Plan of Life

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.

There was a man once who was walking along by the sea, and he found that his foot tripped against a bit of a pouch or something. He picked it up and he found there were stones inside.

He began to take the stones one by one and to throw them, as far as he could, out to the sea.

As he threw each stone far out into the sea, he said to himself: “When I get rich, I'm going to buy myself a fine house.”

And then he took another stone and threw it as far as he could into the sea: “When I get rich, I'm going to buy some fine clothes.”

And the third one he threw far away: “When I get rich, I'm going to have some wonderful food” and so on.

All sorts of dreams about all sorts of wonderful things he was going to do in the future, until he was down to the last stone.

When he took out the last stone, somehow a sunbeam or something hit off the stone and it glistened a little bit.

He realized…he looked again at the stone, he found it wasn't a stone; it was a diamond. He'd been throwing diamonds far out into the sea.

He'd been dreaming about future treasures that he might never have, but he'd been throwing away the treasures that were in his hand.

Sometimes, there are treasures in life that we have in our hands and sometimes we don't realize it.

We can ask Our Lord to open our eyes so that we can see those treasures, savor them, use them, thank God for them, go as far as we can with those treasures.

One of the treasures that we can learn to savor a bit in this house is the treasure of the formation that we receive.

Part of that formation is formation to have what's called a “plan of life.” It's a term St. Josemaría liked to use a lot: a plan of life.

Generally, in life, it's very good to have a plan. Books about management, and people who deal with management, talk a lot about plans, having a specific plan for each specific activity or time that we're about to do or that we have.

I heard somebody say once that what is planned for, generally gets done.

When we write down our plan on a piece of paper, it's so we know what we have to do this afternoon, or this week, or this month. It helps us not to forget things and helps us to be more organized. It concretizes things.

Things that are not planned for—they're just sort of ideas in our head that float around the place. Often, they don't have any practical translation into reality. Plans are very good things.

A plan of life basically refers to a plan for our spiritual life.

It's good to have plans for every aspect of our life—our professional life, our domestic life, our apostolic life, our sporting life. Every area of our life can have a plan. It's a good thing.

But if our spiritual life is one of the most important aspects of our life, then it’s all the more important that we would have a plan for it.

Pope St. John Paul, in nearly all of his encyclicals, says there are three important questions that every human person must ask themselves continually throughout their life: Where have I come from? Where am I going? What is my life all about?

He said, To a large extent, the happiness that we achieve in this world may depend on the answers to those questions.

With the formation that we receive in this house, we’re helped to formulate the answers to those questions.

If the most important thing in our life is to get to heaven—that's what life is all about, that's why we're here; the immortality of the soul and the goal of the soul, the destiny of the soul, that's what everything is all about; it gives meaning and purpose to every single thing that we do in this world—then, it’s very important that we have a plan for our spiritual life.

St. Josemaría outlined certain spiritual activities then, that we try to practice every day, in order to live that plan and to put that plan into practice.

Our Lord said in the Gospel, “It's important to pray always” (cf. Luke 18:1).

Our plan of life is like a system that we have that helps that goal, or that idea, not just to be a nebulous idea in the clouds but, concretize it in a concrete way every day, no matter where we are, or what we're doing, or what the circumstances of our life are.

The first aspect of the plan of life is to say the Morning Offering.

Try and jump out of bed as fast as you can, living the heroic minute, and then to say that Morning Offering, whereby we offer to Our Lord every single little thing that we are going to do today—everything for the glory of God: my thoughts, my works, my actions, my feelings, my sufferings.

In the very first moment of the day, we're trying to convert everything into prayer. We're helping our soul to breathe.

We're helping our soul to infuse the whole of our body with that spiritual life that God wants us to have.

The Psalm says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). Taste and see for yourself that He's truly wonderful.

When we give that spiritual touch to everything we do, everything acquires a new meaning and a new purpose.

We've offered it to God—the cleaning of this table, or the polishing of this floor, or the setting of this table, or the ironing of this particular piece of clothing, or the class that I'm about to attend, or the homework that I have to do, or the exam that I have to study for, or my conversations with my friends, my relaxing and enjoyable moments—everything gets brought into a unity.

The apostles, when they first met Our Lord, “They asked Him, ‘Master, where do you live?’ He said, ‘Come and see’” (John 1:38-39).

Our Lord invites us with those same words, “Come and see.” Enter into my heart. Enter into a closer relationship with me.

Have a period of mental prayer each day—ten minutes, five minutes, fifteen minutes—a period that you have planned at a specific time, whereby you will come to the oratory. Or it can be anywhere, but preferably in the oratory is the best place for us to pray.

We spend time with God, and we talk to Him about the ordinary things. Or maybe, we use a book like The Way.

