How to Develop a Rule of Life: Time Management for the Soul (Friday’s Meditation)

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ always keeping engraved, in the middle of His heart, the most holy will of His Father as the only rule of all His actions, whether small or great. Never once did He follow His own will; at every moment His Father’s will was the law of His conduct.(John 8:29) How adorable He is in this life of loving submission to the divine good pleasure! Let us render to Him all our homage with this object in view.

FIRST POINT

The Importance of a Rule of Life

A Christian who lives without rule lives at the bidding of his caprices or his changing, vacillating will, or at the bidding of circumstances, which carry him away as by a whirlwind. There is no order in the employment of his time; there is no ingredient of faith in his actions. It is not God whom he serves; it is his own will or his own humor that rules over all that he does. Hence exercises of piety omitted, abridged, or badly performed; hence numerous duties neglected, so much time lost, so many moments badly employed. With a rule, the exact contrary happens. The rule, which directs everything, constantly recalls the mind to God, and renders the soul recollected, and the beautiful order which distinguishes all the exterior actions is reflected within. The soul is always master of itself, and we do everything well, small things as well as great. As each duty has its time marked out for it, not only do we not omit any, but we perform it with greater ease, because we follow a path which is traced out; with more perfection, because obedience raises and ennobles all we do; with greater merit, because the continual submission of our will is very meritorious in the sight of God; with more constancy, because our rule necessarily prevents omissions and maintains everything in order. We are then entirely and solely given up to the present action, time is always well employed, and we are able to perform labors which a man who has no rule of life cannot comprehend. When we behold the numerous books written by our great doctors, or the prodigious works performed by certain men, we ask ourselves how they were able to do so many things. The secret of the mystery is, that everything was regulated in regard to the employment of their time, and that a rule multiplies time. When we have a spirit of order, and we know how to arrange all our moments, we are able to find time for everything, said the holy Bishop of Amiens, M. de la Motte. A rule gives a spirit of order, and a spirit of order accelerates all kinds of affairs. Let us here examine our conscience. Has not our life been ill-regulated? Sometimes we have been idle, as though we had nothing to do; sometimes we have been hurried on by an uneasy ardor, which embroils and confounds everything together, as if we should never be able to reach the end of anything; we are always undecided as to what must be done, and for the most part employed in what we ought not to be doing at that moment. The reason is that we have no rule, or that we do not attend to it.

SECOND POINT

On the Manner of Making and Observing the Rule

Every good rule of life ought to be in harmony with our position, in such a manner that no duty of our state ought to suffer from it, and that no one should have to complain of us. It ought to embrace the plan of the day, of the week, of the month, of the year, and should settle in so proper a manner exercises of piety, frequentation of the sacraments, family duties, the employment of free moments, that every one around us, instead of finding anything to cavil in it, should be obliged to admire the beautiful order which would be its result. The rule being thus made, we must observe its smallest details as well as the most important, with the purity of intention which aims only at pleasing God; with the courage which is able to do itself violence in order to bend the will to it; with the joy which makes it a pleasure for us to immolate ourselves wholly to God; with the promptitude which never defers the execution of it for a moment; with the exactitude which never allows caprice to be mingled with it; and always with the discretion which enables us to derogate from it, with a good grace, every time that charity, propriety, or the duties of our position require us to do so. Is it thus that we observe our rule?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above