“Age Quod Agis” Sub-Pages:

Quotes – Praying It – Basking In It – Digging Deeper – Making It Real

I first discovered this motto, Age Quod Agis (Latin for “Do what you are doing.”) back in 2005 in the book Lunch Bag Notes: Everyday Advice from a Dad to His Daughter by Ann Marie Parisi and Al Parisi. Not long afterwards I was at the library by myself  one day; my husband stayed home with the kids. I always have a tendency to feel guilty and rush through these things, (gotta hurry, gotta hurry) but this time I thought: What am I doing? – I’m running myself ragged. There’s nothing wrong with slowing down and enjoying the process a little more of selecting books for my family’s education. Do what you are doing!

Fr. Thomas Dubay explained this concept quite beautifully:

Little children live intensely in the present moment, neither in the past nor in the future. As the French writer La Bruyre once put it, ‘Children have neither past nor future, but they have something we seldom have – they rejoice in the present.

This is the child-like trait which the New Testament would have us imitate. Age quod agis – literally, ‘do what you are doing’… The future does not yet exist and the past is gone forever. What we have is the present moment. By it we are fashioning our eternity.

I also like Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s take on the concept of slowing down and savoring life more…

Part of temperance is taking care of ourselves. Obsessive-compulsive workaholism is obviously not a sign of temperance. Even if we enjoy our work, we need to practice temperance and get adequate rest. Careful, Benedict!

Enjoy what’s going on while it’s going on. If you go to the supermarket, enjoy it. Don’t make it drudgery. Talk to the cashier. Speak to the people at the fruit counter. Chat with a neighbor. Try to get to know people, get them to talk to you, and make your passage through life pleasurable. If you are a private person and find it a chore or somewhat difficult to speak to strangers, at least smile. As an old extrovert, I deeply appreciate a quiet person with a genuine smile; in addition, such a person listens to us, which practically no one else does.

Slow down. Smell the flowers as you go by, and then you won’t need too much of this world’s goods. Enjoy your work and you won’t need too much time off. Enjoy being at home and you won’t have to go away so much.

Many people are intemperate because they are miserable and suffering. Their life is a big long misery, so they decide to brighten it up with mountains of potato chips. They’re addicted to potato chips or sweets or even beer. Look at your own intemperateness and see if unhappiness is causing it. – Fr. Benedict Groeschel, The Virtue-Driven Life

*I* Always Need to be Reminded of the “Obvious” Things:

I don’t know about you, but for me, even after I begin to grasp the importance of a concept and how it relates to my life, I need to be reminded of it over and over again. I also appreciate when someone else sheds additional light an important topic such as Age Quod Agis. Here’s an example.

To properly introduce this story, I must admit that  I’m the type of person who frequently struggles with anxiety and under-confidence.

In 2014, if I remember correctly, I was vaguely aware that my online friend Danielle Bean had a new book being published about being a mom. I enjoy her writing, but I had been a bit burnt-out on reviewing books from my work on Love2learn, so I didn’t click any of the links that I saw about her book. One day, I got an e-mail from a local friend who had read a sample of Momnipotent online, who was amazed to discover (as was I!) that I was mentioned in this sample.

Naturally, I had to go find and read it for myself (click here to read the excerpt), and was delighted to discover that Danielle had taken this concept of Age Quod Agis, that I apparently had helped introduce to the Catholic homeschool world, and run with it in a really beautiful and helpful way.

The really funny part for me was that reading that excerpt from her book was exactly what *I* needed to read at the time – both to be reminded of the concept of Age Quod Agis and the gist of what she was drawing out of it. The experience made me think that maybe sometimes God does put something out there with your name on it just so that *you* will pay attention. 😉