Try and make as much use as possible of that little book, The Way, while you're in this house. It has changed the lives of many people.

It's a series of little reflections. You may read one or two or three, and then talk to Our Lord about those little points that you've read.

It can change your life. It can be the basis of prayer. It can help us to put more order in our lives, and lead to that plan, put that plan into practice in a concrete way.

Our soul needs those moments of prayer, moments of contact with Our God, whereby we talk to Him in the intimacy of our soul.

“As a deer long for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Ps. 42:1-2).

John Paul II liked to say that in Christ we find the meaning and the purpose in our life. Many great things depend on that little period of mental prayer that we try to organize in our day, into which we try to give priority.

One of the important aspects of our plan of life is the priority that we give to these activities. St. Josemaría called them the norms, the norms of our plan of life.

One of the key ideas of these norms is that they have to come first. We put them first.

There was a lady once who stood up at a get-together with Blessed Álvaro del Portillo in Dublin and said, “Father, I'm a mother of eight children. I have no home help. I have to do the washing and the cooking and the ironing and the cleaning and the marketing, and I have to bring my kids to school, and so many other things. How can I find time in my busy day to be able to fulfill some norms of the plan of life?”

Well, her question was very relevant. We could all ask the same question.

How can I find time? I'm a student in Kibondeni, I have a lot of homework to do, I have classes to attend, I've got to get to school, I've got to get home again, and then I've got duties to look after here. I've got this job and that job, and I have to call my mother, and I have to look after this other thing, and I have to think about that cousin of mine.

How can I find time in my busy day to give time to God?

Blessed Álvaro del Portillo answered her, saying, “You know, it's true, you're a very busy person. You have many things to do. The litany of things you have to do is very impressive—in fact, it's endless.”

“But,” he said, “you've left something out of your litany. You've left God out of your litany. You put God into the litany of things that you have to do every day, and you put Him first, and then you'll find time for all the other things.”

That's the key: to put God first. To give priority to our norms. And you see, when we put God first in our life, then all the other things fall into place.

You find that, I thought I was very busy with a whole series of other things, but now that I'm living these norms of the plan of life, I see that it all fits.

Perhaps I wasn't as busy as I thought I was. In fact, perhaps I was pretty good at wasting an awful lot of time thinking about this or that or something else.

But now that I’ve put God first, suddenly I see with greater clarity what's important and what's not so important; what things that can wait; or things that I was giving an awful lot of time and importance to, that perhaps are not so important.

But when I focus on the really important things in life, suddenly I see things in a different light.

Living that priority of the norms of our plan of life imposes a certain order in our life, and order gives peace.

Order has been defined as the peace of having things in their right place. Peace is a great treasure to have in our life, a greater peace, because things are in their place.

You can say that about any aspect of order. We go to our drawer, to our cabinet, and things are all over the place. We can spend ten minutes looking for something that we might be looking for.

But if everything is in its place, that gives us peace, it gives us joy. I can find things immediately.

The Psalm says, “O God, you are my God; I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is” (Ps. 63:1).

“I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Make haste to answer me, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me” (Ps. 146:6-7).

If we try to have a little period of spiritual reading every day—and again, the treasure of that spiritual reading cabinet behind the oratory is something to make great use of while being in the center.

Those books have been very specially selected. There are treasures there, treasures of gold, golden ideas that can shape our soul and shape our lives, shape our values, shape our apostolate, shape all the good that we can do in the world with our friends, with our acquaintances, with future people that we may meet.

There is a whole amount of formation that we can absorb from those books that are there. Spiritual reading is a very important activity.

But unless we make a definite time for it, it will never get done. Hence, the importance of a plan.

At this time, I do my mental prayer. At this time, I do my spiritual reading. You can even write it down on your piece of paper, in your diary or something.

I live by this schedule. A schedule imposes order in our lives.

There was a school kid once who had a tutor, and the tutor was trying to tell him that for the weekend, he should try and have a schedule.

The kid said, “I don't want a schedule. I have a schedule all week. On the weekend, I want to be free. I don't want to be tied down by classes and homework and things I have to do. I want to live a free spirit.”

But the tutor sort of encouraged him: “Well, you try and have a schedule. Plan your weekend and you'll find that you may get an awful lot more things done than if you just try to be free.”

The kid tried to have a schedule and experimented a little bit. To his great surprise, he found that “when I have a schedule, it's true, I get an awful lot more things done.” The weekend became far more fruitful.

To impose that order in our weekend, in our week, in our days is a great habit, a great virtue to get into.

Those spiritual activities have a great role to play in that. Later in the morning, because hopefully we try and get these things done in the morning, early in the day, because if you leave the norms to the last thing of the day, well, the day can get very complicated.

