Everything we have, every breath we take, every talent and ability we develop, is a gift from God. We are not to be credited with the land yielding fruit, but we must cooperate with God in scattering seeds of joy, gratitude, forgiveness and love.

Welcome to the twelfth episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe at the bottom of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Years ago, when I was writing The Value of Core Values, I would sit in my office looking out at our backyard and feel discouraged by what I saw – weeds. There were a lot of weeds! Throughout the book, when writing about creating a winning culture based on core values, I make analogies to gardening. I wasn’t much of a gardener at the time, which is kind of ironic, but explains the discouragement at the sight of my yard.

Since that time over five years ago, I took some of my advice for creating a winning culture in the workplace and applied it to my garden. Specifically, I stopped trying to force what I thought would look good into an environment that wasn’t a good fit. I stopped buying “full sun” plants for our oak-shaded lot. I paid more attention to watering when it didn’t rain. I took the time to weed. And, I figured out how to reuse and repurpose what we already had and move certain plants to other locations where they would thrive.

One of the things I’ve discovered as I have worked on developing my green thumb, is that there are a lot of plants that can be rooted from a shoot. I’ve multiplied the tea plants and Jacob’s Ladder and Oyster plants by cutting a shoot and transplanting it.

I must admit that it is pretty arrogant of me to say “I’ve” multiplied these plants.

The truth is, God is the one who makes the flowers bloom, the grass grow and the Angel’s trumpet plant root from a shoot. As the Prophet Ezekiel says in the first reading, “Thus says the Lord God: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar, from its topmost branches tear off a tender shoot… It shall put forth branches and bear fruit and become a majestic cedar.”

It is His majesty, not mine that blooms in my garden and in the words of Psalm 92, “Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.”

Although all the glory be to God, we all tend to take credit for his accomplishments, forgetting that everything we have, every breath we take, every talent and ability we develop, is a gift from God. Giving thanks to God is good. In fact, being a grateful person in general is a wonderful quality. Sometimes we need a dose of humility to boost our gratitude.

The words from Sunday’s Collect prayer are a perfect expression of humility and gratitude for God’s gifts. This prayer, early in the Mass before the first reading, is often in one ear and out the other for many of us. Years ago I started subscribing to the Magnificat so I now read along with the priest and pay closer attention to the beautiful prayers. Listen closely to what the priest prayed on Sunday:

“O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you, mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.”

What a wonderful prayer to say every morning! It is a reminder that we can do nothing (although we like to take credit for our accomplishments), God’s grace is our help (and it is there for the asking), follow His commands (to love Him and our neighbor), please him by our resolve AND our deeds (not just by our intention, but by our action!) Think about how your day at work would be different—better—if you sought to please God by your actions? And, how would your work be different—better—if you recognized that in mortal frailty you can do nothing but, in all things, gave thanks to the Lord?

Even though it is He who “wither(s) up the green tree and make(s) the dry tree bloom,” we do have a part to play in the kingdom of God. In the Gospel from Mark, Jesus explains:

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and through it all the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.”

We are not to be credited with the land yielding fruit, but we must cooperate with God in scattering seed and wielding the sickle. For the business person, this can be applied to our ministry in the marketplace. We aren’t responsible for converting hearts, but we are to scatter seed by how we glorify the Lord in our actions and our joy. God is the one who converts the heart. How? We know not. But when it happens, we must be there to walk with the person.

We are conditioned by our modern culture to leave our religion at home when we go to work, as if faith can be boxed up and put in the trunk of your car from 9:00-5:00. That is no more possible than leaving your family, financial, health, and other things that are important to you at the door when you walk into your office. We are whole people and can’t be compartmentalized not matter how we try. If you had a fight with your teenager on the way to school, it will compete for your mindshare at work. If you didn’t get a good night’s sleep or have a headache, it will impact your productivity.

When you think about it, why would we want to leave our faith at home? Living according to Christian values and beliefs yields positive character traits that have a positive impact on your workplace and in the end, financial results for your company.

I’m not talking about preaching and proselytizing which may be frowned upon or illegal depending on your organization. You don’t have to preach to practice your faith.

Glorifying the Lord by our lives, our actions, our responses to challenges in the workplace has to be better for business than disgracing God by our lives, actions, and responses. Sometimes, our very small actions, good or bad, have a huge impact on others in ways we never know. “Like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade,” we don’t live in isolation and our lives impact others – for better or worse. Let’s make it for better.

St. Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” She also said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

Pay attention to the small things: the hello in the morning, the please and thank you, the words, the tone and the details of your interactions with others. The ripple effect is enormous.  What are you sowing today? Gratitude? Humility? Forgiveness?

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us be aware of the little things so we have a positive impact on those we interact with each day.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. 

May God bless you abundantly, so you may go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.  Amen

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Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan at:  http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.