Ostium Catholic

Paul opens Ephesians with a claim that would sound strange in a career context: you were chosen before the foundation of the world, before you had done anything to earn or demonstrate it. Today is the memorial of Teresa of Ávila, a Doctor of the Church who spent decades struggling with distraction in prayer before she ever became known as a teacher of it.

There's a real temptation, in a career, to let a sense of worth attach itself entirely to recent output. The last big win, the most recent positive review, the current project's momentum. Paul's opening line refuses that math. The choosing came first, unconnected to any of it, and it doesn't quietly expire on a slow quarter.

Teresa's honesty about her own struggle is worth borrowing directly. If your own sense of competence or purpose has been running dry lately, buried under deadlines and other people's expectations, that's not evidence you've failed at something everyone else has figured out. It's closer to the ordinary condition Teresa describes, faced honestly rather than hidden.

Jesus's Gospel today warns against those who build memorials to dead prophets while ignoring living ones, essentially honoring achievement retrospectively while missing what's actually happening now. Check honestly whether your own attention runs the same direction, admiring past wins more than tending the work actually in front of you right now.

Set aside time this week for something in your work that builds real competence but produces no visible result yet, protected the same way you'd protect a deadline. Put it on the calendar with a real time block, not just a vague intention.

Lord, you chose me before I had earned anything. Let my sense of worth rest there, not on the last thing I produced. Amen.