What Steven Covey “habit
of highly effective people” is most like today’s Gospel?
“May the all powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.” It is the last line of night prayers, just before the singing of the Salve Regina. Though I still find it a little jarring, there is wisdom in ending the divine office that way each night. It is a like the tolling of a bell, a soft kind of echo that happens within as you say those words. After nineteen years, it still does not go away. It reminds me that this world is passing away. I am passing away. Each day, I am closer to THE DAY when I shall meet my Lord face to face. Each day, our world is closer to the “In those days” which Jesus speaks of.
Steven Covey’s second habit is simply titled: “Begin with the end in mind.” It is a common sense habit that invites a bit of reflection on what values you will most live out of in your decisions and choices. If my ‘end’ in an argument with my son/daughter, my spouse or friend is to win, then everything is fair. If my ‘end’ in an argument is to understand the other, and to make sure they understand me, then I approach the argument in an entirely different way. “May the all powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death” is a very different kind of ‘begin with the end in mind’ than we are used to thinking about. The end you keep in mind effects all the decisions on the way.
I think I learned this most powerfully when my dad was in the hospital, dying from a sudden stroke. And I don’t think I appreciated the ‘how’ of it right away. Looking back, though, it became very clear what was going on. My mom had received a holy card just the day before and it struck a chord within her, so she put it in her purse. It was a prayer for Divine Mercy at the hour of one’s death. And so she read this prayer, over and over into my dad’s ear as he lay dying. (I think I would have gotten annoyed, and if I was my dad, I would have said: “Mary, would you shut up…) At one time I thought – of all the things I would want to say to my dad as he lay dying, to repeat a prayer over and over would be low on the list. But reflecting on that later, I realized it was mom ‘beginning with the end in mind.’ The goal of her married life was to see dad in heaven. That was THE END in her mind. And if saying this prayer over and over would help in that process, then she was gonna do it to the end.
The purpose of the apocalyptic literature we hear in the first and Gospel readings today is precisely that. Directed to a people in the midst of trials and struggles, it conveyed in earth shaking images the message that “a restful night and a peaceful death” does for me. Begin each day with THE END in mind. There are trials, there are struggles. Being faithful to the gospel will take an effort of the heart and mind and will. But, if you are faithful, if you “take a lesson from the fig tree” – and live in hopeful awareness of the kingdom, you shall prevail.
This week, I invite you to ‘begin with the end in mind.” So take one relationship, one friendship in your life and ask: “What is my goal in this relationship?” And then live by the results of that choice. In the struggles to be faithful in your commitments; in the choices not to steal when all in the work place around you are; in the decisions to love your children well by setting up boundaries that are healthy and helpful, remember the end – the kingdom which the Son of Man is bringing. Or even more simply, pray the closing prayer of the Divine Office at the end of each of your days. “May the all powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.”