Original Purpose
Original Purpose
Friday after the Resurrection – April 17, 2020
Each person has a different charism, a different grace given by God to animate our lives. Think of this charism or grace as your original purpose, the design for your creation, your truest vocation.
Considering your charism or unique grace may not lead you to fame or financial security, but it will enable you to fill out the purpose for which you were created.
Your calling in life is not to be like anyone else, but to be fully yourself, fully the person you were intended to be.
At the end of the excerpt below, Underhill says, “All have access to direct sources of spiritual strength in prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading and will not do their best work without these things.” Indeed, prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading are but a few of the ways we begin to come to a sense of our original purpose, our most authentic vocation.
Now the three-fold Ignatian question: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? And what ought I to do for Christ?” takes on a new intensity. Asked here in God’s presence in the silence, it is equivalent to an act of consecration. It is only worth asking when souls are open towards Him. Having asked it with such purity of intention as we are capable of, then that which love makes us really long to do will be right.
Not all are called to the same thing, still less called to do the one thing that they don’t like. The variety of equipment and opportunity is infinite. We are called upon to use the gifts we have and not those we have not. The saints range from Aquinas in the philosopher’s chair to Lawrence, the cook, and they warn us not to narrow our conception of service. Someone must give the orders, and someone must attend to the roadmaking, even in the City of God. Some serve by being, as much as by doing. There is a special beauty in the combination of deep spirituality with simple and homely work.
The connection between real holiness and homeliness is a very close one. Sanctity comes right down to and through all the simplicities of human life, and indeed would be of no use to us unless it did so. Christ’s example warns us against inhuman loftiness. We must fully respond to both sides of reality, and not one alone. When we have done this in the way and proportion right for us, our lives will have the energetic peace of an engine that is running right. If you think you have accomplished its smooth running, don’t forget that it is up to you to keep that engine in order. Don’t over-drive it. Don’t behave with feverish fanaticism. Don’t forget its fuel and its lubrication. This means that you will need a rule of life which should contain a due balance of prayer and of rest, and should give you food, as well as opportunity for expressing energy and love.
It has been said that “we are not called upon to lay our lives down, but to lay them out to the best advantage.” Although it is easy to overstress this and make it an excuse for utilitarianism, there is a real truth in it. All have access to direct sources of spiritual strength in prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading and will not do their best work without these things.
[Evelyn Underhill, The Ways of the Spirit, edited by Grace Adolphsen Brame, (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2001).]
For Reflection:
o I bring the three Ignatian questions into my prayer.
o What have I done for Christ?
o What am I doing for Christ?
o What ought I do for Christ?
Friday after the Resurrection – April 17, 2020
Each person has a different charism, a different grace given by God to animate our lives. Think of this charism or grace as your original purpose, the design for your creation, your truest vocation.
Considering your charism or unique grace may not lead you to fame or financial security, but it will enable you to fill out the purpose for which you were created.
Your calling in life is not to be like anyone else, but to be fully yourself, fully the person you were intended to be.
At the end of the excerpt below, Underhill says, “All have access to direct sources of spiritual strength in prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading and will not do their best work without these things.” Indeed, prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading are but a few of the ways we begin to come to a sense of our original purpose, our most authentic vocation.
Now the three-fold Ignatian question: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? And what ought I to do for Christ?” takes on a new intensity. Asked here in God’s presence in the silence, it is equivalent to an act of consecration. It is only worth asking when souls are open towards Him. Having asked it with such purity of intention as we are capable of, then that which love makes us really long to do will be right.
Not all are called to the same thing, still less called to do the one thing that they don’t like. The variety of equipment and opportunity is infinite. We are called upon to use the gifts we have and not those we have not. The saints range from Aquinas in the philosopher’s chair to Lawrence, the cook, and they warn us not to narrow our conception of service. Someone must give the orders, and someone must attend to the roadmaking, even in the City of God. Some serve by being, as much as by doing. There is a special beauty in the combination of deep spirituality with simple and homely work.
The connection between real holiness and homeliness is a very close one. Sanctity comes right down to and through all the simplicities of human life, and indeed would be of no use to us unless it did so. Christ’s example warns us against inhuman loftiness. We must fully respond to both sides of reality, and not one alone. When we have done this in the way and proportion right for us, our lives will have the energetic peace of an engine that is running right. If you think you have accomplished its smooth running, don’t forget that it is up to you to keep that engine in order. Don’t over-drive it. Don’t behave with feverish fanaticism. Don’t forget its fuel and its lubrication. This means that you will need a rule of life which should contain a due balance of prayer and of rest, and should give you food, as well as opportunity for expressing energy and love.
It has been said that “we are not called upon to lay our lives down, but to lay them out to the best advantage.” Although it is easy to overstress this and make it an excuse for utilitarianism, there is a real truth in it. All have access to direct sources of spiritual strength in prayer, quietude, communion, and spiritual reading and will not do their best work without these things.
[Evelyn Underhill, The Ways of the Spirit, edited by Grace Adolphsen Brame, (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2001).]
For Reflection:
o I bring the three Ignatian questions into my prayer.
o What have I done for Christ?
o What am I doing for Christ?
o What ought I do for Christ?
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