We can get phone calls, we can get new duties, we can get new assignments. We thought every day was going to be nice and smooth and simple and suddenly the day gets very complicated, because I get this message, or I get this piece of news, or I'm asked to do something else, or there is a jam somewhere.

The trick is to get everything done early, the earlier in the day. Some days in your life you might even realize, I have to get up a bit earlier to get my spiritual reading done, because it becomes so much a part of your life.

You see, there are certain activities in our life that if we don't do them, we realize there is something that we've forgotten to do.

Maybe it's making my bed, or if I didn't brush my teeth this morning, by 11 o'clock we're wondering: there's something funny in my day that I forgot to do. Then we realize, Oh, I didn't brush my teeth or, I didn't comb my hair.

There are certain basic things that something bothers us if we forget to do them. Hopefully, the norms of our plan of life become a little bit like that.

Some day I might feel I have to get up early in order to make sure I get my spiritual reading done, or my prayer. Because then I'll feel right for the day. I feel there's order. I know where I'm going. I know what my life is all about.

If you can try to get into the habit of living this plan of life while you're here, hopefully, it will be one of those treasures that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.

Those practices, that treasure, help your soul to be on the right track, because someday we’re going to die.

And if we're able to look back and say, “Lord, I've tried to be close to you every day of my life. I've tried to live these practices” then, we have a real spiritual life going.

You'll find that will lead to other treasures, spiritual treasures—ideas, truths, beauty, love—that you will be able to give to other people, because everybody's soul and heart are “as a deer that longs for flowing streams” (Ps. 42:1).

They're looking for truth and beauty and love. Because of those practices, you have things to give them.

Our Lady said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46). Hopefully, our soul too will magnify the Lord.

People will discover something there in the background of our life that gives a new spark, a new meaning, a new purpose.

Hopefully, later in the morning, we say the Angelus or the Regina Coeli, that 12 o'clock appointment with Our Lady—something very special, very brief, very simple.

But no matter where we are or what we're doing—we could be in the matatu, we could be at the top of a mountain, we could be in the supermarket—we stop and we say that Angelus, because this is my appointment with Our Lady.

Again, this is something important. I stop what I'm doing for that 12 o'clock appointment, because I have an appointment with the most beautiful and most important Lady in the whole world. I ask her for things, and I tell her things, how my day is going. I make that contact.

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:6).

Every time that we try to fulfill one of these norms of our plan of life, God gives us a special grace, a special joy, maybe a special idea, a special bit of light. And all the time we're growing forward in our love of Him.

After lunch or at some other moment of the day, it can be good to make a little visit to the Blessed Sacrament.

Hopefully, when we come in and out of the house, we try and go to the oratory, make a genuflection, say some little words of affection to Our Lord present in the tabernacle: “Hi Jesus, I'm here”—like a custom that we live.

There was a little girl once in kindergarten school. The kindergarten school was beside a parish church, and the mother suggested to her that every day at break time, that she would make a little visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

But of course, break time is break time. She flew into the chapel and said, “Hi Jesus, this is Mary. Bye.” And she flew off again.

But she did this every day: “Hi Jesus, this is Mary. Bye” because she had very important things to do in her break time—play and eat, etc. etc.

But then one time, she got very sick, and her mother was very worried. But she told her mum not to worry because, “Last night I had a dream and in the dream I heard Jesus say, ‘Hi Mary, this is Jesus.’”

That contact that had been built up—friendship, unity. Use those opportunities. They're gold. That's why living out of our plan of life is like acquiring spiritual gold.

An awful lot of people in this world spend their time trying to acquire material gold, material possessions, or material well-being. That's all very well; it has its place.

But spiritual gold is much more valuable. It lasts. It doesn't disappear like everything else in this world.

We should try and go for gold and use this time and this opportunity, this grace, while we have all these things laid out for us.

Possibly this is one of the reasons why God has brought you to this center. Nothing happens by accident.

You might learn to savor that spiritual gold and to acquire it, invest it, and build up a treasure.

You see, Our Lord often suggests these things to us in a very subtle way. He doesn't impose it on us. He just sort of lays it out for us, but then leaves the rest up to us, up to our initiative, because He wants us to really want it.

It was like when He explained the parables to people. He didn't make it explicit to everybody there.

He spoke His truths of beauty and love in parables, so that only those who wanted to hear it would find it and understand it.

He doesn't impose Himself. He's very polite. He invites us to “come and see” but He doesn't demand us. So the ball is in our court.

“And rising very early,” we are told in St. Mark, “going out into a desert place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Our Lord gave great importance to His spiritual life, the primacy of the spiritual. “Very early, going out, he went into a desert place.”

He got up early. His prayer came before everything else. He gave priority to it as though giving us an example of how we too, have to try and give that priority to the spiritual things.

Then, like that lady, when we place God first, many other things will fall into place.

