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Fidelity in the Little & the Great...
"If you stand firm, if you are faithful , whether your task is 'small' or 'large', you will bear much good fruit in the world, though it will not be on your own terms. The concept of small and large, great and insignificant, is generally skewed in modern thinking, and we must admit that these measurements often infect believers as much as non-believers... But [what is] great and small? If we pay attention to everything Christ has taught us, the great is not necessarily what we think of as great by human standards, nor is the small. Greatness has nothing to do with having one's name on a book cover or one's presence being felt in the forums of the world. Genuine greatness may be to labor at humble and humiliating tasks unnoticed by anyone other than God himself. Such tasks put to death within us the core of selfishness in human nature. Indeed, a lifetime of hiddenness, of anonymity and of being considered to be of little or no consequence, if lived in union with Christ, will lead you to a day when you pass through the gates into Paradise and find, to your astonishment, that you are great in the eyes of the Father. "
Michael O'Brien, Catholic author & artist, in "Are We Living in Apocalyptic Times?" , http://studiobrien.com/site/index.php? , 20 September 2005.
posted by Holly at 7:45 PM
1 Comments:
Like pollution in the air, we breathe invisible ideologies into us all the time - and this is not new. So many times, even in Jesus's walking and talking with the disciples, He had to set them straight - especially when it came to their notions of service and greatness.
The reality is that we can do all the big projects and large activities we want, but if we are doing our own will over God's, there is no merit in it - in fact, it may actually be harmful to others...
Conformity to God's will for us is the key to holiness and integrity. As Michael O'Brien noted, that may not be what we have in mind necessarily...
For myself, when I was at home full-time and never got a chance to do any public speaking, all I wanted was to do public speaking... But now that I have a chance to do public speaking, all I want to do is be home! Go figure! :-)
But the key is to do as GOD intends for us - and to realize, our greatness lies in our loving union with Jesus - our union with Him which says "Father I will do YOUR will, not mine." and Mary's "Behold the handmaid - be it done unto me according to YOUR will."
THIS is what effected our salavation. THIS is what made Mary Queen of the saints. THIS is what will lead you and I to holiness and true greatness... Let's place ourselves in God's hands - confidently - humbly - and tell him to do his will in our lives - no matter how mundane or opposite our liking His Will appears to be...
And let us have a new respect for the dignity of our mothering vocation - that His call to us in our homes is a high prriority in His Plan...
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