Monday of the Third Week of Easter

1. Lectio

“Stephen, filled with grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people.”

“Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life…”

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”…
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

It is a curious thing that Scripture speaks of work—
and then promptly undoes everything I thought it meant.

For the people labor, cross seas, pursue Jesus with admirable energy—
and are told they have been working for the wrong thing.

2. Meditatio

I have, for most of my life, been a very industrious man—
which is to say, a man very busy doing the wrong things in the right order.

Or perhaps the right things in the wrong order.

I told myself a tidy story:

On Sunday, I do not work, so I may worship.
During the week, I do work, so I may live.

It sounded balanced.
It sounded reasonable.
It sounded entirely backwards.

For I have recently discovered, to my mild irritation,
that the Church calls worship itself a work.

Liturgy—leitourgia—
the work of the people.

Which means that Sunday was never a day off.

It was the day of my highest labor.

The kneeling, the standing, the listening, the receiving—
these were not interruptions to life;
they were the very engine of it.

And during the week, I have labored for food that perishes,
all the while squeezing in—if time permitted—
the food that endures.

As though eternal life were a side project.

But Christ, with His usual unsettling clarity, reverses the ledger:

The true work is not what I produce—
but what I receive.

“The work of God is this: to believe.”

Which is maddening.

Because belief feels suspiciously like rest.

And yet it is the hardest work I know.

3. Oratio

4. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)

The modern man prides himself on being busy,
and the ancient man prided himself on being useful—
but the Christian is called to be faithful.

There is a peculiar comedy in our condition:

We exhaust ourselves doing things that will not last,
and hesitate to commit ourselves to the one thing that will.

The world says: “Work, and you will live.”
Christ says: “Believe, and you will live.”

And we suspect Him of oversimplifying.

But perhaps He is not simplifying—
perhaps He is clarifying.

For belief is not the absence of work;
it is the alignment of it.

A man may build a thousand barns and starve,
or break a single loaf and be filled.

The difference is not in the effort—
but in the source.

5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality

Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.

Laudato si’ §13

Laudato si’ reminds me that human work is meant to participate in God’s ongoing creation—not to replace it or compete with it.

Action:

This week, I will intentionally begin each day with one act of “primary work”—Mass (if possible), the Divine Office, or Lectio Divina—before engaging in my ordinary labor.

For Synodality is not merely walking together—
it is working together in the right order.

6. Song Pairing 🎵

🎶 “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO)🎵

7. Movie Pairing 🎬

🎬Movie: “Office Space” (1999)

8. Poetic Verse

I labored long for daily bread,
and called the effort mine—
yet starved upon a fuller feast
I failed to recognize.

I built my days with careful hands,
each hour neatly planned—
until a voice unmade it all:
“Believe, and understand.”

So let me work the truer work
no ledger can contain—
to trust the One who gives the bread
that ends all hunger’s strain.