On Work

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There was a seminarian once in Singapore who was about to be ordained and he wanted to order some vestments. He checked out some places in the States but found they were quite expensive.

I suggested another place in Madrid and he found they were half the price. He ordered some chasubles, maybe an alb, a few stoles, and said, “I'm quite tall, so could you please make the stoles a little longer?”

Eventually, the material arrived and the stoles were down to his ankles. They were a bit too long.

He sent the place in Madrid an email and said, “I'm wondering if I could send this back to you and if you could readjust it and I will pay for the cost of the readjustment.”

He got a reply by email saying, “No problem, just send it back to us, we'll do the readjustment, and there'll be no charge.”

Of course, he was very happy with that final statement. He was so happy that he took up the phone and he called Madrid and said, “I just want to tell you how grateful I am that you're going to do this readjustment, and also that there'll be no charge.”

The lady at the other end of the line said, “It's my job.”

This friend of mine was very impressed with those three simple words: It's my job.

When he was telling me this story, he got very excited and impressed—the fact that somebody speaks like that about their job.

There's a phrase in the Old Testament in the Book of Proverbs that says, “Show me a man who does a good job and I will show you a man who is better than most and worthy of the company of kings” (Prov. 22:29).

This meditation is about work: sanctifying our work, doing a good job, sanctifying ourselves in our work, and trying to sanctify other people around us.

St. Josemaria liked to say that in order to sanctify the work itself, we have to try and do it well, with a lot of human perfection (Josemaría Escrivá, cf. Conversations, Point 10).

The Book of Job said, “Man is born to labor, and the bird to fly” (Job 5:7).

You get the impression that Our Lord and St. Joseph did a good job. They had prestige. “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon?” (Mark 6:3). Our Lord and St. Joseph were known for their work.

We're called also to try and always do a good job, to be known for the work that we do. It's a great service to society.

We try to find God in those ordinary jobs.

There was a lady in the Philippines who wrote an article many years ago describing her normal morning. She had a number of children. She had to get them up, get them off to school, get her husband off to work.

She said, “When they're all out the door, I breathe a sigh of relief, and then I clear away the breakfast table. Then I go up the stairs to make some beds, and every step of the stair, there's an opportunity for me to tell God how much I love him.”

I don't remember much about the rest of that article, but I do remember that little phrase or two: “I remember God as I go up the stairs.”

This is bringing God into our work, interiorizing our professional tasks and trying to do it well. We want to offer our work to God or sanctify it. We do so by offering the work when we begin, and offering it when we end. In the middle, when we remember, we try to offer to Our Lord again.

Every morning when we say our Morning Offering, we offer our work to God.

At the end of the day, we can thank God for all the work that He allowed us to do today, using our talents, our energies, our health, our abilities, our experience.

So many things come into play in the ordinary work that we do every day. The fact that we're able to work with our mind, or with our hands, or with both, is all a gift of God.

We offer this work of our hands to God with everything that goes with it—the effort, the stresses, the tensions, the disappointments, the failures, the joys.

We offer our work to God in order to convert this into prayer, so that our work can rise up like incense before God, giving Him praise, which is the purpose of our whole creation.

We have been created to give glory to God. We give glory to God through the work that we do.

A child gives glory to God through its work, which is to play. A cow or a dog gives glory to God just by existing. They don't have any say in the matter.

But we can bring our human will because we have freedom. We direct that work to God. That means we try to do it with human perfection.

“It's my job.” Because it's my job, I put effort into it. I focus on it. I'm alert. I'm on the ball. I go out of my way to try and do a good job so that the client is happy, so that people can see that every possible effort has gone into making this thing a good service.

All professional work is a service. We have been created to serve. We serve first and foremost through our work.

Martin Luther King said one time, “Each man called to be a street sweeper should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, as Beethoven composed music, as Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”

Venerable Fulton Sheen tells a story of how he was standing at a bus stop in Rome one morning on his way to the Second Vatican Council and there was a street sweeper sweeping the street.

He began to engage him in conversation.

“What time did you get up this morning?” “Five o'clock.”

“What time will you finish work tonight?” “Eight o'clock.”

“How many hours will you work today?” “Sixteen.”

“What is your philosophy of life?”

The man said, “Father, if I push this brush with more love of God than the love of God with which you're going to the Second Vatican Council, then God loves me more.” Venerable Fulton Sheen said he was right.

The value of our work comes not from the type of work that we do, but from the love with which we do it.

St. Josemaría liked to say that “there is something divine hidden in the most ordinary human activity, and it's up to each one of us to discover it” (Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations, Point 114).

Whether our work is the work of a busy executive, or a street sweeper, or a housewife, or a lawyer, or a carer of an elderly person, it doesn't matter what type of work we do.

It can be done well and offered to God, and that's what makes us holy.

