Sr Marie BernaudHoly Lent!  May your resolutions be sweet to your soul and prepare you for the joy of Easter!

In March we celebrate St Joseph. We offer a meditation of Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud about work:

“You shall eat bread by the sweat of your brow.” Work is necessary to every creature under various forms but it is inevitable. Work, so opposed to our natural apathy and our love for our ease and rest, requires our control, continuous efforts, incessant denial and, consequently, becomes one of our means of redress for progress and sanctification for our souls.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, during the greater part of his mortal life, consumed his strength and energy to exercise the artisan craft. Let us ask ourselves how he devoted himself to work and learn, by his example, to supernaturalize our slightest acts by the purity of intention and desire to please God and accomplish his holy will. In this way, the most common occupation can be a gold mine for honor guards and grow thereby one’s  treasure for heaven. What a difference between a soul who has worked all day, driven by a purely human motive, and one who dug the same furrow by a pattern of faith, love for God and submission to His Holy Will!

“We worked all night and caught nothing,” said the apostles to Our Lord. They had worked alone. “Cast the net new” Jesus commanded them … and they withdrew it full to breaking  as fish were abundant.

That’s what happens when our Lord is present in all our work: He fertilizes it and blesses it! He inspires and directs our efforts, strengthens our courage, revives and ennobles our failures, rendering meritorious the use of the most despicable time in the eyes of creatures. Accept the laborious task that Providence has marked for us . Every morning pursue and complete in full consciousness in union with Jesus and in intimate contact with His adorable Heart all our work. That will be our resolution this month! (Sr Bernaud)