Susan's Musings: Giving to Others the Gifts We Receive from God

Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town invites its viewers to find the value, above any price, of the smallest event in daily life. Emily, having just died, asks for and receives permission to return to her twelfth birthday. As she relives these happy hours, she experiences the anguish of seeing how she and her family, basically loving yet typically human and forgetful, fail to really “look at one another.” This sad fact causes Emily to beg to be taken back “up the hill” to her grave before the day is over.

                        “But first: Wait! She cries. “One more look. Good-by, Good-by

                        world…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s

                        sunflowers and food and coffee. And newly ironed dresses and hot

                        baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful

                        for anybody to realize you.”

Each of us needs to experience in some way a similar return to the life we once knew. We have to develop a more reverent response to reality, accompanied by the desire to discover the deepest meaning of each seemingly nondescript situation.

Such meditative seeing ought to be a practice we adopt on a regular basis. Unfortunately, in this fast-paced world of ours, we do a lot of looking but see less, a lot of listening but hear little. Although we read voluminously for the purpose of gathering information, we may fail to grasp the inexhaustible richness of writings intended to nourish our soul.

Whether or not we are able to give to others the gifts we receive from God depends on our willingness to let go of our fears, desires, needs, prejudices, and defenses, all of which tend to distort reality. Our aim ought to be “to…comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

The Lord calls us to labor in the vineyard he plants. He asks us to put the Father’s will before any thought of what we do or do not want to accomplish. Our main motive must be to move through each day as he presents it to us whether we lecture to an audience or listen with patience to one person who needs our support.

In the routines of the workaday world, Jesus invites us to minister to others in, with, and through him. His presence permeates our service to society and gives us access to the depth of charity that is a sign of our growing intimacy with the Trinity.

The ebb and flow between inspiration and incarnation has to become characteristic of our everyday life. The height of our social involvement corresponds to the depth of our spiritual life. Our primary concern becomes listening to what God asks of us and letting the answers we receive bear lasting fruit.

Jesus shows us by his example that we need to slow down our hectic pace and get in touch with our truest self. During these moments of prayerful reflection, we try to discern the Father’s will in dialogue with our personal and communal calling.

Jesus himself would at times disappear from the crowd and go off by himself to a

deserted place to pray (see Mark 6:31). To be faithful to the will of the Father, he had to make time in his life for meditative reflection, and so must we.

Just as a candle is of little value without a wick, so our most sincere commitments risk losing their witness value unless we deepen our receptivity to the grace of God. Only then can our quest for sanctity (the universal call to holiness) become the ground of our loving service to all those entrusted to our care.

This rhythm of recollection and participation is an essential feature of Christian commitment. Whatever we happen to be doing—cooking a meal, writing a letter, teaching a class, nursing the sick—we do so out of love for God and a desire to make this love manifest. We try to see Christ’s face in every person we encounter.

Missionary duty is not limited to evangelizing work in foreign lands. It is that to which we ought to dedicate ourselves every day in our homes and professions. Whether we are involved in teaching, law, nursing, medicine, or social work, whatever our position or profession may be, we do our best to remain faithful disciples. Despite daily pressures, we witness to the Gospel truth that if we build our house on the solid rock of meditative reflection, good ministry is bound to follow.

In this way, it becomes second nature to us to remain centered in Christ and to be responsive to the graces bestowed upon us. Waking or sleeping, working or in worship, engaged in ministry or pausing for moments of recollection, we accept as our life’s goal to unite ourselves to our Lord and to share with others “the oil of gladness.” (Hebrews 1:9).