HOLINESS IN LITTLE THINGS DONE OUT OF LOVE FOR GOD.
God calls us to holiness. But God counts on our free collaboration, hence, the necessity of wanting it for love of God above anything else, and fostering the hope that one day, with God’s help, and in spite of our errors, as long as we begin again with a contrite heart, we will be united with Him forever.
Holiness, nevertheless, does not consist in carrying out extraordinary tasks, only reserved for a few. Rather, as St. Josemaria teaches:
Holiness does not consist of doing more difficult things every day, but doing things with greater love every day. Our great desires for holiness have to be expressed by persevering in small things. This has to be your ambition: to persevere in the exact fulfilment of your present obligations, because that work – humble, monotonous, small – is prayer expressed in deeds. And it prepares us to receive the grace for that other work -great, broad and deep – about which we dream: to place Christ at the summit of all human activities.
Holiness consists in carrying out the daily noble, little things of our ordinary activities out of love for God and for our neighbor. Isn’t it true that love consists in little things? The same thing is true for our love for God and for holiness when they are are carried out for love of God and of our neighbor.
For example:
- Offering to Our Lord activities such as sweeping the floor, doing the laundry, ironing the clothes, preparing and cooking the food;
- waking up early to feed your baby, attending to the needs of your children, your wife/husband, with cheerfulness, changing your baby’s diapers…;
- offering a boring class to which you still listen with attention, smiling and attending to a difficult person, or the attending clerk at the store…;
- offering your tiredness and your work well-done to Our Lord, making sure that your employees are treated justly…; or that colleague who is a bit difficult to deal with…;
- or even that moment of jogging, cycling, or team sports…;
- offering to God a headache, a toothache…a grave illness asking for the Church, the conversion of sinners, and for your loved ones…;
- even the traffic jam, the heat, the cold;
- …and the list goes on!
Don’t forget that God awaits each one of us in these apparently trivial things, but in reality, are occasions to seeking, finding and loving God. It is up to us, with the help of God’s grace, to convert the material into something divine.
Let us ask the help of Our Lady, who in her earthly existence, lived a simple life, fulfilling God’s Will in the little things of each day, for love. Let us never forget that holiness is made up of little things done out of love for God.
Mary, Help of Christians, Queen of the family, pray for us!
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