Toil

“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His Body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24).

First Work of Adam and Eve (Alonso Cano)

When Saint Carol Acutis was told that he would soon die, he told his mother that he was happy to die because he had not wasted a moment of his life displeasing God.

I have heard those words and reflected on them for some time.

You see, I am a busy person.  I run businesses and my family with a serious determination.  I find myself engaging in all sorts of activities that allow me or the people around me to move ahead.  Sometimes the work is useful and other times it is for nothing.  Sometimes I quote on a job that will never come through, and that could be considered wasted work.  And yet there are learnings in that sort of work too.

Saint Josemaria wrote in “Furrow” at 893, “How happy when they die must be those who have lived heroically every minute of their life! I can assure you it is so, because I have seen the joy of those who have prepared themselves for many years, with calm impatience, for this encounter.”

For I am given nothing but this present moment.  And in it I am asked to surrender to God.

I read the other day that a woman was struck by a meteorite in the 1950s in the US as she was lying on her couch in the middle of the day and resting.  She did not die from this – though she was badly injured.  And this event was so improbable that this is the only known instance of a human being, being struck by a meteorite in the recorded history of the world.  How unlikely is that?  One moment she was resting and the next something dropped from Space and struck her.  And I have been reflecting on this.

There has been a string of murders in recent times – young boys and men being fatally stabbed in truly terrible circumstances.  One moment alive and another – dead.  And I have been thinking about that today too.

For each of us has work to do and we are each placed upon the Earth to toil – “To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.’” (Gensis 3:17).

And that toil is a blessing as much as a curse – it is a way to redeem ourselves.  It is a way to prove to God that we are worthy.

And to be worthy, we must toil for God – “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His Body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24).  For there is great Grace to be had through a little bit of work and toil…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.