Today's Task

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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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.

Our Lord advises us in Saint Matthew, “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day” (Matt. 6:34).

And in The Way, we’re told yesterday is over. We don’t know whether we will see tomorrow, since no one has been given knowledge of the future.

All that remains to us from yesterday’s toil are reasons, many reasons for giving thanks. We can thank God for his bountiful outpouring of graces and blessings. We also owe gratitude to all those others around us. Hopefully we will have added, even if just a little, to our treasure in heaven by the things that we completed yesterday.

From the day that is gone, we can draw motives for contrition and penance for our sins, our errors, and our omissions. Possibly when we go before God on the last day, the greatest thing for which we will have to accuse ourself would be our omissions.

Of yesterday we can say in the words of the Psalm, “the Lord has been my strength. He has led me into freedom. He saved me because he loves me” (Ps. 18:1, 19).

Tomorrow as yet is not. If it comes, it will be more wonderful than we could ever dream, because our Father God has prepared it to sanctify us. In the Psalms we’re also told, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15).

There are no grounds, objectively speaking, for letting worry and concern for tomorrow weigh us down. We will be given the graces we need in order to contend with anything that crops up. We will be victorious.

What matters is today. Today is the day we need in which to love, to grow in holiness, through those countless little occurrences that go to make up the texture of our life.

Some things naturally will be pleasant. Others perhaps less gratifying. But each one of them can be made to shine for God and for eternity. A gem which we will have wrought and polished with human perfection and supernatural meaning.

Sometimes our fanciful imagination improves upon the reality of past events, and enslaves us by idealizing a future reassuringly free from effort. Or it may, on the contrary, show us a dark horizon, a prospect that makes us apprehensive. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “he who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap” (Eccles. 11:4).

It is an invitation to get on with carrying out the duty of the moment, without stopping to see whether a better opportunity may perhaps arise. It’s easy also in our apostolate for us to postpone a project for a more suitable occasion. But what would have become of the apostles’ preaching if they had waited and looked for more favorable circumstances? What would have happened in any successful work of apostolate if Christ’s followers had stood down in the off chance of better conditions?

Here and now is where I must love God with all my heart and with deeds.

Humanly and supernaturally, holiness and effectiveness consists mainly in living each day as if it were the only day in our life. Each day is the one we must fulfill with love, fill with love for God. Every day is one we must finish, leaving it brimful of good works.

We can’t let a single chance of doing good slip through our hands. Today does not come around again, ever, and God expects us to fill it with love and with little acts of service towards others. Our guardian angel should be able to rejoice when he offers each day to our Father God.

Our Lord begins his advice with the words, “do not be anxious” (Matt. 6:34). Fruitless worry does not cancel out the misfortune we dread. It foolishly goes out to meet it. We shoulder a burden without yet having received the grace God would give us to enable us to carry it out.

Worry magnifies difficulties and diminishes our ability to fulfill the duty of the present moment. Above all, we fail to trust in the providence that God exercises over every situation in life.

The Prophet Isaiah says, “can a woman forget her child at her breast, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15).

We know that today in all that happens, our Father God will think of us with love. And frequently in the Gospel, Our Lord reminds us, “take heart, it is I, do not be afraid” (Matt. 14:27).

We can’t carry at the same time the cares of today and the worries of tomorrow. We always have sufficient help to be faithful today, to live this particular day with peace and joy. Tomorrow will bring new graces, and its burden will be no heavier than today’s has been. Each day has its toil, its cross, and its own joy.

Every day of our life is watched over by our Father God who loves us so much. We can live only in the present. Anxieties almost always arise because we fail to put all our effort into the here and now, because we fail to repose all our trust in God’s providence. The anxieties vanish when we repeat sincerely, “Lord, I want what you want, because you want it, as you want it, as long as you want it.” It’s a prayer from Pope Clement.

And then comes the gaudium cum pace, the joy and peace. Sometimes we might be tempted to want to control the future, forgetting that our life is in God’s hands. May we not be like the impatient child who skips through the pages of his book to find out how the story ends.

God gives us our days one after another for us to fill them with holiness.

In the Old Testament we read of the Jews in the desert. They gathered the manna that God gave them as daily food. Some of them, wanting to lay up some supplies of it for the future in case of shortage, took more than they needed and stored it. The next day they found it rotten and inedible. They lacked trust in Yahweh their God, who watched over them with fatherly love.

