Help
With Your Rule
Motherhood Dispels Illusion...
"Without external work, we could not know ourselves fully, for only in daily work do we have a perfect opportunity to observe ourselves; it is then indeed that we discover the good and evil in ourselves and see our merits and faults. Without active work it is usually very hard to know oneself, for there is a lot of hidden evil in us, covered over with apparent calm."
Stephan Cardinal Wyszynski, "All You Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life", New Hampshire, Sophia Institute Press, 1995, p113
posted by Holly at 8:09 AM
3 Comments:
Getting impatient when the children leave their clothes on the floor; Feeling that dragging reluctant feeling which comes with a messy kitchen; being agitated and resentful that we have to clean the bathroom - again!
Wow! What a blessing motherhood is! If I didn't have the work I have to do, I might never know the extent of my selfishness. All of these little reactions to our work shows us clearly that sainthood has NOT been achieved just quite yet... :-)
I remember one time thinking I had conquered myself on a certain issue, and then one of my children had an ear infection, and was up all night crying inconsolably. Well, my internal reaction set me straight about my apparent sanctity during calm in my daily life.
So we don't dismiss or hide our faults, but accept them consciously and up front. Our work is a blessing - a mirror of our interior state - and how we do our work is a good way of deciding what we need to pray for and work on regarding our own holiness.
Well that is an eye opener. I find that I always fuss when the kids leave toys or clothes on the floor. It's just hard to not act irritated. But how else can they learn that it should be picked up?
Hey Ho
I think there are two things here that we are looking at
One: the children's own habits and work that needs to be done; that they need to learn to clean up etc is obvious, of course.
But two: the passage here talks about our 'reaction' to this. When I was a teacher, I wasn't normally irritated or impatient in the classroom when it got messy. I knew my job was to teach those children to clean up when we were done.
But interestingly, at home, I often was irritable. For me, I realized that this was showing me something about myself - why the difference between home and a job?
How I 'react' emotionally is really a separate issue from the objective necessity of my children doing their work.
I don't think Mother Theresa would have considered impatience or hollering a necessary component of training her nuns or those children under her charge in her school for poor children - in fact, she talked about the power of love and acceptance in forming these children.
That's why I found Cardinal Wyszynski's insight so enlightening - my work is a mirror to my own strengths AND weaknesses... My reactions to work show me what I need to work on in my 2nd P.
Post a Comment
<< Home