LENTEN RETREAT
Day 28
FOR all the beautiful teachings Jesus gave—the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the Last Supper discourse in John, or the many profound parables—Christ’s most eloquent and powerful sermon was the unspoken word of the Cross: His Passion and death. When Jesus said He came to do the will of the Father, it wasn’t a matter of faithfully checking off a Divine To Do list, a kind of scrupulous fulfilling of the letter of the law. Rather, Jesus went deeper, further, and more intensely in His obedience, for He did all things in love to the very end.
The will of God is like a flat disc—it can be accomplished robotically, even without charity. But when done with love, His will becomes like a sphere that takes on a supernatural depth, quality and beauty. Suddenly, the simple act of cooking a meal or taking out the garbage, when done with love, carries within it a divine seed, because God is love. When we do these little things with great love, it is as though we “crack open” the shell of the Grace Moment, and allow this divine seed to sprout in our midst. We have to stop judging those mundane, repetitive tasks as somehow being in the way, and begin to see them as the Way. Since they are God’s will for me and you, then do them…
…with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)
This is how to love God: by kissing every cross, by carrying every task, by climbing every little Calvary with love, because it is His will for you.
When I stayed at Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada several years ago, one of the tasks assigned to me was sorting dried beans. I poured out the jars before me, and began to separate the good beans from the bad. Then I began to see an opportunity for prayer and to love others through this rather monotonous duty of the moment. I said, “Lord, every bean that goes into the good pile, I offer as a prayer for the soul of someone in need of salvation.”
Then, my little task became a living Grace Moment because I was doing my work with love. Suddenly, each bean began to take on a greater significance, and I found myself wanting to compromise: “Well, you know, this bean doesn’t look that bad… Another soul saved!” Well, I’m sure someday in Heaven, I will meet two kinds of people: the ones who will thank me for setting aside a bean for their souls—and the others who will blame me for that mediocre bean soup.
All things in love—love in all things: do all work in love, all prayer in love, all recreation in love, all stillness in love. Because…
Love never fails. (1 Cor 13:8)
If you are bored, if your work has become tedious, then perhaps it is because it is missing the divine ingredient, the holy seeds of love. If it is the duty of the moment, or you can’t change the circumstance before you, then the answer is to embrace the Grace Moment wholeheartedly with love. And then,
Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others… (Col 3:23)
That is, do all things in love.
SUMMARY AND SCRIPTURE
The Grace Moment imparts grace to us, and others, whenever we do all things in love.
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us… because as he is so are we in this world. (1 John 4:16)
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