Most owners start the day already behind. The phone lights up before your feet hit the floor, and by the time you back out of the driveway, your head is three meetings deep. The drive to work becomes dead time you fill with email at red lights and a running list of everything on fire. It is one of the most wasted stretches of an owner’s day and also one of the easiest to redeem.
Jesus modeled the pattern for us. Rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he went off to a lonely place to pray (Mk 1:35). The Son of God guarded the first minutes of his day for his Father before the crowds ever found him.
Your car, oddly enough, might be the one place you are guaranteed to be alone before the demands begin. I once heard a priest say, “I don’t start the car before I start the rosary.” I love this advice. Many times, I intended to pray the rosary on my drive to work, but was immediately distracted by the radio, a podcast, or cell phone alerts. By starting the rosary before starting the car, I enter into prayer before a distraction has a chance to take root.
Begin with a Morning Offering
Before you leave the house, take thirty seconds to give the day away. The traditional Morning Offering does exactly this, offering God your prayers, works, joys, and sufferings before they happen. When you offer the day up front, the hard client call and the payroll you are worried about stop being interruptions to your real life and become part of what you have already placed in his hands.
Let the drive carry one form of prayer
You do not need a complicated system. Pick one thing and let the miles hold it. Some owners pray a decade of the Rosary between home and the office. Some talk to God plainly about the day ahead, naming each person they will lead and asking how he wants them cared for. Others sit in silence with the radio off to let the quiet do its work. The point is not to perform. It is to arrive at your desk already in conversation with God rather than already at war with your inbox.
Offer the work itself
St. Josemaría Escrivá taught that ordinary work, done well and offered to God, becomes a path to holiness. He said: Sanctify your work, sanctify yourself in your work, and sanctify others through your work. Your commute is the hinge between your home and your work. Cross it as a prayer, and the whole building you walk into changes, because the person walking in has changed first.
Try it tomorrow. Turn the radio off, make one Morning Offering, and drive in silence with God. If you want something to carry into that quiet, our Daily Reflections offer owners a reflection on that day’s Gospel. It is a perfect way to integrate the Word of God into your morning.