Charles Ignatius Meyers: Master of the heroic minute.
This might ring true for a lot of kids, but when I wake my ten month old son, Charlie, up in the morning or even from a nap, he stretches, smiles, rolls over, and is ready to go! In his face I can see the joy and will that he has to learn, explore, and be exactly who God is calling him to be…even if he doesn’t know it yet.
Oh, how I wish I could do the same, Charlie! I must admit that during this past season of Lent I had planned to give up the snooze button, to get up with a prayer the minute I woke up. Saint Josemaria Escriva refers to this as the “Heroic Minute.”
“The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and … up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish.” (The Way, 206)
I thought this would be a perfect Lenten sacrifice. It would have been, if I hadn’t been such a wimp about it.
Those first few mornings were great. I got up when the alarm rang, and I had time in the midst of the chaotic morning to reflect and relax. Things went more smoothly in my conversations with my husband and in dealings with the children. I had taken time to pray and reflect and to prepare for the day ahead.
After a few days, though, it got more difficult. The novelty wore off. The weekend came, and I rationalized that since I’m a mother of two young children, I deserved to sleep. In fact, it was right that I should take a break from my penance.
Wrong, Lauren. So wrong.
When we start needing to rationalize our actions, it’s usually the marker of a bad decision.
“I probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s true!” It is then said, and someone is hurt.
“I really don’t new another cookie, but I took the stairs twice today!” Just like that, the cookies are gone.
“We shouldn’t be doing this, but…YOLO!!” If that’s their rationalization, I dont even want to know what happens after that.
Rationalizing can be a fancy way of excusing poor behavior. It is an attempt to justify selfish and uncharitable actions. This is why I think mortification is so important. Let me preface this by saying that I don’t think everyone needs to go buy a cilice or walk around with rocks in their shoes. Mortification can be done in the littlest things. Not pressing the snooze button, keeping the radio turned off in the car, daily exercise, et cetera, are all forms of mortification. The purpose of such mortification is not to deny ourselves things so that we lean towards depression or self hatred, and it is not because the physical world or physical comforts are inherently bad, but so that we would liberate ourselves from slavery to our physical desires and from selfishness so that we might be free to love.
The deeper meaning of mortification, and what I think we want to strive for in doing it, is detachment. Detaching ourselves from the need for comfort and ease will aide us in attaching ourselves to selfless acts of love. How much easier it will be to sacrifice for a friend in that precise moment of need when we have practiced it daily? You see, heroic moments are exactly that: moments. When the time actually comes that we will have the opportunity to love and sacrifice for a person, we usually have only a moment, less than a minute, to make our choice between love and selfishness. When a wife asks her husband if he can get up from watching the game to help her with the dishes, when a friend or family member says hurtful words, when we hear a new piece of gossip about a coworker, in all these instances there is but a moment in which to choose what we will do. If we have become complacent and lazy in our practices of sacrifice, we may find these moments difficult, and fail to be charitable. We may fail to be heroic in our love. We may fail to be the saints we have been called to be.
When an athlete steps onto a field or a court, they are not there taking their first at bat. They are not making their first free throw, they are not kicking a ball for the first time. They have practiced for hours, weeks, and years. They have restricted their diets. They have given their lives to conditioning, training, and studying. What have they been preparing for? A moment. A single moment could make or break the fate of a season. They don’t take that lightly, and we shouldn’t either.
St. Paul wrote that, “Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” (1Corinthians 9:25) If we are willing to work, to pay, to give so much of ourselves in order to obtain an education, a job, a social status, a home, a car, or any of the things we desire in this life, how much more ought we to sacrifice and invest in what will really count for our next life? It is in the moments that we make the choice between being selfish and selfless that our true character will be revealed. Let us practice, and train for those moments which, for all we know, may make or break our or someone else’s eternal life.
Lord, help me turn and become like my child, your child, Charles Ignatius, and meet each day with joy and a willingness to love exactly as you call me to…all in one Heroic Minute.
