Doing All Things Well

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As a perfectionist, I would likely love to hear people say about me: “He has done all things well.”  Generally speaking, I think I try to do all things well.  
    Of course, as far as I know, I haven’t been able to make the deaf hear and the mute speak, which is why the crowds praised the Lord.  But did the Lord doing things well because of the physical miracle that He worked?  Or could we see something deeper in the reality that He did things well?
    At the end of the day, what the Lord did well entailed following God’s will.  Yes, this happened in the macro scale, of proclaiming the Gospel and going towards the offering of His life for our salvation.  St. Paul references this in the epistle as he gives the heart of the kerygma.  The Apostle reminds us that Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose on the third day, and then appeared to the Apostles and many disciples, and lastly to St. Paul himself.
    But it also happened in the day-to-day moments, like the one in the Gospel today with the healing.  The first thing to note is that Christ was not in Jewish territory.  He was in the Decapolis, which was pagan territory.  Yes, He was passing through, but the will of God led Him to foreign lands, not just Jewish territory.  And this pagan land the crowds brought Him the deaf and mute man, no doubt having heard about some of the wonders that Christ had done.
    Following God’s will also included being very earthy.  It wasn’t as if the Savior simply said, as He did other times, “I do will it,” and then heal the malady.  In accord with the will of God Christ puts His fingers into the man’s ears, spits, touches the man’s tongue, groans, and says “Ephpheta,” which means “be opened.”  If you had to go me putting my fingers in your ears, spitting, and touching your tongue for Extreme Unction, it probably would be even rarer than it is used today.  But that’s what God wanted our Lord to do (and, to be clear, I don’t do that for Extreme Unction).  Beyond the actual touch, it concerned the day-to-day aspects of life, not a sanitized ideal of life that doesn’t connect to the world in which we live.
    So for us, doing all things well means simply following God’s will, not just in the overarching themes of our lives, but in the day-to-day realities of our lives.  On the one hand, we should be seeking God’s will for our major decisions.  Does God want me to be a priest, a religious sister, or married?  Does God want me to study for this diocese or that, or should I join this religious order or the other one, or should I marry this person or that one?  How do I make a gift of my life to the Lord who has given me everything?
    On the other hand, God’s will often manifests itself in quotidian ways.  Does God want me to stay up late the night before Mass and spend that time with friends?  How will that affect my ability to pray and concentrate during Mass?  Which way do I take for my drive to work?  How do I greet the first co-worker I see?  When my child asks to play after I get home from work and am exhausted, can I give what little I have left, or would it be better to take a little break so that I don’t snap out of fatigue?  

    Those are all ways that we can open ourselves to God’s will and do things well.  And that’s the way we become a saint.  I think we can often feel like being a saint happen simply by choosing the right vocation, or by doing something great for God.  But what did St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, teach us?  What makes a difference is not so much doing great things, but doing little things with great love.  When we make even our small choices based upon a great love for doing what God wants, we do things well, and allow God to perfect us by His grace.  Certainly, we still need to make sure that we are seeking God’s will through prayer and counsel as we discern to what vocation God calls us.  But it can be so easy to write God off in those smaller moments of the day, and He wants to be involved in our life in those ways, too.
    So this week, think of ways that you can open yourself to the will of God.  Do you pray each day that God make His will clear to you?  When you pray the Our Father, perhaps really slow down at the phrase, “Thy will be done.”  We can, like Christ, do things well when we allow God to work through us, even when it doesn’t come naturally to us or we’re put in situations that seem a bit foreign.  May others see the grace of God at work in our lives, and observe that we have done all things well.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.