Living a Completed Life

I recently finished reading a book by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen entitled "the 7 Capital Sins". In this book, Bishop Sheen spoke about the 7 capital sins (angry, envy, lust, pride, gluttony, sloth and covetousness), one chapter for each. While reading, there were many moments that made me stop to ponder and reflect on certain parts. One of these was when I read the sixth chapter on Sloth. Inside this chapter, he used many of the parables and stories from the Gospel. One of them was about the poor widow's oferring. In this Gospel reading, Jesus saw the widow who put 2 copper coins (which is a very small amount) and the rich men who put huge amount of money into the love offering box. While observing these with his disciples, Jesus made a point that the rich men gave out of their abundance while the widow gave all she had and thus not only did what is obliged of her, but much more. Bishop Sheen added that she, the widow, had lived a completed life.

In this chapter, Bishop Sheen reminds us about the spiritual sloth and encourages us to live a completed life. Now the question is, what is a completed life? a life truly fulfiled. Does the completed life means a successful life? No, according to God's standard, no. Bishop Sheen mentioned the following in the book, "The world judges us by the results; Our Lord judges by the way we finish and fulfil our appointed task." I find this is something worth reflecting on, sharing and blogging about. I believe that I will not do justice to Bishop Sheen's thoughts by paraphrasing it. I do not think I can convey this much better than the way he does. So, take a deep breath, and read the following truth, a paragraph from his book (with emphasis added).

"In the Christian order it is not the important who are essential, nor those who do great things who are great. A king is no nobler in the sight of God than a peasant. The head of government with millions of troops at his command is no more precious in the sight of God than a paralyzed child. The former has greater opportunities for evil, but like the widow in the temple, if the child fulfils its task of resignation to the will of God more than the dictator fulfils his task of procuring social justice for the glory of God, then the child is greater. "God is no respecter of persons." Men and women are only actors on the stage of life. Why should he who plays the part of the rich man glory in his gold and rich table and consider himself better than him who plays the role of the beggar begging a crumb from his table? When the curtain goes down they are both men. So when God pulls down the curtain on the drama of the world's redemption, He will not ask what part we played, but only how well we played the role assigned to us. The Little Flower has said that one could save one's soul by picking up pins out of love of God. If we could create worlds and drop them into space from our finger tips, we would please God no more than by dropping a coin into a tin cup. It is not what is done, but why it is done that matters. A bootblack shining a pair of shoes inspired by a Divine motive is doing more good for this world tha all the Godless conventions the world could ever convene."

Before asking how to live a completed life? one should first ask, what is the role assigned to them.. and get this answered of course.

Know and Accept your Role

Looking at myself, knowing my role (as of now) is not really difficult. I am a child of God, a disciple of Christ, a daughter of the Church, a daughter of my lovely mami and papi, a sister of my beloved brother, a relative to my extended family members, a software engineer, a collegue, a friend to my friends, a member of my prayer group, a teacher of my Sunday School students, a parishioner, a Singapore Permanent Resident.

What is challenging for me is to accept my role(s). There are often times I feel I am too insignificant in this "stage of life". As a reaction to this feeling of insignificance, I started to desire to be someone I am not called to. I realize I often fell into this trap of wanting to do more to "increase" my importance. Sometimes, this is also true in the area of spirituality or ministry. Many times I do pious things, not because I love God, but because I want God to see me more. I also often adopt the voice of the world to judge my fulfilment by the quality of life I am living, the amount of money I generate, the number of countries I have ever visited. And of course, those make me focus my attention to produce "more outputs and numbers" instead of putting more of my heart in the things I am really called to do.

On the other hand, I also often fall into the opposite end of the error. When I am facing piles of "things to do" for my company, prayer group and my catechism class, I often felt how I wish to be insignificant. This is when I am tempted to look at the other people and scream (in my heart) towards them, "why can't you also work as hard as I do." This is when I judge others, out of pride, that they have not done their part, at least not as much as I have done, ha.. pride!

