Sobering Advice

For if each individual allows himself to be led by his personal whim, and betakes himself to what pleases him taking no account of the judgment of reason, and still more if no one is content with his allotted function, but if all wish to be concerned with everything which attracts them by an indiscreet exercise of activity, then surely there will be no unity but rather confusion and disorder.

May the Lord Jesus order in me that small degree of love that he has granted me; so that I may set my heart on the whole, which belongs to him, in such a way that I may attend before all things to that part which he has allotted me in the scheme of duties; but that the precedence given to this shall not prevent my dwelling with great interior interest on the many other duties which are no concern of mine in the performance of my own function. For what we must principally apply ourselves to is not always what we must love the most. It often happens that what is primarily our own concern is of itself the least important and that, consequently, we should not bring our greatest interest to bear on it.

St. Bernard