Hajja Salesjana January-March 2020

21 H AJJA S ALESJANA How does this play out in my life? Christ —He requires all of me and in return, He gives me everything I need. Through my active prayer life, worship at Mass and participating in the Sacramental life of the Church He founded, I serve Christ and make sure He is my top priority. “Lord, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be and becoming that person.” (St. Therese of Lisieux) Family —My vocation as a parent/husband is to help my family get to Heaven. I owe them my time and love and I have a responsibility to pass the Faith on to them. In our home, family dinner is a priority as is the commitment my wife and I share in loving our children enough to challenge them with the truth. We work hard to ensure our children grow up to value the sacrament of marriage by modeling a great marriage at home. Work —I focus on sanctifying my work and pursuing excellence. I must remember that my vocation is not my job/career. My job exists to serve my family… not the other way round. My job provides a living for my family and a way to fulfill my mission, but it cannot be allowed to consume me in an unhealthy way. Having our priorities straight requires intentionality and commitment. We must plan our time, have lines we won’t cross and stick to our principles. Most importantly, we must recognize that we are made for Heaven and not for this world. We will be judged one day by how we lived, not how fast we lived. “We must always remind ourselves that we are pilgrims until we arrive at our heavenly homeland, and we must not let our affections delay us in the roadside inns and lands through which we pass, otherwise we will forget our destination and lose interest in our final goal.” (St. Ignatius of Loyola) Step Two: Practice Detachment How do we detach? Does this mean we need to become hermits in a mountainside cabin? Of course not! But, we need to acknowledge that we live in a materialistic and consumer driven world encouraging us to acquire as much stuff as possible, often at the expense of what is truly important. If we can practice real freedom from the blind pursuit of an illusory better life attached to acquiring more material goods we don’t need and other negative influences of this world, we will be better prepared to make healthier and more meaningful choices in life. Also, remember that attaching ourselves to the right people and activities will further help us detach from negative influences. Step Three: Serve Others A few months ago I was meeting with one of my executive coaching clients when we were about two weeks into our working relationship. She walked into the room, obviously very excited to share something with me. She placed a two- page document on the table between us and declared: “I want to discuss mission statements today!” Obviously these pages represented hers. She then asked me to share my own mission statement before we discussed hers and my client took out her notebook to write Photo: Joshua Earle from www.unsplash.com