Days of Work and of Monotony

One of my regular tasks as weekday sacristan in my parish is to clean the two thuribles, which get used a lot since we're one of the largest parishes in Texas. We have nine Sunday Masses along with many weddings and funerals week after week. When incense is placed on the lit charcoal inside the thurible, it releases oil, which gets cooked onto the inside as the heat and smoke rise. By Monday morning, I can always count on finding a thick layer of gunk inside the thuribles. What a mess! And it must be cleaned up because if the gunk isn't removed, it gets pretty stinky the next time the thurible is used. So I pull out my ample supply of Goo-Gone, steel wool and elbow grease, set myself to the task at hand, and soon everything is bright and shiny. But no sooner do I finish, it seems, than the process starts all over again…and again…and again.

In what St. Francis de Sales calls the inferior part of my soul, I've had my moments when I've felt as though this is an exercise in futility that I'm doomed to repeat in perpetuity. But Providence recently led me to this passage in my well-worn copy of St. Maria Faustina's diary, Divine Mercy In My Soul:

"Now a gray, ordinary day has begun...O you days of work and of monotony, you are not monotonous to me at all, for each moment brings me new graces and opportunity to do good."

Just the reminder that I needed! Yes, the light of Christ shines through all our gray, ordinary days, filling every moment with His radiant beauty. Even in my solitary task of cleaning the thuribles, I can do good – by doing the best job I can, by thinking positive thoughts, by praying for others, and by contemplating the Lord of All who spent many years living a simple life in Nazareth where he worked as a carpenter.

Thank you, dear Lord, for being the light of our world! Amen!