We know that Mary was gifted with an abundance of graces. Trained in faithfulness, those gifts very likely left her entirely disposed to place herself at the service of whatever God, through his messenger, would propose. Her response was a choice, yes, but one that the intensity and richness of her gifted graces might not have permitted her to reject under any circumstances. (“She believed by faith,” wrote St. Augustine, and “she conceived by faith.”)
Still, though, for the sake of argument, suppose she had said no. Would it have been a sin?
My instinctive answer would be no. Beyond the gift of our life itself — the one gift so sacred that it is not ours to refuse or end — God’s gifts are freely given and ours to use, misuse, or altogether ignore. Had Mary said no, God could have gifted another.
Then again, God had a plan for Mary, and her gifted graces were meant to help her conform to the plan. All she had to do was access what she had been given, and use it.
Which she did. Mary’s yes was immediate. She didn’t hem-and-haw. She didn’t suggest Gabriel come back at a better time. She didn’t say, “Let me think about this for a year….” She didn’t look for a means of supernatural contraception to ensure that nothing happened until she was good-and-ready for it, if ever.
Mary said yes, and then she immediately engaged, heading off to visit her cousin Elizabeth and pronouncing her Magnificat with perfect trust in God’s plan.
I think procrastination is a manifestation of fear that betrays our lack of trust. We believe God has plans for us but still put off doing what it takes to allow the plan to unfold, because we cannot perfectly control the outcome, or control how others will respond to our efforts, or even how we will respond to our own success or failure.
Quintilian said, “We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.” Yes, it is easier to say, “This is hard to do,” than to bruise our pride by admitting, “I am afraid.”
Because that is true, we stew in our little sin of procrastination. We wait for circumstances to force us out of this cousin to sloth, and then, finally, thrust into projects we have been reluctant to take on, we begin to make our efforts.
And what happens, once we begin? Nine times out of ten, we find ourselves enjoying the thing we’ve finally gotten around to doing, and that’s precisely because we are engaging with our own giftedness, and in a very real way, that is a cooperative engagement with God. We discover, not for the first time, that the thing we’d been putting off was not anywhere near as difficult as we thought it would be. In fact, the most difficult part was simply beginning. Once started, the undertaking we had been dreading became a source of fulfillment.
St. Augustine, who famously asked the Lord to make him chaste, “but not yet,” would agree, I think. It was when he finally began to embrace his long-delayed chastity that his faith, and subsequently his theological thinking, flowered into its fullness.
I have found this to be true all of my life: whether it involved schooling, a dental appointment, or a big writing project, the hardest part of my undertaking was always just settling down to actually doing the thing I had been putting off — and in the end, the job was usually a snap. I feared I was terrible at science and could never pass an anatomy and physiology class, until I actually took the course and found myself so fascinated that studying and pulling off an A turned out to be a delight and a breeze. I put off having a cracked tooth filling replaced because when I’d gotten it 30 years earlier, dentistry was a lot less pleasant than it is today. When I finally kept my appointment, the thing was done painlessly, in two shakes, and I remembered why I liked my chatty dentist too.
Oh, yeah, and writing. Writers are the biggest procrastinators in the world, because that blank page before us holds a world of possibilities within all of that co-creative engagement — and who can guess where that opening line will lead? The great unknown is terrifying. You can tell how much work a writer has to do by how much time he or she is spending doing other things. My house, for instance, is never cleaner than just before I absolutely, positively must begin to write for a deadline.
When we procrastinate, we make excuses about why so many other things need to be done before we can do the thing we’re called to do — the thing we are probably made to do. How often have you heard someone say, “Sure, I want to have kids, right after I do this other thing?” It is just so much easier to go do something (or nothing) else, rather than face our fear with Mary’s perfect trust and say, “Behold, I am the hand-servant of the Lord,” and then get cracking.
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What Does Catholicism Say About Procrastination?
One can sin against God’s love in various ways: …
— acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness. — Catechism of the Catholic Church (N. 2094)
Let the idleness of vain imaginations be put to flight, let go of sloth, hold fast to diligence. Be instant in holy meditations, cleave to the good things which are of God: leaving that which is temporal, give heed to that which is eternal … the sweet contemplations of thy Creator’s immeasurable benefits toward thee.
— St. Anselm of Canterbury
God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.
— St. Augustine
The appetite of the sluggard craves but has nothing, but the appetite of the diligent is amply satisfied.
— Proverbs 13:4 (NAB)
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How Do We Break the Pattern, or Habit, of Procrastination?
Begin: I don’t know whether I heard it from one of my forthright Irish aunties or from a film version of Agatha Christie’s hardy Miss Marple, but in my memory resides the voice of an older woman pronouncing six words that always made great sense to me: “Begin as you mean to continue!” It’s good advice that orders us to do the hardest part first: Begin! Just walk up to the thing you know you want to do, but are dawdling about, and get started. Once you connect with the divine spark within you — that giftedness that inspired the project idea to start with — the chances are you will discover that you’re enjoying yourself, that you’re glad you’ve begun, and that the thing really isn’t terribly difficult at all. How sad that it has taken me the better part of my life to realize this.
Do not be afraid: Now that we’ve established that there is an element of fear connected to our procrastination, we can acknowledge it, identify what precisely it is that we are afraid of, and then push through that fear, confident in the knowledge that whenever we consent to a co-creative engagement with God and the gifts he has bestowed upon us — whether we do it immediately, like Mary, or after some reluctant dawdling, like Augustine — we can trust God with the outcome. We know that our acquiescent engagement with what is before us will not leave us deprived of anything but, rather, enriched in surprising ways because that is how God works. As Teresa of Ávila said, “God withholds himself from no one who perseveres.”
Hand your hesitancy off to heaven: St. Benedict of Nursia recommended to his monks that before undertaking anything — be it cooking, studying, or even a leisurely walk — they first offer a short prayer, asking God’s blessings upon the focus of their energies. We don’t do this enough, and that is particularly sad when you consider that we have heaven and its occupants at our disposal. Our guardian angels are always with us, and if we ask for their assistance it is always given; the saints in heaven are assigned patronages to assure that we are never left without spiritual guidance and intercessory prayers, no matter what the task. So, if you are putting off going to confession,