I learn to accept my roles. I realize God has assigned me a significant role to play, as myself, and I do not need to invent and create new roles for myself. At the same time, I am aware there much space and gap to filled in fulfilling my role well. After accepting our roles, the next question to answer is how to play the role assigned to us well?

Be Faithful in Small Matters

St Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower), during her lifetime on earth, had great desire to "do more for God". She has found her vocation as a carmelite, but she wants to do something more. In her own words, "To be your Spouse, O Jesus, to be a Carmelite, by my union with you to be the mother of souls, should content me... yet it does not... Without doubt, these three priviliges are indeed my vocation: Carmelite, spouse, and mother. And yet I feel in myself other vocations—I feel myself called to be a soldier, priest, apostle, doctor of the church, martyr. Finally, I feel the need, the desire to perform all the most heroic deeds for you, Jesus... I feel in my soul the courage of a crusader, of a soldier for the Church, and I wish to die on the field of battle in defense of the Church..."

She found the answer to her own exasperation in the epistle of St Paul, 1 Cor 13, the famous passage about LOVE. Like a little child, she was too joyful to realize this great truth revealed only to the little ones like her. Again in her own words, "Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: “O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation, my vocation is Love!... Yes, I have found my place in the Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me this place... in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love!.... Thus I shall be all things: thus my dream shall be realized!!!”

The secret of a completed life is LOVE.

"I have no other means of proving my love except by strewing flowers, that is to say, letting no little sacrifice pass, no look, no word--profiting by the littlest actions, and doing them out of love. I wish to suffer out of love and to rejoice out of love; thus I shall strew flowers before your throne."

I have read St Therese's autobiography more than once, I find her simplicity appealing to me. I wish to strew flowers and to pick up needles with great love. But after accepting my roles, I know there are other things I can do. I can code software, call and talk to my parents, clean up my house, comfort my friends, prepare catechism lessons, be present in a prayer meeting, and many other things.. with love. Honestly, I know not how to do these with love, but to remember God and say in my heart, "Jesus, I do this for you." Yes, I have done this some times... just a few times, and when I do this, I find meaning in those little things I do. I have to do this more often.

Just recently (the day before I wrote this post), a brother who is very inspired by St Therese, brother PaulusJoseph, gave a teaching session about St Therese of Lisieux, during an Emmaus Prayer Meeting. He multiple times repeated these words, "Let nothing escape from being offered up to Jesus."

I am not called only to do little things. I cannot escape from the responsibilities that come from the roles assigned to me, that includes to face challenges and difficulties. Yet, the same principle holds... in tacking these challenges I have to do this with LOVE. I am not called to solve all the problems even though they are my problems. I am not called to be successful, but to be faithful (Mother Theresa's saying that I like to quote and wish to live up). I am called to first rely on God's help and providence, do what I can .. to the best ability of mine, out of love and faithfulness, and submit the result to His Will.

After reflecting upon this, I look at my tasks differently. Instead of looking at them as things that are unfairly given to me, I saw them as ways for me to live my completed life. Bishop Sheen, the Little Flower, and Brother PaulusJoseph taught me to rejoice and not to complain. It was almost natural to complain about my busy-ness and to proclaim to the whole world, by tweeting or fb-ing, that I am busy. Now, there is something that restrain me from doing so, even though sometimes I slip and complain still.

My Completed Life .. as of now

People often translate "finding fulfilment in life" to "getting the best roles". The best roles often translate to more power, more riches but less responsibility, which I find contradicting.

Other people, myself included, many times think that "finding fulfilment in life" is to "find and live our vocation (in marriage or celibate life)." Which I still believe is true to certain extend. However, people are (myself included) often trapped in being anxious in seeking the "mysterious vocation" and neglecting those clear roles already assigned to them. And for me, these clear roles are a disciple, a child, a sibling, a relative, an employee and a friend. As of now, for me, living a completed life is to play the roles that I am aware of to the best ability that I can. Since I am still alive, of course my life is not completed YET. The Lord, the master of the stage of life, is free to assign more roles or even to take out some roles according to my faithfulness.

“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’"
Matthew 25: 22 - 23

"None of us can do anything great on our own, but we can all do a small thing with great love" ~ Mother Theresa