Prayer

Tertiaries seek to live in an atmosphere of praise and prayer. We aim to be constantly aware of God’s presence, so that we may indeed pray without ceasing. Our ever deepening devotion to the indwelling Christ is a source of strength and joy. It is Christ’s love that inspires us to service, and strengthens us for sacrifice.

Study

As well as the devotional study of Scripture, we all recognize our Christian responsibility to pursue other branches of study, both sacred and secular. In particular, some of us accept the duty of contributing, through research and writing, to a better understanding of the church’s mission in the world: the application of Christian principles to the use and distribution of wealth; questions concerning justice and peace; and of all other questions concerning the life of faith.

Work

Tertiaries endeavor to serve others in active work. We try to find expression for each of the three aims of the Order in our lives, and whenever possible actively help others who are engaged in similar work. The chief form of service which we have to offer is to reflect the love of Christ, who, in his beauty and power, is the inspiration and joy of our lives.

Now I’m a great one for To-do lists and I would go as far as saying I find it very difficult to function without one to keep me on track, so this morning I decided that I would reorganise my list under the above heading.  Oh dear, it seems as if WORK has taken over!

Further reflection lead me to conclude that things were not as bad as I first thought, I did pray and I did study, and although the balance would still be in favour of work if I included these things on my list, the fact that they were not there and not prioritised with the rest of the stuff seems to be saying I am not giving them their due. It seems that prayer and study have been relegated to those things I fit in when the rest of the list is neatly ticked off.

So time to overhaul the list and put in and prioritise those things that should be there.

I suspect I am not alone.