We should certainly provide prudently for the future, but not like those people during the wanderings in the desert who relied on their efforts alone. Ours should be a hopeful happiness as we take up our daily task, concentrating our mind, our heart, and all our energies upon it. This trust in God, holy abandonment, does not lessen our responsibility in acting and in foreseeing what to do in each case. Nor does it mean that we should not bother about being prudent. It’s in stark contrast, nevertheless, with a lack of confidence in God and with the pointless concern about things that have not yet taken place.

So Our Lord says, “do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34). Let us make good use of today.

God knows what it is we need. We’re told in Saint Matthew, “seek first the Kingdom of God and his justice, and all these other things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33).

We could try to have a firm and general determination to serve God wholeheartedly all our life long. Let’s not ask to know anymore than that there is a tomorrow about which we need not be unduly concerned. Let our concern rather be for the good that we can do today.

Tomorrow will soon become today, and then we will give it our attention. We need to gather our provision of manna for today and no more.

Saint Francis de Sales says we should never doubt that God will send another shower of manna on the following day, and the next one, and the next one, as long as the days of our pilgrimage last. God will not fail us. When we live in the present, we give our attention to real things and to people. This means that we mortify our fancy and waste no time on inopportune and fruitless recollections. Our imagination can withdraw us into another world, far away from the only world designed to be the scene of our sanctification.

Very often our imagination can occasion a squandering of precious time and make us miss many real opportunities for doing good.

Lack of interior mortification of our imagination and of our curiosity is one of the great enemies of our sanctification. If we live in the present, we will succeed in rejecting unreal fears of imagined future dangers, which our fantasy enlarges and distorts. At times, too, the conjectured crosses our imagination depicts put us out of touch with reality, and then we suffer uselessly instead of joyfully accepting the little crosses that God offers his children to carry each day — crosses that can fill them with peace and joy.

If we live the present moment to the full for love, we unfailingly perceive those apparently obscure details in which we can be faithful.

Here and now, we should fulfill punctually the timetable that we have set for ourselves in advance. Here and now, we need to be generous with God, with a horror of slipping into lukewarmness. Here and now, God is expecting us to conquer ourselves in this or that minor detail that can prove so hard for us to do or to omit doing. He wants us to advance in those points of struggle which constitute the matter of our particular examination of conscience.

We can ask the Blessed Trinity to grant us the grace to live the present moment of each day with a heart full of love, as if it were the last possible offering of our life upon earth.

Along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, people from the surrounding villages gathered to hear Our Lord. While Jesus was speaking, no one had given a thought to their weariness, to the hours that they had been without food, to their lack of provisions, and to the impossibility of procuring any. The people had become captivated by the words of Our Lord. They had forgotten their hunger, as well as their travel plans.

Nonetheless, Jesus had the material needs of his audience in mind. He took pity on those exhausted people who had been following him for a number of days. So he worked the splendid miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes.

After everyone had eaten, Our Lord took advantage of the opportunity to teach a lesson to his apostles and also to us, about the little things of each day.

When they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost” (John 6:12). So they gathered up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

Our Lord shows us his magnanimity in two ways: first by giving the people as much as they wanted, and secondly by making sure that no food was wasted. He educates by means of dramatic action, as well as through insignificant detail. The grandeur of the heart of Christ is revealed in both the large and small happenings of each day.

The collecting of the leftovers is a way of showing us the value of little things done out of love for God — orderliness, cleanliness, finishing things completely. We could ask Our Lord that we might finish today’s tasks well, that we might focus on today’s tasks and focus particularly on the little things involved in today’s tasks, so that we see we have a special grace to fulfill those things well. Perhaps like on this occasion, it’s through those little things that virtue is demonstrated, that other people learn, and that we grow in holiness.

Christ spent the better part of 30 years immersed in ordinary everyday life. While he occupied himself in a simple workshop, the Son of Man was engaged in the redemption of humanity.

According to the Gospels, during the years of his public life, Jesus remained in continual conversation with his heavenly Father. And yet Our Lord was fully aware of what was going on all around him.

Having brought the daughter of Jairus back to life, he asked that she be given something to eat. Right after performing the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, he told the bewildered spectators, “unbind him and let him go” (John 11:44). On another occasion, Jesus sensed when it was time for the apostles to get some rest: “Come apart into a desert place and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31).

He teaches us to treat human situations according to their proper importance. But we have to sanctify our daily concerns. We can’t live in the clouds. We should be actively involved in the lives of others.

On another occasion Saint Paul reminds us of how we should behave towards the people around us: “With all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love” (Eph. 4:2).

Our Lord calls us to live those virtues which make life pleasant for others. That’s how we demonstrate our love of God. One of the tasks that Our Lord wants us to do today is to see how we can make life pleasant for others in the ordinary circumstances that crop up.

