ST. JOSEMARIA ON HOW TO OVERCOME LAZINESS, A DISORDERED COMFORT-LOVING MENTALITY.

ST. JOSEMARIA ON HOW TO OVERCOME LAZINESS AND A DISORDERED COMFORT-LOVING MENTALITY.

One of the pernicious enemies of holiness is that of laziness, manifested in a comfort-loving mentality, which leads one to flee effort, sacrifice, mortification, conform with the bare minimum…: in short, the Cross of Christ. Anyone who aspires to correspond to God’s call to holiness should be willing to begin again many times daily to conquer one’s self for love of God, and with the help of God’s grace, for the path towards holiness is paved by sacrifice, identifying ourselves with Christ on the Cross.

Below you have some advice from St. Josemaria which encourages us in our daily struggle to unite ourselves with God, often beset by ordinary difficulties, especially by the risk of giving in to love of comfort and laziness.

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One danger you may encounter only after many years in the Lord’s service is falling prey to a comfort-loving mentality. Don’t ever give in to it, my children! You always need to have high ideals, just as you did at the beginning. Perhaps now your ideals are not as ardent in appearance, but they are stronger and more theological…
My children, now that there is so much lack of love around, I would like to remind you that we have to be able to love, and love with all our heart. If we give our Lord our whole heart, lovingly, we will have no problem about opening it wide in prayer and in spiritual direction, with all its wretchedness and weaknesses, so as to show what we are like completely and fully, in all humility, and learn to love even more and make up for what we have been unable to undertake or failed to achieve.

The way to vanquish a comfort-loving mentality is the path of self-giving: renewing our noble ambitions, until the end of our earthly journey, through the devout fulfilment of the Norms and our daily struggle. It is your father who is telling you this, who at “seven” years of age has to struggle just like you, and perhaps even more, because I am worse than you.
I would like you to feel encouraged and supernaturally responsible. Don’t worry when you find the going hard. Think – with pleasure – of the fact that God has entered your heart, and that he is asking you for it completely. And don’t ever forget you are doing the same divine work as those first Twelve who accompanied Jesus. That’s how to be very happy always.
In this life we will never lack joys or sorrows. But don’t forget that if our Lord sends us a joy it is because he loves us; and if he sends us some sorrow it is to see if we really love him.
As long as we are wayfarers we will necessarily have victories and defeats. But we recover our supernatural peace the moment we return to God, the moment we come close to our Lord, fleeing the little consolations which earthly things can offer. People are happy when they really give themselves to God.

I especially ask those of you, my children, who have already spent some years working in our Lord’s service, to serve even more readily and to be happy doing so. Don’t fall asleep, and above all don’t become comfort-seeking. Our Lord expects you to renew your self-giving afresh every day. Tell him you are going to love him more. You have to do things now with at least the same effort and enthusiasm as when you first started out along this divine path. Moreover, people are watching you, and while you shouldn’t let that influence what you do, as you go about trying to do God’s Will, others are learning from your dedication and are being helped by it.

Talk to Jesus Christ, to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, and open your soul completely to the person whose duty it is to listen to you. Speak out in all sincerity, without hesitating, and without entertaining scruples: don’t tolerate them, because that would mean belittling the Heart of Christ. I am completely convinced that Opus Dei is a sign of heaven’s mercy towards us; and I can see, with ever-increasing clarity, that everything in the Work leads us straight towards the hands of God.

Quote from the “Book of Meditations” (Private collection)

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