As Christians, our plan of life comes from the true model of Jesus Christ. We are not simply called to imitate Jesus but to become one with him so that he truly lives within us. The Christian life is a supernatural life of living the Gospel through prayer, sacrifice, and communal life.
Christians throughout history have realized that it helps to put forward clear goals and guidelines for growing in virtue and staying consistent in living out the Gospel. The greatest example are the rules of monks and other religious.
This does not mean that lay people don’t need a plan, however. Fr. Roger Landry tells us in his book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God, “Every major goal in life requires a plan. Succeeding in the test of life and passing with God from death to eternity is the most important end of our human existence.”
We certainly need “ to lay out a plan for the ultimate goal a person can ever have in life: loving union with God” (xxii). Without a plan it is too easy just to follow the culture and not make consistent progress in the spiritual life.
Exodus will help you to form a Plan of Life during the fifty days of the Easter season. Men are drawn to the great challenge of the ninety days, but we know it is hard to keep up that level of intensity indefinitely. We will start with a baseline of disciplines on which you can build.
The key elements will be daily reflections on Acts of the Apostles, 20 minutes of daily prayer, a nightly examen, a weekly holy hour, a weekly day of abstinence from meat and cold showers on Fridays, observing the Lord’s Day on Sunday, and maintaining weekly fraternity meetings. From there, the app will allow you to customize your disciplines for the first time. You can add additional daily prayer or ascetical practices based on what you need to maintain and how you need to grow.
We need to live different. The habits we have built up during Exodus 90 and Lent need to survive and become integrated in our daily life. Forming a Plan of Life will offer us the best path for ensuring we do not simply lose the progress we have made and to keep growing. Jesus is the true model and goal and we must keep growing “to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
Exodus 90 starts January 1 — sign up for free:
Dr. Staudt serves as Director of Content for Exodus and as an Instructor for the Lay Division of St. John Vianney Seminary. He is the author of How the Eucharist Can Save Civilization (TAN), Restoring Humanity: Essays on the Evangelization of Culture (Divine Providence Press) and The Beer Option: Brewing a Catholic Culture Yesterday & Today (Angelico Press). He holds a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Ave Maria University and B.A. and M.A. in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN). He and wife, Anne, have six children and he is a Benedictine oblate.
