“The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul.” – Leonard Cohen.
Exchange the word “blizzard” for the constant noise that invades us or the noise we allow in throughout the day and the confusion and unrest that is created by social media.
The order of the soul is this. 1). God – to know, love and serve Him in this world so we will know, love and serve him in the next. 2). Serving neighbor – who Christ reminds us often is everyone, not just people we happen to know and like. and finally 3). Ourselves.
The soul ordered correctly aligns to the three vocations that the Catholic Church has identified and that we should live out as well.
Universal Vocation / Calling: To know, love, and serve God.
Primary Vocation / Calling: Give yourself as a gift to others (marriage, holy orders, consecrated single or single and discerning).
Secondary Vocation / Calling: Your work, your 9-5 that keeps bread on your table and a roof over your head.
The blizzard of the world makes it hard to see beyond our noses and it’s easy to get disoriented. What we can see is just the stuff right in front of us is – work. Harder to see is relationships and in the white out of the blizzard of the world is God who, at most, gets the scraps of our time in the form of Mass on Sunday… maybe…. and when there, we’re not really there, present in the moment. We are thinking about things to come next week at work.