When Our Lord told the apostles to gather up the fragments left over, it would seem to be a detail of little importance, particularly in comparison with the spectacular miracle that had just taken place. But Our Lord makes that request.

Our entire life is made up of many things which are very simple and mundane. We develop virtues by our habitual day-to-day struggle. It’s in this struggle that we forge our sanctity. Love means deeds and not sweet words.

In The Forge, Saint Josemaria says, “Deeds, deeds, and a resolution. I will continue to tell you often, Lord, that I love you. How often have I repeated this today? But with your grace it will be my conduct, above all, that shows it. It will be the little things of each day which, with silent eloquence, will cry out before you, showing you my love.”

Our Lord values order, punctuality, care for the books we use and the instruments we work with, our friendliness towards colleagues, our dedication to our spouse, or our children, or our friends.

We have to fight against any sense of routine in our relationships or in our work. We have to want to give new meaning to each day and each hour, even though we may have been doing the same thing for years on end. Life becomes a bore when we give in to any sense of routine.

We can find a broad field for living mortification in our daily work — not putting people down, working with intensity, carrying out our tasks with a spirit of service.

It’s possible that someday we might be challenged to save someone else’s life at the risk of our own. It’s possible, but it’s not very likely. Yet we do find opportunities virtually every single day to give ourselves for others.

This may involve having a smile for someone we don’t really like, giving a word of encouragement to a member of the family who seems tired or out of sorts, a willingness to withhold our opinion for the sake of avoiding an argument, a conscious effort to listen with interest to someone we don’t find interesting.

It can happen that an action of little consequence — a friendly greeting, a tiny favor, a thank you note — can produce in others a good result out of all proportion to what we might have expected. These simple courtesies help others to feel wanted and appreciated. Social life thus becomes a reflection of God himself.

This is in marked contrast to those situations where people treat one another as mere objects, with careless disregard for the most fundamental aspects of human dignity.

Little things are essential to our struggle to live all the virtues. Faith can be expressed with a momentary act of love when we pass by a tabernacle in the middle of a city. Fortitude can be lived whenever we interrupt an impure conversation, whenever we take a stand for our beliefs, for Jesus Christ and his Church.

Christ awaits us in everyday life. This is the real world to which we belong, which we need to sanctify by our diligence and sporting spirit. It’s here that we will learn to appreciate what he appreciates — those treasures which last on into eternal life.

Our hope is that we will be fortunate enough to win the master’s praise, and to hear the words, “well done, good and faithful servant. Because you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much” (Matt. 25:21).

Our life is made up of many small actions. If we channel all these actions in the direction of God’s will, they will carry us very far. Many small steps will take us to the end of our journey. Faithfulness in little things will steel us in the face of any great temptation.

The book of Sirach says, “A workman who is a drunkard will not become rich. He who despises small things will fail little by little” (Sir. 19:1).

God is asking something of us at every moment, and that something is always well within our reach.

I was talking to a man once from the south of Spain who told me that when he was 20 years younger he had a big handlebar mustache. On one occasion he happened to be with Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, who asked him, “My son, do you ever twiddle the end of your mustache?” A bit surprised by the question, he said, “Yes Father, I do.” And Blessed Alvaro said, “Well, each time you do that, say an aspiration.”

It was a very small little thing. He was making a reference to a very ordinary moment in a very ordinary day when somebody might do some little action like that, half almost unconscious. And he was suggesting that he sanctify that moment with an aspiration.

As a consequence of our initial correspondence to grace, there follow more graces for the second challenge. If we are faithful, one grace succeeds upon another. By focusing on little things, we enjoy the added advantage of diminishing our vanity.

Who will honor us for giving up our seat on the bus? What testimonial will we receive for having kept order in our work area? Who will build a statue to the mother who smiles, to the professor who carefully prepares each lecture, to the student who really studies for an exam, to the doctor who treats a patient with respect for his dignity?

When we offer up our work, we transform little things into big things, human details into supernatural events. Every morning we should make our morning offering with greater and greater devotion. We will see the human and divine come together in a unity of life which will allow us to win heaven little by little.

To be faithful in little things, we need to have a great love for the Lord. We have to foster an ardent desire to be united with him, to find him in the normal circumstances of daily life, as we carry out today’s task. This constant care for little things will nourish our love of God.

Our Lady will teach us to appreciate what seems to be of little importance, to care for details. Imagine how Our Lady and Saint Joseph must have taken care of the task of each day. She will help us to make this our approach in family life, in social relations, in the fulfillment of our duties, and in our dealings with God.

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.

EW