10 Tips to Start the School Year Well

Some advice from Saint Josemaría on how to get the most out of the new school year.



1. Don't put off your work until tomorrow. (The Way, no. 15)

2. You should always avoid complaining, criticising, gossiping... (Furrow, no. 918)

3. Drop that craze for foundation-stones, and put the finishing touch to just one of your projects. (The Way, no. 42)

4. Add a supernatural motive to your ordinary work and you will have sanctified it. (The Way, no. 359)

5. When you parcel out your time, you need also to think how you can make use of the odd moments that become free at unforeseen times. (Furrow, no. 513)

6. Do what you ought and concentrate on what you are doing. (The Way, no. 815)

7. Sometimes one needs to have smiling faces around. (Furrow, no. 57)

8. Holiness does not consist in doing more difficult things every day, but in doing them every day with greater love (notes from his preaching, cited by Ernst Burkhart and Javier Lopez, Vida cotidiana y santidad en la enseñanza de san Josemaría, Madrid 2013, vol. II, p. 295.)

9. A sincere resolution: to make the way lovable for others and easy, since life brings enough bitterness with it already. (Furrow, no. 63)

10. Remember this and never forget it: even if it should seem at times that everything is collapsing, nothing is collapsing at all, because God doesn’t lose battles. (The Forge, no. 332)

Nunc cœpi!

And one more thing:  It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.
Acts 26:14