If we're to do our work well, that means we try to take care of details, finishing things well. Very often perfection is in the details. “Be you perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

It's very easy to see if a job is done carelessly. A job that's done well is a job that's done on time, meeting deadlines. If we find we're always apologizing because we're late in submitting some paper or being in a certain place, then there's something wrong. We need to examine our conscience. See how we are working.

To work well, we have to try and do it with what's called rectitude of intention: doing it for the glory of God.

Therefore, we go out of our way to produce a masterpiece. This is the best possible job that I could do.

After every little thing we do, every hour of work, every paper, every letter that we sign, or every email that we send, we should be able to sign our name at the bottom like you do in a contract or a check. ‘This is the best job I could do. I've done my best. I'm happy to put my signature to this work.’

To work well doesn't mean that things turn out well. God just wants us to do our best. The results are up to Him.

T. S. Eliot has a phrase in one of his books where he says, “Ours is only the trying. The rest is none of our business.”

In family work, in professional work, in gardening work, or the work of educating our children, all we can do is try. Try to do the best we can do with all of our talents and abilities. Then leave it in the hands of God, offering it to Him, and He will bring the fruit.

If we try to do our work well, the Blessed Trinity will make our work effective. We will sow the seeds that God wants us to sow.

Professionalism means that we produce the best work irrespective of how we're feeling. Our feelings can change from day to day. We might be feeling on top of the world, or we might be feeling terrible.

Professionalism means that we try to give our best service. We put our feelings aside. We conquer those feelings.

The fact that God sees our work is enough for us. He sees the effort we put into it: the care, the details, the virtue.

When Our Lord called the apostles, He said: “Follow me” (Matt. 4:19).

He found St. Matthew sitting at work in the tax collector's place and said, “Follow me” (Matt. 9:9).

He saw Peter and the others in the boat casting their nets, when they were fishermen, and He said, “Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19).

Every morning and every afternoon, when we sit down, or every evening, to begin our work, Our Lord addresses the same words to us. “Follow me” in these particular tasks that you have in hand, in this meeting, in this preparation of a meal, in this cutting of the grass, or washing the car. Find me in this work.

Often it can be easy to sanctify the extraordinary. The problem is the ordinary—that's where the challenge can be.

A lady asked me once, “Father, when I turn on my computer, can that be redemptive?”

The answer is yes.

Every little action that we do, when we unite it to the Sacrifice of the Mass, we place it on the paten, it becomes united to the sacrifice of Christ, offering Himself to His Heavenly Father.

It acquires an infinite value and becomes redemptive. Nothing is unimportant. Every little job requires importance. God gives importance to the small things.

There may be certain jobs that we're good at, and certain things we're not so good at. No one can be good at everything, but we can try and become better, to improve our competence.

We're not all called to be brilliant or to be geniuses, but we are all called to be competent and to do our job well.

That's not a question of intelligence. Sometimes we can talk about intelligent people, and remark, ‘Oh, that person is very intelligent.’

But you see, intelligence is not a virtue. Intelligence is a gift. God may give it to some people; He may not give it to others.

But we can all do our job well—the particular task that God has given us to do—and we can be happy in our work.

One of the great truths we learn from our faith is that work is not a punishment; it's not a drudgery. It's a gift that God has given to us.

God wants us to be happy in our work, and to learn how to be happy, to enjoy our work, from the effort we put into it, solving the problems, facing the challenges, and learning how to be more effective, there are all sorts of books around that talk about how to be more effective.

One of them says, “‘What can I contribute?’ is the question we need to ask.” Peter Drucker says that.

“What makes people effective,” he says, “is not that they do good things, but they do the right things.”

They do the right things because they ask the right questions. They do the right thing because they ask the right question and the right question is, “What can I contribute?”

At this meeting, at this dinner table, in this garden, in this office, in this particular task that I'm faced with—what can I contribute that perhaps nobody else can contribute?

If we can contribute something that nobody else can contribute, that makes us effective.

As a father of a family, as a mother of a family, as a child in the family, we can ask ourselves, What is my duty now? What should I be doing at this particular moment? Where should I be?

When Our Lord called St. Matthew, we're told “he was sitting at work in the tax collector's place.” He was in the right place at the right time. He wasn't down the road doing something else.

We're told he was “sitting at work in the tax collector's place” (Matt. 9:9). He wasn't answering his email or on the telephone to his friends or drinking coffee. He was at work.

We need to be in the place we're supposed to be, and we need to be doing what we're supposed to be doing; concentrating.

All those are talents that we can learn, acquiring the knowledge and ability to work a little better so that we grow in that perfection in our work—being a good worker.

If your boss is happy with your work, then probably God is happy with your work also. If your boss thinks that you could do a little better, maybe God thinks the same thing as well.

In principle, we should try not to refuse work—things that come our way, jobs that we're asked to do—to be available to do different things, to try to see the will of God behind those things that come to us every day, and to put virtue into practice: honesty, integrity, generosity, charity, humility, patience, kindness.

