Lay Life in a Year

52 Reflections on JPII's vision for the Laity

Week 27 : “My life is being torn apart”

“I feel like my life is being torn apart.” My friend was overwhelmed by the demands of work, volunteering, family, and trying to find time to pray. 

Thankfully, Jesus actually addresses this terrible feeling. He even used these exact words. 

When He corrects Martha for her serving, He doesn’t say it’s because she is doing things, but because she is doing too many things. We translate His description of her as “anxious,” but the Greek word  means, “torn apart into many pieces.”

This busyness leaves us with the sense that this isn’t how things should be. But it isn’t a matter of just fixing our calendars, because it isn’t just the little things that pull us in every direction—it’s the big and important things.

John Paul II knows how hard this is, but he also knows how important it is. And he even says that there is another way, that we really can join our daily activities to God, and that it begins with our vocation to holiness.

And that has concrete steps that can be applied. After having prayed about this issue for months we’ve decided to share our blog post on The Cancer of Busyness where we lay out some of the concrete steps that have made a meaningful difference in our lives.  

It’s a hard battle, but as John Paul II says, finding unity of life is of the greatest importance and it can be found. 

Lay Life in a Year Overview

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Week 47 – A Dominican and A Fortune Cookie

In college, I once went to a Chinese restaurant with a Dominican priest.  I was part of a group that brought Catholic speakers to campus, and after one talk, Father graciously joined us for dinner. When the waiter brought out fortune cookies, Father began unwrapping...

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Week 46 – Holiness Found in Work

​​This nation was built by tireless, hardworking people—a spirit of determination we’ve proudly inherited. There’s a lot of goodness in that. But sometimes, without realizing it, this work ethic can lead us to a dangerous trap: believing our worth comes from how much...

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Week 45 – Human Dignity Can Never Be Taken Away!

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a pilgrimage to Rome, unsure what I was looking for—peace, clarity, maybe both. But as God often does, He surprised me. I met a priest who shared something that cut through the noise of life: no matter what divides us—politics,...

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