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The Light of the World
to us whether He assigns us to this task or to that. We should be prepared at every moment to
undertake and perform whatever He wills and desires. God does not allow us a single moment
for idleness. He determines all things, controls, rules, and ordains all our actions. If He assigns
us no outward work to do, then He occupies us inwardly. At every moment He draws us to
Himself to love Him, to thank Him, to praise Him, and to subject ourselves completely to His
holy will. Every moment of the day should be an expression of the child’s love for its Father
in an unbroken elevation of the soul which loves Him and delivers itself confidently into the
hands of its Father. At every moment we should contemplate God and His holy will and His
grace. At every moment we can gather rich and grace-laden sheaves for the barns of eternity.
We can be certain of only the present moment, and we must make the best use of it. During
that one moment we must do well what God desires of us. But instead we are so fond of living
for the future; we make plans and are unnecessarily anxious about the things that are to occur
tomorrow. Or we are preoccupied with the past, with unnecessary and injurious recollections,
doubts, and scruples, and allow the present moment of grace to pass unused.
All too often we postpone to a later time what we ought to do at the present moment to
fulfill the will of God. Eventually these deferred duties catch up with us and we find them an
intolerable burden. Thus we can no longer perform such duties as we should. We hurry through
them with an unbecoming haste merely to get them finished, not because we see in them the
will of God. And all this time we should be performing every duty as it comes, with ease and
confidence, with our eyes always fixed on God. Only one who is deeply grounded in the faith
and who is absorbed in God can make the proper use of his time.
Since we waste so much of the time that is given to us, our faith urges us to recall our Lord’s
return for the judgment, and in the words of the Epistle it reminds us of the day of our death:
“Redeeming the time.” We have much to atone for.
What shall I, frail man, be pleading,
Who for me be interceding,
When the just are mercy needing?
Guilty, now I pour my moaning,
All my shame with anguish owning;
Spare, O God, Thy suppliant groaning. 22
Prayer
Graciously grant to Thy faithful, we beseech Thee, O Lord forgiveness and peace, that they
may be cleansed from all offenses and serve Thee with a quiet mind. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Thursday
“Brethren: See how you walk circumspectly, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time,
because the days are evil” (Epistle). The times indeed are evil, filled with temptations, allurements,
22
Sequence of the Requiem Mass, trans. from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
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