How Not to Waste a Single

I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out. (I Corinthians 7:29)

Most of us don’t like to think about the end of time or about the end of our time (death), but the fact is that every day that passes brings us closer to the end of our life. We should not worry about when the end of time will come for us – we can’t know and worrying won’t do us any good anyway. We are called live joyful, hopeful lives – happy and holy in this life and eager and excited for what is to come in the next. But whether we have another 100 years on this earth or this is our last day, time is running out. How can we joyfully live our lives without wasting a single day God has given us? One way to do this is to begin each day by making a morning offering.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You all my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, or the intentions of all my relatives and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen

Like any prayer, this offering will do us little good if we just mindlessly recite it, but when said from the heart, the morning offering is a means to sanctify our entire day and to give it entirely to God. When we say the morning offering, here’s what we are doing.

• We give the day to Jesus through Mary. When we offer our prayers through Mary, she prays with us (not instead of us) We ask her to pray for us in the same way we might ask a friend or family member to pray for us. But her prayers are free from distractions and selfish motives and all the other things that make our prayers imperfect. Mary, who is so close to her Son, aides us in our prayers.
• We give Jesus every part of our day. In a perfect world we would walk in constant union and harmony with Jesus. But this is not a perfect world. There are many good things in our lives - family, jobs, friendships - that require our attention. But none of these things are really distractions from God if we offer the time we spend on them to God. The morning offering is no substitute for actively walking with Jesus, but it does take up the slack for those times when we must focus our attention on other things. A morning offering makes everything we do a sort of prayer. When we give our day to Jesus, everything we do becomes a gift to Him– even we aren’t thinking of Him every moment.
• We unite our prayers with the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We don’t always pray for the things we should. When we unite our day to the Jesus in this way, our lives become a prayer not just for ourselves, but for all that He wills.
• We unite our prayers with the Mass. How awesome is it that we can unite out prayers with the prayers of every mass throughout the world! God is so good to multiple our prayers in that way.
• Our day becomes a reparation for sins. Whether the day is a good one or a bad one, everything that happens to us can be offered to God for the salvation of souls. Even the everyday annoyances and struggles of life can help get souls to Heaven because with God nothing is wasted. When we offer our day to Him, He can use every part of it for good.
• We pray for others. How many times have you told someone you would pray for them and then forgotten? There is something powerful about giving people and situations to God by name, but even when we don’t do that, the morning offering serves a prayer for ourselves and for everyone we have agreed to pray for.
• We pray for the Holy Father’s intentions. Although I should, I don’t always know what the pope’s monthly intentions are. It’s great to know I can offer my prayers for them anyway.

Of course the prayer above isn’t the only morning offering there is. There are other versions or you can simply say your own. The important thing is to begin each day by offering it to Jesus. However, the morning offering is not magic. We can’t just dash off a quick prayer and think we are spiritually covered for the day. But, this prayer can spiritually jump start our day. I like to think of it as a vitamin for holiness. The morning offering is not the only spiritual food we need – not by a long shot. But it is an excellent supplement to our spiritual lives and, when prayed with the right frame of mind, helps us grow strong in the Lord and not waste a single day.