Today I focus our attention upon the virtue of diligence. It’s opposite is found in the vice of sloth. Diligence is summed up by careful and persistent effort or work.
Josemaria Escriva stated that “there are two human virtues, industriousness and diligence, which merge into one, for they both help us in our efforts to make good use of the talents we have each received from God.”
As he would say in the Forge: “If we really want to sanctify our work, we have inescapably to fulfill the first condition: that of working, and working well, with human and supernatural seriousness.”
So often in this world it seems as if our motivating factor is getting by with the easiest method possible. Our motivating factor should not be the question of what is the least amount of work that I must do in order to get by. When it pertains to Heaven our attitude should not be the least that we can do, but instead the most that we can do in order to achieve this goal.
As Josemaria Escriva would remark of this attitude: “Relying on flimsy excuses, we become too easygoing and forget about the marvelous responsibility that rests upon our shoulders. We are content with doing just enough to get by. We let ourselves get carried away by false rationalizations and waste our time, whereas Satan and his allies never take a holiday.”
Not only should we excel at the work entrusted to our care in this life be it one’s job or family responsibilities, but we must also be concerned with our practice faith. So often people are content with just getting by and so they do the bare minimum of what is required of them. Therefore, they go to Mass on Sunday and Holy Days and make their yearly confession and yet they go no further.
If we are sanctify our work and thus too our day then we must practice the virtue of charity for this virtue allows us to have supernatural love for God and for souls. As was said in Saint Mark’s Gospel: “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Even with the most mundane of tasks we are to be diligent and to find value within them. In these tasks and opportunities we have the ability to enter into the joys of God’s presence and may we thus come to accept the offering of work that is well done.
In the Holy Family we see the virtue of diligence made manifest to us. In Joseph we see the carpenter who worked with order and cheerfulness. In Mary we see her who gave this same attention to her daily tasks. So too may we join them and not grow lazy and idle, but instead excel at everything that we do for the greater glory of God. In all things may God come to be glorified especially through the offering of our work and the application of our life of faith in the midst of all that we do.
