INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE

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PART III, Chapter 10: Managing Our Affairs With Great Care But Without Eagerness Or Anxiety

The care and diligence we should have in our affairs are quite different from solicitude, anxiety and eagerness. The Angels are concerned about our salvation and they obtain it with diligence but they do not have solicitude, anxiety or eagerness. Care and diligence flow from their charity but solicitude, anxiety and eagerness would be entirely contrary to their happiness. For care and diligence may be accompanied by peace and tranquillity of spirit but not solicitude or anxiety and much less eagerness. Be careful and diligent, Philothea, in all your affairs of which you are in charge, since God who entrusted them to you desires that you take great care of them. But if it is possible, be not solicitous or anxious about them that is, do not undertake them with restlessness, anxiety and eagerness. Do not be eager at work because every kind of eagerness disturbs reason and judgement. It even prevents us from doing well the very things of which we are too eager.

When Our Lord corrects St. Martha he says: Martha, Martha, you are worried and anxious about many things (Lk. 10:41). You see, if she had been simply careful, she would not have been troubled at all. As she was anxious and disturbed she was in a hurry and was troubled. It is about this that Our Lord corrects her. The rivers flowing gently through the plains carry along large boats and rich merchandise. Rains falling gently on fields make them plentiful in grass and grain. But streams and rivers with strong currents rush through the land, ruin their neighbourhood and are useless for navigation. Likewise heavy showers and tempests ravage fields and meadows.

Never was work done well with vehemence and in a hurry. As the ancient proverb has it, we must hasten gently. He who hurries up, says Solomon, runs the risk of stumbling and hurting his feet (Prov. 19:2). We always do fast enough when we do well. Drones make much more noise and are more in a hurry than the bees but they make only wax and no honey[1]. Thus those who rush around with tormenting anxiety and noisy solicitude do neither much nor well.

Flies do not trouble us by their strength but by their number. Accept your affairs in peace as they come and strive to do them in order, one after another. For if you wish to do them all at once or in disorder, the efforts you make will crush and exhaust your spirit. Thus you will remain usually overburdened, under pressure and ineffectual.

In all your affairs, rely entirely on the providence of God through which alone all your plans succeed. All the same, on your part strive very gently to cooperate with it. Then believe that if you trust well in God, success will come to you. It will be more useful for you, whether it seems good or bad to you according to your particular way of judging.

Do as little children who with one hand hold fast to the hand of their father and with the other gather strawberries or blackberries along the hedges. In the same manner, while gathering and managing the goods of this world with one hand, hold fast with the other to the hand of your heavenly Father, turning to him from time to time to see if your actions or occupations are pleasing to him. Take care, above all, that you do not leave his hand and protection thinking of collecting and gathering more. For if he abandons you, you would not take even a single step without falling flat on your face to the ground. I mean, Philothea, that amidst your ordinary affairs and occupations which do not require a strict and earnest attention, you look more at God than at your affairs. When matters of great importance are at hand, that require all your attention to do them well, you look at God from time to time, as sailors do, who in order to reach the land they desire look more at the sky above than on the ocean below where they sail. Thus God will work with you, in you and for you and your work will be followed by consolation.

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[1] St. Francis shared the mistaken belief of his contemporaries that drones make wax.

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