XX — DILIGENCE

Presence of God. — O Lord, make me diligent in your service, prompt and ready for all my duties.

Meditation

1 — A prudent man is also diligent. He examines and chooses with diligence the means best suited to his sanctification, and then with diligence he sets to work. Of Jesus it was said: “He has done all things well” (Mk. 7:37). Absolutely speaking, this praise belongs to Him alone, whose solicitude and diligence in fulfilling the mission entrusted to Him by the heavenly Father was most perfect and wholly free from the slightest flaw. Yet, proportionately, this should also be the praise of the diligent soul, or better, it should be the program of its life: to do all things well. It is not enough to do good; one must do it well, that is, not in any manner whatsoever, but with care, with solicitude, with promptness; in a word, with diligence. What distinguishes saints is not so much the greatness of their works or the importance of the place they occupied in the Church, but perfect diligence in fulfilling all their duties, even the humblest. And thus it happens, for example, that in a group of persons engaged in the same way of life, presenting the same exercises and practices of piety, austerities, mortifications, apostolic works, and so on, some reach a high degree of charity and union with God, while others lead a mediocre life. This depends precisely on the greater or lesser diligence with which each applies himself to fulfilling his duties. Diligence renders the soul attentive, awake to good, so that each action is vivified by charity and done with exactness in all its particulars. “He who fears God neglects nothing,” says the Holy Spirit (Ecclus. 7:19). And when this fear is not servile fear but fruit of love, which avoids anything that displeases God, it renders the soul all the more diligent the more loving it is.

2 — “Diligence is an application of soul to accomplish good promptly, and it makes man like the angels, who fly with marvelous swiftness to execute God’s commands” (Venerable John of Jesus Mary, O.C.D.). A particular aspect of diligence is precisely promptness in doing good.

While the negligent person goes to duty unwillingly, with slowness and delay, the diligent one runs to it with a cheerful spirit, with solicitude and punctuality. To do promptly all the good that must be done, to apply oneself punctually to all one’s duties, even when it would be more convenient to remain occupied with other things, is fruit of diligence. Above all, whoever has bound himself, privately or collectively, to a determined rule of life, has the duty to observe it with punctuality and exactness. In fact any rule, approved by one who stands in God’s place, is for the soul that has embraced it a manifestation of the divine will, a will to be observed without delay or procrastination. Punctuality requires self-discipline, mortification, and detachment. It often asks us to interrupt an interesting and pleasant action and devote ourselves to another perhaps in itself less attractive or of lesser importance. It would, however, be a true error to esteem actions and devote ourselves to them according to whether they correspond or not to our inclinations, whether they seem more or less important. Everything is important and beautiful when it is expression of God’s will. A soul that, at every moment of the day, wants to live in this holy will will never let itself be led to neglect even the smallest action prescribed by its rule of life. To linger in one occupation beyond the fixed time or excuse oneself from another, except for proportionate reasons, is to step out of God’s will; it is an index of attachment to one’s own will and often also of attachment to one’s own comfort.

“In diligence [be] not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving God,” St. Paul wrote to the Romans (12:11), and to the Ephesians he recommended: “Take great care how you conduct yourselves, not as unwise but as wise, making use of the opportune time.... Do not be imprudent, but seek to understand what the will of God is” (5:15-17).

Colloquy

“O Lord, reflecting before You, I understand that the best remedy against a certain negligence and softness in fulfilling my duties is charity: applying myself to do everything through love, with the special intention of giving You delight. O my God, what condescension on your part, and what happiness for me, poor nothing, to be able to act in order to give You delight! This thought determines me to sacrifice everything gladly. O Lord, You console me with these words and renew my youth like the eagle’s! Yes, at certain moments it comes easier and surer to me to repeat to myself: do this because it gives God delight, rather than simply saying: it is your duty.

“O Lord, all that I can do is already owed to You; indeed it will always remain below my duty. Yet your divine goodness is pleased to grant me the consolation of thinking that I act toward You with a kind of liberality and generosity when I place every care in giving You delight not only in works of duty, but also in supererogatory works and works of perfection, not only in great and important ones, but in small and even the least, because nothing is negligible of what can be offered to You.

“O Lord, by loving diligence in all my actions I want to show You continually the greatness of my desires and my love. And the more generous and liberal I am in your service, the more I will draw upon myself the effects of your liberality” (cf. Bl. M. Teresa de Soubiran).