Your Life Must be Orderly*

Therefore life is for all men a serious matter, and it ought not to be spent recklessly. Whether we regard it as a prelude or outline of the fuller, higher life that we cannot enjoy here below, or whether we look at it by itself as a fruit (a very bitter fruit sometimes) and not as a seed, we arrive at the conclusion that every life involves responsibility, and we are answerable not only for the evil that we do, but also for the good that we fail to do. We become convinced also that the most trifling actions and the most secret sacrifices echo on in time and space, and we continue forever the good or evil that we have once begun.

Consequently, nothing is indifferent in our moral life; the neglect of the smallest duty has results such as we never suspect. This is why we must arrange our life in such a way that no duty, great or small, may be sacrificed, and why we must not allow the aim in view to be lost in the clouds, but set to work at once in order to attain it. The important thing is not so much to succeed at once, but to begin and go on. Therefore, we ought to make each day a sort of summary of life as a whole, and bring into it each of the duties that make up our existence. These are duties toward our family and toward society, and, in your case, I will say moral rather than religious duties.

First of all, we must decide clearly what our real duties are, and here there are two pitfalls to be avoided. We must not be too ready to imagine that certain so-called obligations are really binding upon us, or we shall allow ourselves to be worried and distracted by a multitude of useless trifles; nor, on the other hand, must we neglect what are real duties, from which nothing can dispense us. We should carefully arrange our duties in order, never letting those of lowest rank encroach upon the more important. Highest of all stands moral duty, and, if I give it precedence over the rest, it is because it includes them all, and because the way in which we discharge our other duties will depend upon the way in which we fulfill and understand this one.

- Elisabeth Leseur, The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur: the Woman Whose Goodness Changed her Husband from Atheist to Priest, page 198-199, Sophia Institute Press, 2002

* Elisabeth addressed this to a friend who was an unbeliever.