Sometimes…it isn’t worry that causes us to focus on the future, but the hope of something better or happier…. We may spend our whole lives waiting to live. Thus we risk not fully accepting the reality of our present lives. Yet, what guarantee is there that we won’t be disappointed when the long-awaited time arrives? Meanwhile we don’t put our hearts sufficiently into today, and so miss graces we should be receiving. Let us live each moment to the full….

To live today well we also should remember that God only asks for one thing at a time, never two. It doesn’t matter whether the job we have in hand is sweeping the kitchen floor or giving a speech to 40,000 people. We must put our hearts into it, simply and calmly, and not try to solve more than one problem at a time. Even when what we are doing is genuinely trifling, it’s a mistake to rush through it as though we felt we were wasting our time. If something, no matter how ordinary, needs to be done and is part of our lives, it’s worth doing for its own sake, and worth putting our hearts into.

~Fr. Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom.

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Soul Work 

The spiritual danger of a mobile and technologically sophisticated society is restlessness and distraction. The noise of machines, the busy-ness of schedules, and the resulting stress of it all fill our lives with demands and endless disruption.

Stop everything at some point in your day today, even for a few moments. Do nothing. Listen. Smell. Feel. Sense. Really see what is happening around you. Relate to others with a pure heart, no strings attached. Live as if this moment was all there is for you.

In that “place” of spiritual presence you will find God. Lift up your heart and mind and thank Him for all His gifts. Open your soul to receive the graces He holds out for you.

Then plunge back into the noise and mayhem of daily life. But do one thing at a time – and do it with your whole soul.

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Source: Fr. Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom, Helena Scott, Tr. (Strongsville Ohio: Scepter Publishers, Inc., 2007), 131; cited in Magnificat, October, 2019.