Life in the World: The Greatest Penance
My greatest penance is life in the world, and all that has to be done in it, so that I may not become peculiar. (OOCC, X, p. 126; STA, 184)
While life in the world provides a person with the opportunity to perform good actions, living in the world is very demanding. Everyday life involves a lot of struggle and pain. There are demands of all sorts from every side: the demands from the laws of God, the demands from laws of society, the demands from other human persons, and demands from within oneself. A person can either cope with them in all earnestness, or run away from them. A person coping with these demands is called to respond to all of them. In doing so, he is expected to make decisions and be responsible for them. Making decisions and being responsible for them often produces tension in a person. The tensions, if not handled properly, can make a person peculiar and his behavior strange. Because one experiences these tensions in his life, his everyday living is not that easy. St. Vincent Pallotti considered life in the world as the greatest penance which purifies a person here on earth and trains for the life to come. Therefore, a person must not allow himself to get lost in these tensions of life. He must view all these stresses and tensions of everyday life as that which helps him to prepare himself for the life to come. With this attitude a person can happily cope with tensions of daily life.
Do I consider the struggles of life as something that purifies me? Am I ready to cope with the daily demands of my life and tensions that result from it? Do I, like St. Vincent Pallotti, consider life in the world as the greatest penance? Do I use the tensions and stresses of everyday life as a preparation for my life with God in eternity?
My life passes swiftly away, filled with tragedy. My years disappear like swift ships, like the eagle that swoops upon its prey. (Job. 9:25)