Dangers of excessive activity

I found today's Angelus meditation by Pope Benedict XVI particularly timely, as I hurtle towards the beginning of a new semester.  You can find the entire address at the ZENIT site  (Reference ZE06082002).

Among the saints of the day, the calendar mentions today St. Bernard of Clairvaux, great doctor of the Church, who lived between the 11th and 12th centuries (1091-1153). His example and teachings appear particularly useful also in our time.

Having left the world after a period of intense interior turmoil, he was elected abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux at 25 years of age, remaining at its head for 38 years, until his death.

His dedication to silence and contemplation did not prevent him from carrying out an intense apostolic activity. He was also exemplary in his commitment to overcome his impetuous temperament, as well as in his humility in being able to acknowledge his limitations and faults.

. . .

It is necessary to pay attention to the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of one's condition and occupation, observes the saint, because -- as he said to the Pope of that time, and to all Popes and to all of us -- numerous occupations often lead to "hardness of heart," "they are no more than suffering for the spirit, loss of intelligence and dispersion of grace" (II, 3).

This admonition is valid for all kinds of occupations, including those inherent to the governance of the Church. The message that, in this connection, Bernard addresses to the Pontiff, who had been his disciple at Clairvaux, is provocative: "See where these accursed occupations can lead you, if you continue to lose yourself in them -- without leaving anything of yourself for yourself" (ibid).

How useful for us also is this call to the primacy of prayer! May St. Bernard, who was able to harmonize the monk's aspiration for solitude and the tranquility of the cloister with the urgency of important and complex missions in the service of the Church, help us to concretize it in our lives, in our circumstances and possibilities.

We entrust this difficult desire to find a balance between interiority and necessary work to the intercession of the Virgin, whom he loved from his childhood with tender and filial devotion, to the point of meriting the title of "Marian Doctor."

Lisa