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Writer's pictureSarah Raad

Competing

“Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden, waiting on the sick, could be a prayer if it were offered to God.” (Saint Martin Porres).

Heloisas Vow (Pedro Americo)


Every single time I think that I am going to be able to take it easy or have a break, something new pops up and keeps me running around in circles… And I have been reflecting on that today.


The Saints knew that everything of this world is pretty much a waste of time unless it gives glory to God. They understood that to gain the glory of eternity, it is critical that a soul understands its value and place in the world by knowing and understanding that every single thing that is thought, said or done in this world should be for the greater glory of God or it is as wasted thought, word or deed.


And I have been reflecting on that today. You see, I am not a cloistered nun.


When I experienced my conversion some years ago, which occurred through Grace and no merit of my own, my first thought was, “What a waste. Why am I not living in a cloister away from the world and contemplating God and God alone?”


That was of course my first thought… My second was to look around at my husband and my children. My third was to look at my own personality. If there is a soul less suited than mine to a life of silence and meditation, I would love to meet them, because I struggle to believe there is anyone less likely to be able to sit still and think and pray and mediate than me.


And I have been wondering if that lack of vocation to the life of a religious means that I am less able to know and love God…

Saint Martin Porres said, “Everything, even sweeping, scraping vegetables, weeding a garden, waiting on the sick, could be a prayer if it were offered to God.”


And I have been reflecting on that because it seems to me the problem with living in the world and not in detachment from it is the competing interests in my time that distract me from my offering. For I have come to realise that though I am not one of those chosen souls who God can rely on to do His Holy Will in the world by sitting silently in detachment from it, I am able to detach myself from the world in other ways. Through my ability to sit quietly in my own home and at my own desk and in my own kitchen and garden and car during school drop offs and pick-ups, I have the ability to take all those competing interests and turn them inwards so that I can focus on the one and only most important thing in all the world… My Lord and my God.


And through that focus – by clearing all the competition away – I can live my life within the world, with my centre fixed firmly on God Himself… For that is the only way to make my life a prayer…


For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.


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