that I want to achieve? What is the purpose of being in this place, or doing this particular job? Or going to this particular shop? What is it that I have to achieve?

Right reason in action.

We try to have that plan, and to fill it to the letter, giving the best moments of our day to things related to our spiritual life. First our spiritual life, second our work, and third material things in the house, in our own personal things, in our cabinets and drawers—which, we are told, can be a reflection of our interior life.

It’s sort of a phrase that has to haunt us: my cabinets and my drawers are a reflection of my interior life. It may feel like closing the cabinet as soon as possible when you think of those words. But it has to haunt us.

Sometimes we have to put time aside to reorder. Put order there in our cabinets again. Or in our drawers, which can so easily get out of order, but yet there has to be time for that.

Order in our affections and in our dreams. We love those who are closest to us, for reasons of family or work or friendship; always coming back to the challenge of charity, asking Our Lord for greater grace to live this virtue.

Order doesn't mean perfectionism. It's a mean between two ends.

We live the virtues with charity. If our sense of order drives other people nuts, then we have the wrong type of order, or we have too much order. People say to us, “Please stop putting things in order."

Charity is above this virtue. It's the order connected with an eternal order that God wants in the universe. We contribute to the beauty and the harmony of the world. We help other people also to care for the environment.

Sometimes you see people throwing banana skins out of windows or plastic bottles. We try and help them to see that's not the way to live. There's a social order to which we all have to contribute.

Order in our person leads to the virtue of urbanity. Looking well for people around us. It's charity also. Giving all the glory to God.

A person with good professional training will work with order. Their workplace doesn't look like a battlefield. They put things back in their place.

In The Way, we're told: “Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are inconstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech, scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short.

“Mark this well: unless you react in time—not tomorrow: now!—that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans 'so full of emptiness') will make of your life a dead and useless puppet” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 17).

“A resolution:” we’re told in The Forge, “to be faithful to my timetable—heroically faithful and without excuses—on ordinary days and on extraordinary days” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 421).

“Plan everything? Everything! you told me. All right: we need to use our prudence. But bear in mind that human undertakings, whether they are hard or simple, always have to count on a margin of the unforeseen; and that a Christian should never shut off the road of hope, or be forgetful of God’s Providence” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 729).

In the life of the Holy Family, we see a great order. There were lots of changes of plans from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Bethlehem to Egypt, all sorts of unforeseen things that were cropping up all the time.

But there was a great sense of what was really important: the Christ Child; the plans of God.

We can ask Our Lady, that we too might have that great order in our life, which brings with it a great peace—peace and serenity of always doing what God wants us to do.

And that we might follow her very closely along this pathway that leads to the great Feast of the Assumption.

O Sweet Heart of Mary, make the way safe. Help us to live this virtue with ever greater refinement.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JM