Seeking God in our daily duties

PRESENCE OF GOD - O my soul, withdraw into yourself and, forgetting all things, persevere in seeking God with all the affection of your heart.

MEDITATION

1. “ Whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him” (Col 3,17). We must seek God, not only during the hours prescribed for prayer, but in all the acts and occupations of life. Jesus said in this regard, “We ought always to pray” (Lk 18,1). There are employments and contacts with creatures required by the duties of our state in life; these are expressions of God’s will, and we should not think that we must avoid them in order to seek Him. If they are regulated exactly according to God’s will, these contacts with others can never, of themselves, be obstacles to the union of our soul with God. However, we must always keep ourselves within the limits of God’s will.

In other words, in our contacts with creatures and in our various activities, we must have but one end in view, the fulfillment of our duties. When, on the contrary, the “affection” of our will fixes itself upon such things, seeking in them a little personal satisfaction, gratifying our curiosity or our natural desire for affection, trying to gain recognition for ourself or looking for esteem from others, then our will strays away from the path of God’s will; our heart becomes attached to creatures, and thus meets a real obstacle—the greatest—to its continual seeking for God. St. John of the Cross expressly requires that we “go forth from all things according to the affection and will” (SC, 1,6). He demands not only the detachment that is material withdrawal from the world, but much more, the detachment of the heart.

2. “Whether you eat or drink or speak or converse with persons in the world, or whatever else you do, be ever desiring God and having your heart affectioned to Him, for this is a thing most necessary for interior solitude, which demands that the soul have no thought that is not directed toward God ” (J.C. CR, 9). In order to be able to seek God and live in close union with Him, even in the midst of our occupations and contacts with the world, we must have interior solitude; that is “the inner cell” of which St. Catherine of Siena speaks. If this foundation is lacking, solitude itself, just like the material cell, would be useless. This “inner solitude” is detachment. A heart which is not completely detached will always and everywhere find something to distract it from seeking God, to enslave it and make it more or less a prisoner of creatures, and to fill it with worldly affections and desires. But once the soul becomes detached, it acquires the great, supreme liberty of being able to seek God and to tend only toward Him through all things, having become capable of desiring God and having its heart affectioned to Him in all its occupations and activities.

Here on earth our search for God and our union with Him are accomplished by means of the will, rather than by the intellect. Even when duty—study, work, teaching, the apostolate—requires intense application of the mind and dedication to the work, the soul can still remain oriented to God by the affection of the heart, that is, with the “desire of charity,” which unceasingly urges it to seek God, His will and His glory. If the charity of Christ urges us, nothing will be able to separate us from Him.

COLLOQUY

As the thirsty stag pants for the spring of living water, so does my heart long for You, O God. My soul thirsts for You; it desires, seeks and wants nothing but You alone.

“O compassionate and loving Lord of my soul! You also say: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that thirst and I will give you to drink.’ O Life, who giveth life to all, deny me not this precious water which You have promised to those who desire it. I desire it, Lord, and I ask for it and I come to You: hide not Yourself from me, Lord, for You know my need and how this water is true medicine for the soul You have wounded.... O living streams, issuing from the wounds of my God! How abundantly do you ever flow for our succor and how safely will one pass through the perils of this miserable life who can draw sustenance from this divine water!” (T.J. Exc, 9).

Only You, O Lord, can satisfy my soul’s thirst for supreme truth, infinite charity, and eternal beauty. When my heart becomes fixed upon any created thing, seeking a little satisfaction in it; when it lets itself be taken up, even to a slight degree, by some earthly affection, and without discretion becomes immersed in the business and cares of life, very soon it has to withdraw from them, weary and exhausted, empty and oppressed. O Lord, create in me a pure, upright heart which seeks You always and in all things; set in order charity within me, so that my affections and desires may remain constantly directed toward You.

“Who can free himself from base and mean ways, if Thou, O my God, wilt not lift him up to Thee in pure love? How shall a man raise himself up to Thee, for he is born and bred in misery, if Thou wilt not lift him up with the hand that made him?... Thou wilt not take away from me, O my God, what Thou hast once given to me in Thy only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in whom Thou dost give me all I desire. I will therefore rejoice, Thou wilt not tarry if I wait for Thee. Wait in hope, then, O my soul, for from henceforth thou mayst love God in thy heart.

“The heavens are mine, the earth is mine, and the nations are mine; mine are the just, and the sinners are mine; mine are the angels, the Mother of God, and all things are mine : God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine, and all for me. What dost thou, then, ask for, what dost thou seek for, O my soul? All is thine, all is for thee, do not take less, nor rest with the crumbs which fall from the table of thy Father. Go forth and exult in thy glory, hide thyself in it, and rejoice, and thou shalt obtain all the desires of thy heart ” (J.C. SM J, Prayer of the Enamoured Soul).