Every day in Madonna House we are faced with the power of a mystery—the two-fold mystery of the Incarnation and Nazareth. God became man and dwelt among us. In so doing, he raised us up—everything we are and everything we do.

If that wasn’t mystery enough, he chose to live out his earthly life not as a king, but as a commoner. He spent most of his life, thirty out of thirty-three years, hidden in ordinariness.

In fact, Christ was so ordinary that, when he came out and began to speak, his own people looked at him and scoffed, "What? Joseph’s son? The carpenter? Can anything good possibly come from Nazareth (cf Jn 1:45-46)?"

Jesus wasn’t trained under a great rabbi. He didn’t have the ancient Palestinian equivalent of a college degree. He didn’t spend every waking hour in the synagogue. He was what we would call today, "a blue-collar worker."

What he did every day is much the same thing as we do. He got up, washed his face, put on his clothes, ate breakfast, and went to work. He did this every day for the vast majority of his life.

What is Jesus, what is God, trying to say to us?

Perhaps he wants us to know that everyday life is holy. Through his own humble ordinariness, he showed us that every action we do, whether it is making breakfast, taking the kids to school, or even browsing the Internet, in fact, anything except sin, can be a powerful prayer, if it is done as a loving offering to God.

For as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, we are composed of mind, body, and spirit, which are so intertwined that we cannot separate our spiritual lives from the rest of our lives (#365). What we do with one part of us, we do with all of us.

The tasks of today are the building blocks of love—the ways by which we love God and others. The present moment, whatever it is, is a pathway to God. Spiritual writers speak of it as a sacrament, "the sacrament of the present moment."

When I was in high school, I saw a poster which left a powerful impression on me. It consisted of a picture of Jesus and the words:

"When you look to the past, I am not there. My name is not ‘I was.’

"When you look to the future, I am not there. My name is not ‘I will be.’

"When you look to the present, I am there. My name is ‘I Am.’’’

Scripture tells us, Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 2:8).

In Madonna House, we say that when we try to be as fully concentrated on the task of the present moment as we can, striving to be focused with our heart, mind, and body, with our entire being, we are doing the duty of the moment, the will of God. When we do the duty of the moment for love of God and neighbour, we are praying.

So what does that mean concretely? Tomorrow morning, the alarm goes off. The duty of the moment, the will of God for you, is to get up. If you get up grumbling through clenched teeth and with hatred in your heart, well, chances are that that’s not prayer. But if you get up as a sacrifice of love for God and for the sake of your family, that is prayer.

You make your bed, you get ready for the day, you make breakfast, you drive the kids to school and yourself to work. All this is doing the duty of the moment.

The more you make efforts to be fully and lovingly present to each moment, the more you will encounter God and make each action you do a prayer.

Catherine Doherty, the foundress of Madonna House, said, "What you do matters, but not much. Who you are matters tremendously."

It is this quality of being fully present, of doing little things well with great love, that the Holy Family lived. It is what the members of Madonna House strive to live. It is what every person is called to live.

I know a woman whose first prayer in the morning is the making of her bed. I know a priest, one of our Madonna House priests, a farmer, who, before he chops wood, spreads manure on the fields or prepares to say Mass, before each and every activity, makes the sign of the cross, thus consciously acknowledging that he is offering this next activity to God and for others.

It is difficult in our society to live in the present moment, to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. There is so much competing for our attention, so much seeking to distract us from the task at hand, so much to pull our minds into the past or future. It is a discipline to live in the here and now.

Yet it is here that God is present; it is here that he will meet us. It is here that we will touch the two-fold mystery of the Incarnation and Nazareth.

If we strive to live in the present moment and offer everything to God, then everything becomes a prayer. Even washing dishes can be part of our spirituality!