What We Worked For

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose what we worked for but receive a full recompense. (2 John 1:7-8)

Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! (Psalms 119:1)

(Jesus reminded the disciples of the destruction in the days of Noah and Lot, and said:) “So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind.” (Luke 17:30-31)

Piety

Lord, open my eyes to the temptations, people, and perceived obligations that would lead me away from You.

Study

Ah, the memories.

Who doesn’t like to talk about Snowmageddon, the 2010 series of winter storms during which Washington ground to a halt, or the June 2012 derecho that left millions without power and was responsible for twenty-two deaths?

Or maybe you’ve got a story about where you were when the towers fell or when John or Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King was assassinated or when the Berlin Wall fell.

And who could forget your wedding day, birth of your first child, or the death of your parents?

These are some of the memories by which we mark our lives, the big, eventful type of stuff.

Perhaps we’re less likely to remember the smaller events that threaten to eat away at our spiritual life: Just what it was that that new pastor said that was so awful we chose to skip Mass or go elsewhere rather than address it with him. Just what it was that annoyed us so much about that person who ran the ministry at the homeless shelter that we stopped volunteering. Just what pressing to-do on our list got us out of the habit of doing the daily readings or other spiritual study. Do you remember? Probably not. But your behavior changed as a result, and not for the better.

May we all be more vigilant when those events threaten what we have worked for: a nurturing relationship with the Lord and his people.

Action

Make plans to revisit a spiritual practice or volunteer effort that you’ve gradually abandoned for reasons you barely remember.