You must also be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour. (Luke 12:40 RSV)

These words of Jesus were said to every person, without exception. They are accomplished in every person of good will, even though we may have made preparation for death. We make plans that presuppose we will live a long life, whereas life is going to end. The time people do not think will be their last often actually is. Perhaps death will come at this time in our lives. If people who are nearing the end of an incurable illness still hold onto hope for healing, how much more hope do we hold onto when we are in the fullness of health!

But where does this stubborn hope in life come from? It comes from the fact that we love life with a passion. And where does our strong desire to keep death away come from? It comes from the fact that we do not love the kingdom of God or the splendor and majesty of the life to come.

O men who are slow of heart, who cannot rise above this earth where we are so destitute! The true way to hold ourselves at the ready for our last moment is to care little for all other moments, and always to live in expectation of our life’s end.

–Francois Fenelon

Sin may well be called self because it cleaves as close to us as our human body. It is as hard to mortify a lust as it is to cut off an arm or leg. Yet when Christ and the Christian feast together with the “hidden manna” of pardon and peace, he can ask for the head of the proudest lust of all, and take it with less regret on the part of the saint than Herodias felt as she demanded the head of John the Baptist.

There is no other love to open the heart. When love knocks at the door and expresses kindness, there is little reason to fear rejection. Esther, for example, persuaded her husband’s heart against Haman her enemy as she showed strong love to Ahasuerus at a banquet. And God demonstrates His love to Christians each time He entertains at the feast of His Gospel. Surely this is the time He prevails with His children to send the cursed Amalekite to the gallows–that is, lust to its execution.

After Jesus’ blessed words of forgiveness fell into Mary Magdalene’s grieving heart, do you think she could have been persuaded to leave the embraces of His love and open the door to any of her former lovers or sin again? She would have chosen martyrdom first! That one love which makes the saint deny a lust causes him not to deny a cross.

–William Gurnall

Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

We think there are a thousand things we should be concerned with, but there is actually only one. If we take care of that one thing, all the others will find themselves done. And if we fail to take care of the one thing that is needful, all the others–no matter how successfully we may seem to do them–will fall into ruin. So why are we so torn between matters of the heart and our worldly cares?

From this day forward I resolve to give my total attention to the only thing on earth I ought to be concerned with. Illumined by God’s holy light, I resolve to stop worrying and do every moment, with all the strength of my mind and body, whatever God in his providence places in my path. I will not be grieved about turning everything else over to God, because it is not my work I am doing, but God’s. And I ought to want to do only what God gives me to do.

I resolve not to become keenly excited about anything, because it is dangerous to want to appropriate God’s work to ourselves. If we do that, then we do God’s work in our own strength; we turn good in to bad and we allow pride to take over. And then we become flushed with the pursuit of success. We conceal our illusion by using the pretext of seeking God’s glory.

O God, give me the grace to be faithful in my actions, but indifferent to success. The only thing I ought to be concerned with is to desire your will and to quietly meditate on you–even in the midst of busy times. It is up to you to crown my feeble actions with such fruit as is pleasing to you–and none at all, if is what you find best for me.

–Francois Fenelon

Having found in many books different methods of going to God, and diverse practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve rather to puzzle me than to facilitate what I sought after, which was nothing but how to become wholly God’s. This made me resolve to give the all for the all; so after having given myself wholly to God, that He might take away my sin, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world. Sometimes I considered myself before Him as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I beheld Him in my heart as my Father, as my God. I worshiped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of God.

–Brother Lawrence