My New Years Resolutions

The idea for this post came to me last Saturday, the 4th, which was the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. In the Office of Readings for the day I read this quote from her:

I once read or heard that an interior life means but the continuation of our Savior’s life in us; that the great object of all his mysteries is to merit for us the grace of his interior life and communicate it to us, it being the end of his mission to lead us into the sweet land of promise, a life of constant union with himself. And what was the first rule of our dear Savior’s life? You know it was to do his Father’s will. Well, then, the first end I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills; and thirdly, to do it because it is his will.

From a conference to her spiritual daughters by Elizabeth Ann Seton

This seemed to me to be a perfect opener for making some New Year’s Resolutions. What could be simpler than that?

1. Do God’s Will;
2. Do it the way He wills it;
3. Do it because He wills it;

However, this simple program, on deeper examination, is actually very profound. Isn’t this the order of our progress is the Spiritual Life? I started out trying to do the right thing. You know, fulfill the requirements of my Catholic Faith, avoid evil, do at least some good. Well, mostly avoid evil.

Then after a few years of that (I’m a slow learner) I started to want to do some good with my life. I want to do good with the time I am given, which is God’s will. I have officially gotten to the point of my spiritual journey where I at least want to do #1.

But then I realize that just doing God’s will is not enough. When my actions are good but my attitude is crappy, anyone around me can tell you they would most often prefer I just didn’t bother. Suppose my wife wants me to help her with folding the laundry. I acquiesce, albeit reluctantly, because it’s “the right thing to do,” but I keep my mouth shut and my brow furrowed with irritation the whole time, and make sure that she sees how much of a martyr I am to help her with this when I have so many important things to do.

Kathleen would probably say, “Look, if you’re going to be like that about it, why don’t you just forget it. I’ll do it myself.”

God feels the same way when I obey Him only grudgingly and I am busy reminding Him how much He owes me for this.

But even when we have learned to follow Mother Teresa’s advice and, “Give Jesus a big smile!” there is still one more level of growth. Another saint whose feast we have recently celebrated was St. Thoas Becket. In “Murder in the Cathedral,” T. S. Eliot portrays a series of three tempters who come to try to dissuade Thomas Becket from following the path that will lead to his martyrdom. He resists all of them, but then a fourth tempter appears. Thomas says to him, “Who are you? I expected / Three visitors, not four.” The fourth tempter does not try to persuade Becket to flee martyrdom, but rather to court it for the sake of the glory that he will receive for his courage and virtue. It is a very subtle form of self-aggrandizement, which Becket must renounce:

“The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

The saints talk about doing every action for the pure love of Jesus, with no hint of self-interest, but that is a level of holiness that comes only from a lifetime of practice in responding to grace, a lifetime of practice in self-forgetfulness.

At any rate, that is my New Year’s resolution: Do what God wills. Do it the way He wills it. Do it because He wills it.