By the Sweat of Our Brow

The thought that I'm going to try and bring out in this post was prompted by a conversation with a good friend almost a year ago, but most of the ideas came to me while milking cows just before coming to school this summer. I finally decided to sit down and write it firstly, in honor of Labor day yesterday, and secondly because in his homily yesterday Fr. Macguire, OCist., put the capstone on my thoughts. Anyways here goes:

As I was saying this line of thought was started about a year ago by a conversation with a good friend who was trying to figure out what to do with her life. The conversation came around to me and what I thought I might end up doing. I jokingly said that for all I know I might end up farming the rest of my life, God seems to have an ironic sense of humor like that, and because I really didn't have (and pretty much still don't have) any idea what He wants me to end up doing. My friend was a little taken aback (she's the type that wants to cure cancer, or be he first female president, etc). "Farming?" she said "Come on Seiler you're called to something bigger than that." Not that she had any disdain for farming but she was of the opinion that we have been given so much at UD through the Core, the Rome program, and the unbelievable Catholic identity all of which combines into a world class liberal arts education and if we have been given so much it was only because we were expected to make full use of it and do grand things. Change the world so to speak. She was supported in this by scripture too, "Much will be required of the person entrusted with much" Luke 12:48.

I wrestled with this idea for a while because instinctively I felt that there was something not quite right about it, however, I wasn't able to put my finger on just what. After a while the conversation slipped from my mind and I wasn't reminded of it until I was milking cows one afternoon a few weeks ago. (Quick tangent: Over the summer I really developed an appreciation for milking cows. It's a great time to think because the basic actions don't require than much mental engagement but yet you are constantly moving for the full three hours. Thus, your mind is pretty much free to think about whatever you want and you don't get sleepy because you never stop moving long enough to.) Anyways back to the topic, as I was thinking in the barn the Gospel from a few days before came to mind. It was the one in which Jesus is in Nazareth and they try and throw him off a cliff after he says how a prophet is never accepted in his homeland. It has always seemed remarkable to me that we have almost no information about Jesus's life between his birth and baptism. Thirty whole years, the vast majority of His life, and we know practically nothing about them. His life during this time was so unremarkable that even His neighbors and the townspeople of Nazareth in the Gospel story didn't notice anything extraordinarily different about Jesus as is evident when they didn't believe he could be the Messiah. Then out of nowhere the conversation I'd had with my friend came back to me. Here was the Son of God, gifted above all men, full of grace, possessing of everything that was the Father's and for thirty years the best, most perfect thing he could do was learn and practice the simple trade of a carpenter. Here was the most perfect human to ever live and the most perfect thing he could do for the first part of His life was humble, poor, manual labor. As I was trying to make sense of this in light of Luke 12:48 I thought of a quote by Mother Teresa that I had just heard that week: "God does not measure our faithfulness by our success but rather He measures our success by our faithfulness." Thus Luke 12 is right, great things will be expected of us who have been given so much, but that which is expected is not necessarily great deeds in the eyes of the world, but rather great faithfulness.

This idea of the simplicity of faithfulness in our vocations had been stirring around in my head as we started school and then in an act of pure Providence Fr. Macguire used the readings from the feast of St. Joseph for Mass on Labor day. The first reading for the feast of St. Joseph is the account of the 6th and 7th days of creation and most powerfully for me the Gospel was the story of Jesus in Nazareth telling the people that a prophet is never accepted in his native place. Father then gave a whopper of a homily (it was a 50 min daily mass all together) but it was right on the mark. It centered on the idea that we were called to imitate God and perfect creation. While this sounds a little strange at first, improving upon our perfect God's creation, that is after all the way He designed it to work. He filled creation with all kinds of potential. He gave us fertile ground the be cultivated, useful metals to be mined, wood to be constructed, and our minds to develop along with infinite other gifts in creation just waiting to be perfected by man. When we bring order to creation as He instructed us, we are truly imitating God. What a sublime calling!

To wrap it up then I want to challenge all of you to spend some time in prayer, especially those of us that are in thick of discerning our Vocations. I challenge you to ponder closely Christ's example in His home in Nazareth. As St. Therese of Lisieux is so famous for saying, not all of us are called to be roses, some of us are just created to be simple daisies. It's a challenge for us to humble ourselves and to perform with great love the simple and mundane things God has called us to, but it is only when we surrender ourselves to His will in this way that the truly great thing can begin to happen, heroic faithfulness. As brothers and sisters in Christ we are all on this journey together so please keep me in your prayers as you all are in mine. God Bless, good luck, and until next time: "quo vadis," where are you going?