There are men and women, professed Catholics, not immoral in life, nor altogether neglectful of a Christian conduct and attendance on religious duties, who make their worldly occupation an excuse for a disregard of the Apostle's words; This we pray for, your perfection. Choked with the cares of life, they do not go on to perfection. That great British Saint, Venerable Bede, "that singular and shining light" as one justly calls him, used to winnow corn and thrash it, to give milk to the lambs and calves, and to work in the bakehouse, garden, and kitchen. Yet for temperance, patience, holiness, faith, and love, charity, and humanity, self-denial, true self-resignation to the will of God, for all Christian virtues, he became an eminent servant of his Saviour. Why should not each of you? Why should not you die to the world, as he did, before you must die? Why should not you separate your souls from your bodies and earthly things as he did, before the time of your forced separation comes? He took especial heed not to let this lower and earthly world draw him into its embraces and keep him from rising aloft. He trained up his mind Heavenwards and sought to know God and to be strongly attracted by Him from earth and sensual delights and cares, to a love of His everlasting beauty and goodness. Why should not you, like Venerable Bede, seek to be so much disengaged in your affections from this world and what is in it, that when you come to go out of it, you may not look back and say, "Oh what goodly things I leave! would I might live a little longer among them," but get your hearts so crucified to this world, that it may be an easy thing to bid farewell to whatever is valuable in your eyes. Try to use this world as if you used it not, and that you may say as he did, "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Yes, my soul desires to see Christ my King in His beauty." Let not your worldly occupations be neglected, but let this blessedness be secured in the first place and at all consequences.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp