Recently, I decided to change the alarm clock application in my android phone. I suspected that it was one of the programs mysteriously locking my phone and making it behave strangely. Once uninstalled, the weird behavior disappeared. At least for now.
Another reason, however, that convinced me to remove it were the options it offered when it rang: to SNOOZE or to DISMISS the bothersome alarm. In my groggier moments I sometimes accidently tapped on the SNOOZE button, and while I showered or brushed my teeth the alarm would start to ‘wake me up again.’ It’s funny, I thought, weren’t alarm clocks designed to wake us up in the first place? Why a snooze option?
I began wondering when the concept of ‘snoozing’ an alarm started. There must have an interesting history to it and most likely a ‘natural’ offshoot of the comfort-seeking lifestyle produced by industry and technology which both offer better ways of living. Whatever the history of ‘snoozing’ is, it simply reveals the irony behind wanting to be ‘awakened’ but NOT YET, really NOT YET!
It is, however, interesting to know that ‘snoozing’ as an attitude existed even before a snooze feature was invented for the alarm clock. I would dare to say that it goes all the way back even to our Lord’s time.
A number of our Lord’s parables amusingly represent this snoozing attitude. For example, the guests invited to a banquet and how they turned it down because they had other more ‘important’ things to attend to. The people our Lord invited dillydallied in responding to the call to become His disciples. The rich young man who was not that ready to ‘let go and let God!’ Of course, there were the very apostles who procrastinated in their faith in Jesus.
Snoozing, which is sloth’s little brother, is one subtle side effect of original sin in man. Sin, which is the malicious art of growing in self-centeredness, is often something we strive to immediately reject and avoid. But when sin introduces itself through something less ‘threatening,’ and perhaps, disguised in a seemingly innocent and harmless way, we are less likely to react with alacrity and easily give in.
Instead of harshly saying to Jesus ‘no,’ ‘I don’t want to,’ or ‘go away,’ one would rather ‘cordially’ say: ‘in a moment,’ ‘I’ll be there,’ ‘when the right time comes’ and many other ‘sweet expressions’ that are best translated as outright delays, and reluctance to follow Christ because one seeks his own comfort or leisure.
St. Augustine described that before his conversion he was like someone being roused from sleep. When he heard the knocks on his door, he replied to God’s invitation saying, “Lord, yes, … but not yet now pleeease…” He heard the knock, but was reluctant to get up. He was ‘snoozing’ our Lord’s call.
Snoozing our Lord’s simple but constant promptings in our heart may not be a serious neglect or sin. But it is still a lack of generosity, and we are still depriving ourselves of a divine and necessary opportunity for conversion. We forget that it is these daily, small but significant conversions that really matter if we want to advance in our desires to be holy.
A timely example can illustrate how our snoozing habits can gradually weaken our spiritual life. St. Josemaría gives the apt image of our struggle to wake up on the dot. He fondly called this a ‘heroic minute,’ because our response to this “unimportant moment” could spell a difference for the rest of the day.
He says: “Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a fixed time, without yielding a single minute to laziness. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish! (The Way, no. 191)”
Later on he would further apply this idea to numerous ‘heroic minutes’ lived during work by following our schedule, keeping to our appointments and above all not allowing worldly activism to corrode our spiritual commitments to God and our neighbor. This is also why the founder of Opus Dei would teach: “I have always thought that many mean by ‘tomorrow’ or ‘later,’ a resistance to grace. (The Furrow, no. 155)”
As if this were not clear enough, St. Escrivá reveals that a ‘snoozing habit’ will eventually debilitate our spiritual foundations, foment mediocrity and eventually lead to serious sin. “Don’t succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are inconstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short. Mark this well: unless you react in time – not tomorrow: “now!” – that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans ‘so full of emptiness’) will make of your life a dead and useless puppet. (The Way, no. 17)”
It’s time to wake up! Stop snoozing grace… Faith up now (F.U.N.) by waking up for grace, living for grace and sharing grace!