Too Many To-Dos

If Franklin Covey’s time management system or Palm Pilot’s date book puts you everywhere you need to go, but with no spiritual grounding, two new offerings, On-The-Job Spirituality and Time Management for Catholics, may help you rediscover God’s presence.

In spite of our 24-7 lifestyles, Dave Durand, author of Time Management for Catholics, says, “There are enough hours in the day.” By employing some simple techniques, he says you’ll find yourself with plenty of time. “If you have a problem managing your time,” he writes, “your best bet is to consult the manufacturer of time, God Himself.” Durand asks us to look at the contrasts between a worldview that emphasizes secular time management or Catholic time management. For example, “Time is a means to my ends” compared to “Time is a mystery and a gift.” Or, is good time management ordered “toward this life,” or “toward eternal life?”

Some of his tips cover the basics, like questioning TV-viewing habits, establishing a routine to pay bills, etc. His strategy, however, does incorporate time for individual and family prayer, meditation, spiritual reading and daily Mass.

Time Management for Catholics by Dave Durand. Publisher: Sophia Institute Press (www.sophiainstitute.com).

Our humdrum expressions, such as “Ugh, It’s Monday,” “TGIF,” or “It’s time to go to the grocery store again,” may tell us a lot about the way we look at our work at home and at the office. Marianne Roche, author of On-The-Job Spirituality: Finding God in Work, says, “Work is a gift from God and it is God acting in the world through us.” Roche’s script, guided reflections on our relationship to work, tells us how to get from drudgery to joy. She asks us to reinvent our roles and view of work so that we can transcend our limited self-interest. This new approach, Roche says, “shifts our focus from what we produce or earn to who and how we are when we are about our work.” The reward: “Careful attention to the present moment of our work turns our work into prayer ritual.”

On-The-Job Spirituality: Finding God in Work by Marianne E. Roche. Publisher: St. Anthony Messenger Press (www.AmericanCatholic.org).

The headlines have called Pope John Paul II “history’s champion saint maker” because he has canonized a record number of saints – more than 460. This has attracted enough attention to the point that the lives of these saints are finding their way into books. One is Saints of the Jubilee, edited by Tim Drake. It gives us a brief look at the 151 new saints—and the 56 individuals who received the title of blessed—named during the Great Jubilee Year 2000.

Several of the profiles include groups of martyrs, such as Augustine Tchao and the Chinese Martyrs, 25 Mexican Martyred Saints and Blessed Cristobal Magallanes. Others like St. Katherine Drexel and St. Faustina each have their own chapter.

Kathryn Lively, author of two of the chapters, has a North Florida connection. She received her Catholic foundation as well her inspiration to write at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Jacksonville. Lively recalls that Sister Josephine O’Leary, RSM, asked her, when she was 12, what she wanted to do when she grew up.
Lively says, “A number of the usual career paths came to mind – teacher, nurse, businessperson – but at the time I had not given any thought to the future. Sister suggested that with my ability to write well I should try something along that line. That memory has stayed with me ever since.”

Lively, who now lives in Lake City and Virginia, has written three Catholic mysteries, Little Flowers, Murder Most Trivial, and the forthcoming Saints Preserve Us. To find her books, visit www.kathrynlively.com She can be reached at [email protected]

Saints of the Jubilee, edited by Tim Drake. Publisher: 1st Books Library (www.1stbooks.com).