“Work... is a blessing from God.” (Saint Josemaría).
I have been busy with my work over the last few months.
I have always been the sort of person who has been busy with work at one stage or another. First – when I was younger – I worked for other people (often big businesses) and later, I worked for myself.
During the last few years – during the COVD-19 pandemic – when work slowed down, I found it a very challenging time. The challenge was not only that there was less money coming in. Rather, the challenge – the real challenge for me – was that I did not have the usual amount of work to keep me occupied.
Saint Josemaría write in “The Furrow” at 482, “Work is man's original vocation. It is a blessing from God, and those who consider it a punishment are sadly mistaken. The Lord, who is the best of fathers, placed the first man in Paradise ut operaretur, so that he would work.”
And I have always lived my life by the philosophy that work is a useful part of it. I enjoy the challenge of a job and I am pleased to be able to deliver the fruits of my labour. In many ways, I have been conditioned – perhaps by my parents, or perhaps by my life , or perhaps by Grace itself – to understand that there is great merit to be gained from industry and from work… When God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden He GAVE them work. And it was that GIFT of work, which was their witness to the dignity of the human soul – even after the fall of humankind…
You see, in our work, God gives us the ability to share in His act of creation. Of course, God creates out of nothing and all I can do is to manipulate the goods and talents already in existence to make something new out of them. And in this way, my Beloved has allowed me the Grace of being able to “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28).
And now that I think about it, it seems that I am blessed with the work that God has seen fit to send to me . The work of my paid employment, the work of my home in keeping the house running, the work of my family as a wife and mother, and the work of my responsibilities as a sister, sister-in-law and daughter.
All of these things – as exhausting, tiresome and wearying as they can sometimes be – are simply a gift from my Beloved. They are a calling to something greater. They are a calling to something greater than the cooking and the washing and the paperwork. They are a calling to the dignity of my soul, which is the dignity that God handed back to me, right after the very first sin in the Garden of Eden. Right after that – He GAVE me work to help me… And that is how I know that “Work… is a blessing from God.” (Saint Josemaría).
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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