A Time to Give Birth and a Time to Die: Goal-setting With Heaven in Mind
“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth and a time to die … God has made everything appropriate to its time, but has put the timeless into their hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11).
It was a challenging email to write, and it was even more difficult to click “send.”
I had coveted this promotion for nearly a year, created plans to achieve it, and here it was, offered to me while I was on maternity leave. But, as I rocked my newborn son in my arms, I did the thing that I didn’t think I would: I turned it down.
Abandoning a Checkbox Life
For at least the last six years, my annual goals consisted of three areas of development: health and fitness, career advancement, and spiritual growth. I enjoy setting goals, creating plans to accomplish them, and executing those plans. But, at the start of 2021, I took a slightly different approach. I was tired of leading a checkbox life with arbitrary metrics to hit, such as losing a certain number of pounds and reading a certain number of books. I wanted depth and dimension in my annual ritual, so I reflected on who I wanted to be rather than what I wanted to be doing. I started the goal-setting process with a penetrating “why” before the “what.”
Detaching to Attach
As Christians, our ultimate end is the beatific vision, which is eternal unity with Christ. And for Catholics, this unity means nothing short of sainthood. When questioned by the wealthy official on what holiness looks like, Jesus responded, “You know the commandments,” to which the wealthy official replied that he had obeyed the commandments from his youth. “When Jesus heard this he said to him, ‘There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Luke 18:18-22).
Detachment from possessions, however, is not enough, as Jesus then made clear to Peter. Peter observed that the disciples had given up all their possessions and followed Jesus and asked him, “Who can be saved?”
Jesus responded, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive [back] an overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to come” (Luke 18:23-30).
Therefore, we must be willing to detach from everything: our ideas, our relationships … anything that is not ordered to Christ, to attach ourselves firmly to him.
Saintly Exemplars
As members of the Body of Christ, we can look to our saintly brothers and sisters for guidance on how to live out the spirit of detachment, which each person exercises in a unique way. For detachment with respect to power, for example, we might look to St. Louis, king of France, who valued the day of his baptism more than the day of his coronation. As he said, “It is a greater thing to be a child of God than to be the ruler of a Kingdom.”
For detachment from wealth, we might look to St. Katherine Drexel, who invested her inheritance in schools for Black and Native Americans and founded the religious order the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. She is quoted as saying, “Union with God alone gives us life and abundance of life. We are not sufficient in ourselves.”
For detachment from prestige, we might look to St. John Henry Newman, who abandoned his academic career as an Anglican priest at Oxford, his position as vicar of the University Church, and his friends to become Catholic. In his farewell sermon, he begged the congregation for prayers that he might have the courage to follow the Lord wherever He led.
For detachment from our personal plans, we might look to Saints Louis and Zelie Martin, who had their hearts set on joining religious orders but abandoned those plans to follow the path of married life that God called them to.
From Doing to Being
With the new year upon us, many of us are establishing our resolutions for 2022—which studies show nearly 70% of people abandon before the end of January. Rather than focusing on accomplishing tasks, let’s focus on working toward (Philippians 2:12) the one thing that matters, which is living a holy life ordered to eternal happiness, the beatific vision.
To help us shift toward this focus, let’s reflect on the reasons motivating our goals. We can ask ourselves, “Why do I want to accomplish this goal? How is this goal demonstrating my love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40)? Is this goal ordered toward glorifying God with my life, as St. Paul instructs us, ‘So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God’ (1 Corinthians 10:31)?” We should ask these questions not only at the start of the new year but also throughout the days, weeks, and months, as we seek to constantly order our lives toward our ultimate end.
In trying to discern how to respond to my new promotion, for example, I had to reflect on why I wanted it and whether it would serve God during this stretch of road on my journey in life. I asked myself, “How is God calling me to glorify him right now?” I offered him my desires, my plans, and even my efforts to earn the promotion as I embraced the little life he entrusted to me. Considering the new demands the promotion would include, it became clear that the added responsibility would detract from my ability to care for my son the best way I could.
This experience has taught me that in becoming a mother, I also received a novel opportunity for self-sacrificing love in imitation of another infant, the one who was made poor so that we might become rich in eternal things. In this way, the Lord is “making all things new” in my life (Revelations 21:5).
Vanessa Crescio is an accountant with the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. She earned an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, an MTS from Newman University, and worked in the real estate and banking industries prior to serving in church management roles at the parish and diocesan levels. She is interested in thinking through co-responsibility in the Church and developing leadership programs to form Catholics to serve the Church with not only their knowledge, skills, and abilities but with the servant heart of Christ. Read more of her writing at FRESHImage, and follow her on Instagram.