Another norm that should have a place in our day is our Rosary. There are all sorts of Rosaries we can say: Rosaries while walking to school, Rosaries here in the oratory, Rosaries while we're avoiding to fall asleep at night.

A Rosary can be said in any sort of place. But at least we try and have that priority to get our Rosary said. Have our Rosary beads, if possible.

When we come to the end of the day, there's an examination of conscience, which can be to examine our life, particularly our spiritual life.

How have I lived these norms of the plan of life today? First and foremost, have I got them done?

Did I live my heroic minute? Did I say my morning offering?

Did I get my mental prayer done, and my spiritual reading?

If you spend fifteen minutes every day reading a spiritual book, at the end of the year you've spent ninety hours reading spiritual things. That's an awful lot of formation, but acquired little by little, bit by bit, piece by piece.

Did I make my visit to the Blessed Sacrament? Did I say my Angelus?

One time, Blessed Álvaro del Portillo asked somebody who came to put a piece of paper on his desk. He said, “My son, did I pray the Angelus with you yesterday?”

The person said, “Yes, Father, you did.”

He said, “Oh, thank you very much, because when I came to my examination of conscience last night, I couldn't remember where or with whom I prayed the Angelus, but now you've tranquilized my conscience. Thank you very much.”

He lived the examination of conscience, and he lived it with humility, to the point of asking somebody if I'd pray the Angelus with him. There wasn't worry about what they were going to think or what they're going to say: that here I am preaching to everybody about the Angelus, and I forgot to say my Angelus.

And yet the humility to ask somebody, “Did I say it to you yesterday?”

Often, we need the help of other people to remind us of things. Would you like to say the Rosary? Would you like to use this moment to say a decade?

Or, Would you like to join me for a Rosary I'm about to say? Or could we do the spiritual reading together?

Sometimes we need the help of other people. You see, other people's example can be a wonderful thing in our life!

The power of good example is enormous. And we live with people here in this center that give us a lot of good examples.

With the people we meet, or our classmates, we also have to try and give them good examples. Sometimes, good examples can change people's lives, because it helps them to see that these Christian ideas, or these norms of our plan of life, are not just ideas that are there high in the sky.

They're concrete realities that we can live in a concrete way, that help us to be with Jesus throughout our day, and to get the consolation and the joy of that presence of God in our lives.

Often, God will give us consolations that only He can give—deep spiritual consolations that can be wonderful treasures. As we grow in life, we might find that the human consolations—they change.

I was involved in a number of Christmas parties in the last few months with the kids in a village near Shariani. One of the things that the person I was with, who was organizing it, was very important to give, or to bring to those parties, was lollipops.

It’s quite amazing, the influence and the impact of one lollipop. You hold a lollipop out the window of the car and this guy used to say, “Chica, chica,” I think it was.

They would come running. Two would come running and there'd be fifty behind them.

One lollipop can change the world and change the faces of these kids, and the joy on those faces when they took one good lick.

Or how they would fight just to get the wrapper off, and the wrapper seemed to be stuck with concrete. It's very difficult to get off that thing, but they were so determined, using every muscle in their body to remove that wrapper to get at that lollipop. Quite amazing, the impact.

Now I've forgotten the point I was going to make!

Oh yes, the human joys that we've experienced in life that we see will possibly—sometimes the adults came looking for a lollipop also. They were quite happy to get a lollipop too.

Most of us might enjoy a lollipop a little bit, but probably not as much as we did when we were four or five, when we only had one lollipop in a year or something.

Sometimes the human pleasures pass a little bit. But they can give way to great spiritual pleasures, great spiritual joys that we realize can only have come from God.

We could ask Our Lord for that grace to learn how to supernaturalize our life, to be more contemplative, to put a lot of quality into those spiritual activities, to live our deadlines in getting them done in the best place, at the best time, in the best situation, accommodating them to circumstances, bringing them forward, avoid lumping everything together at the end of the day, being vigilant.

You could say we are worth what the norms of our plan of life are worth.

It's not enough to get some of them done, some of the time. We have to be trying to get all of them done, all of the time.

We're told that Our Lady, when she discovered her vocation, “went with haste into the hill country” (Luke 1:39).

She didn't dilly-dally. She went quickly to try and fulfill that will. When we see that it's the will of God that we lead a spiritual life, like Our Lady, we could try and go with haste to fulfill the norms of our plan of life, to fulfill that vocation, to lead a greater spiritual life, to go with urgency, with haste, to get them done, to have that plan.

That’s one of the ways that we thank Our Lady every day of our life, for the good things that she's given to us, for exposing us to this spiritual gold, the truth, the beauty, and the love that are contained in these things—treasures.

Mary, may you help us to realize the treasures that we have in our hands, and to make very good use of those treasures in putting that plan of life into practice every day.

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.

CPG