"Your Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.
The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft. (Psalms 19:2)
Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”(Luke 17:26-27)
Piety
Lord, there are so many distractions: Facebook, Spider Solitaire, a good book. Give me the strength to resist overindulging in them today at the expense of doing Your work.
It’s not that we don’t want to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and aid the afflicted. It’s just that we’re so darn busy with our own stuff—working to support ourselves and our families, commuting, surfing the Internet, answering e-mails, watching television, listening to the radio, going shopping… the list goes on and on.
As Jesus notes in today’s Gospel reading, the list went on and on in the days of Noah and Lot as well. Everyone was busy with the routine of life—getting married, eating, drinking, buying, selling, building. Then the flood came in Noah’s time. Then the fire and brimstone rained down in Lot’s time.
St. Frances Cabrini, whose feast day we celebrate today, was a master at not letting life get in her way. When the order she founded, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, grew out of its quarters, one of her nuns showed the others how to lay bricks. Years later, when she arrived in New York to assist immigrants, no convent was ready… so she and her seven accompanying nuns spent a night praying rather than sleep in a filthy lodging house. Mother Cabrini went on to found other centers in Central America, South America, Europe, and around the United States.
She suffered a fatal heart attack in Chicago at the age of sixty-seven. She was preparing for a children’s Christmas party at a hospital. Surely, death was not at the front of her mind that day. Her service to the Lord and his people were.
Like St. Frances Cabrini, let us serve like there’s no tomorrow—because for all we know, there won’t be one for us on this earth. Whenever our time ends, let our legacy proclaim that we celebrated the glory of God.
Action
Make a list of five distractions that are the most difficult for you to resist. Play around with them today… then spend that time for the rest of the week finding God in everything you do and everyone you see.
