There is a story about one of the so-called “boy saints” of the Jesuits—“boy” because they died young, before being ordained priests—who was supposedly playing the equivalent of handball in the 16th or 17th century. Asked “If you knew you were going to die soon, what will you do?” he said, “Age quod agis—I will do what I am doing,” or as the motto of Jesuit High School Portland translates it, “Do well whatever you do.”
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins in this Sunday’s Gospel has this lesson for us to keep in mind and to take to heart, “Age quod agis.” I think this somehow confirms my belief that our primary task in life is to discover or know what our mission is, our God-given mission.
Once we discover this, the rest of our life we spend living out this mission with great love and great soul—cum magno amore et cum magna anima.
One of the life stories that inspires me is that of Parker Palmer. Author, educator, lecturer and, in his own right, philosopher, he has written books and articles and delivered talks that have inspired educators, leaders, and those who are on the journey of living a life of meaning and wholeness, a life of mission and service.
Remember and reconnect
Years ago, he did not accept for a year any invitation for any talk, lecture. He spent the year in retreat and solitude to discern how he was to live out his mission for what he saw was the last decade or so of his life. I think it was not out of not knowing what his mission was, but more to remember and reconnect with the inspiration of his mission and service, to live it to the full in the final years, with great love and great soul.
The first task of life is to discover our God-given mission, and the second is to live it out with great love and great soul. This is what gives our life meaning, integrity and “fun.” This is what keeps us wise and saves us from being foolish.
This is what gives us the “right”—more the grace—to say when asked, “What will you do if you knew you were dying?” Age quod agis—I will do what I am doing; I will do well what I am doing; I will live my mission with greater love and greater soul in the final days.
I invite you to do a simple reflection this weekend in one of your quiet moments. Go through a typical day in your life and make a schedule of the tasks or activities you do from the time you get out of bed in the morning to when you go back to bed in the evening.
Then across each activity, indicate the role you play: yourself, husband/wife, father/mother, friend, colleague/boss, leader, organizer, citizen, teacher. Count the number of roles you live out on a typical day.
This is the deeper reflection—there is a deepest after the deeper—and for each role, indicate the expectations that come with the role. Go deep in reflection and try to get in touch with the expectations you were not very conscious of, the subtle expectations that tugged on your time, effort, and energy.
Now for the deepest reflection of this prayer/exercise, ask yourself: From where comes my integrity in all this, in a typical day of my life? What gives all this meaning? What or who is the center of my life? Or, as Palmer writes, “Is the life I am living the same life that wants to live in me?”
The lesson the parable of the wise and foolish virgins teaches is not to cram. There are no quick and last-minute fixes. And very important, we cannot “copy” someone else’s “answer” when we face the final question in our life: How much did you love? How much did you serve?
What gives your life meaning? What is the mission God has called you to and has given you? Remember how we defined mission: “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick Buechner)
Deep gladness
What is your deep gladness? What hunger of the world does it meet? Go back to these, and remember the dream and the inspiration that made you take the journey of your life that led you to what gives you meaning, the sense of mission and service in your life.
In my first years of work as an ordained priest, I did what was closest to my heart, my deep gladness—teaching, or what was closest to it. Every day I was doing a thousand and one things, spending the day, literally, with thousands of people, students, teachers, staff, parents, alumni, partners.
My schedule ran from around 3 a.m.-9 or 10 p.m., and covered the panorama of tasks and activities, from the most mundane to (sometimes) the most sublime and noble. But every morning I got up I felt the grace of inspiration that it was another beautiful day of doing God’s mission for me.
Every day was responding to a deep hunger of the world, a hunger that one of my spiritual directors and mentors, the late Fr. Frank Reilly SJ, wrote to me Easter Sunday of 1980: “Help the youth of the high school discover Christ in their lives.”
We all hunger for this center, this meaning, this mission, this Christ. The wise and the foolish have the same hunger, but what separates the wise from the foolish is they do the “tasks” necessary: first, they search for the their God-given mission and try to discover and, second, once discovered, they try to live it with great love and great soul—cum magno amore et cum magna anima.
From these two “tasks” all other tasks—life itself—become meaningful and wise. Every day we do all things well, and everything becomes meaningful, with great love and great soul.