“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We have just finished four days of our annual parish festival. For many, it may have felt more like weeks, months, or years. Work on the festival is always very intense and takes a lot of dedicated people. Generally, we have nearly three hundred volunteers that help to put our annual festival on. It is a great example of people working together. However, our festival is more than four days.
The grounds will not even be completely cleared yet today and, already, plans will be underway for next year. Because, what is not started today is never finished tomorrow (or next year). This is not only true of our annual festival, it is true of our faith lives as well. How many times have people said, “I wish I had a better prayer life?” If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, we could quit taking up collections in church.
Yet, wishing does not make it so. If we want a better prayer life, we have to apply ourselves to praying more each day as well as praying in different ways (meditation, scriptural reading, Biblical reading, contemplation, et cetera.) If we want a fuller spiritual life, we have to begin to live our faith at a deeper level. That might mean volunteering somewhere to help others, becoming a catechist, becoming a Minister of Care to the sick or shut in and the like.
We will not “be there” next week, next month, or next year if we do not begin this very day.
FAITH ACTION: If you have delayed doing something in your spiritual life, make an attempt to start it today.