We need to try and be easy to work with, to be a team player, to accept the rough with the smooth, to be understanding of other people, and sometimes possibly to demand a little more from other people.

Many years ago, there was a young person in Madrid who was with St. Josemaría. Federico Suárez was his name. Later he was ordained a priest.

St Josemaría asked him to write something about Our Lady, and he wrote twenty pages on Our Lady. If most of us were asked to write something on Our Lady, we probably wouldn't reach twenty pages.

But St. Josemaría read it, and he came to the conclusion, and told him, “I think you could do a little better. Why don't you have another try?”

He had another try and this time he wrote one hundred pages, and that became the book Mary of Nazareth.

Sometimes in our work, we need to be pushed a little bit, because possibly people around us realize that we are capable of better, of another try.

Sometimes things don't work out the first time, and sometimes they don't work out the second time, but often they work out the third time.

Good jobs don't come about immediately. It takes work. It takes effort. It takes virtue.

Somebody said once that gold nuggets don't lie on the top of the ground; they're hidden deep inside the ground. They need to be excavated. Somebody has to dig with constancy, with effort, with patience, with toil, with tiredness, until they reach those gold nuggets.

Tiredness is also a part of work. Work is meant to tire us out, but we offer God that tiredness, trying to put the same effort at five in the evening into the work we're doing as we did at nine in the morning; carrying on; maybe, looking at Christ on the Cross when work may begin to weigh us down a little bit.

Hanging in there like Christ hung in there. Everybody around Him, the bad thief, in particular, told Him to “come down off the cross” (Matt. 27:39; Luke 23:35-39). But Christ didn't come down off the Cross. He stayed there.

Our work is there to help us to be holy. Holiness, for us people in the middle of the world, is unlikely without work.

It's “the hinge of our sanctification” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Points 61,81). Therefore, we try to love our work.

Even when the time may come to retire, we find something to do to be busy with, in using our time to pass on all the experience and the humanity that we have.

We show that we love God by the way that we work, by the way that we drive, by the way that we do different things. How would God like my work?

In our work, we try to think about other people. Do I know how to make others around me happy, with encouragement?

St. Paul says, “Keep encouraging one another” (1 Thess. 5:11).

You encourage your children in their work when you look at their homework. Follow their grades closely, not just because you want them to excel, or because you want them to be successful or go to the next class, but because it's their work.

You want to see how they develop that capacity to do things well. You teach them that, by the importance that you attach to their work.

Even if it's a five-year-old playing with their toys, you show interest in their work, their thing, that's what they do. “It's not how busy we are that's important, but why we are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.”

To do our work well we probably need a plan to manage our time, to see our priorities.

Rest is also an important part of work. “Christ sat down beside the well, tired out from his journey” (John 4:6).

It’s interesting how the evangelist lets us see the Son of God made man weary from the things He was doing.

Our tiredness is a tiredness that's wielded by God. It's never useless. It can be very sanctifying.

Rest is also given to us by God to prepare ourselves for the next piece of work that we have to do. God rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:3).

John Paul II has a wonderful letter that he wrote, Dies Domini–“The Day of the Lord.” It's all about the day of rest. It’s on the Internet.

He talks about the “sacredness of rest”—something sacred, where we find God a little more in times of less pressured exchange.

Sometimes we may need to demand more of ourselves or for other people around us.

W. Somerset Maugham has a phrase where he says, “It's a funny thing about life, that if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.”

Sometimes we have to demand a little more from people around us, that they do their work well, that they give a good service, and as the end-result, it's acceptable.

We irradiate the light and love of Christ with our work. We should try never to lose our flair for professional work, to love what we do, to keep abreast of new developments.

St. Josemaría liked to emphasize a lot the dignity and the importance of domestic work.

Children in the home learn how to do all sorts of things that may be a great preparation for their future functioning in an office, or in a team, or different places; the practice of the virtues: punctuality, order, perseverance, fortitude.

A lot of these things they pick up in the home and the ordinary day-to-day tasks that are assigned to them.

In our work, we should never be afraid to try something new. Always be open to new things. If there's a problem, be solution-oriented. What can I contribute with my thinking, with my prayer, with my hard work to solve this particular problem?

If our work is work for which we're not normally remunerated, such as work in the home, we could think, If I was to be paid, what could I get for it? What am I worth in that sense? Not that money is the most important thing, but sometimes it can teach us things.

We have been educated to serve. The more we increase that spirit of service, of service orientation, often the more effective our work will be.

Are the people whom I'm serving happy with the job that I have done? Feedback is a very good thing. One of the signs of professionalism in the modern world is the desire for feedback, the willingness to receive it and to act upon it, so as to improve all the time. Very good spirit.

We can ask Our Lord that we might grow to be more supernatural in our work and put faith in the things we do every day. This is where God has placed me. This is what He wants me to be doing.

Hope, when there are problems or difficulties or things don't work out as we would have liked them to, and charity all the time.

I heard a man once who was involved in giving talks to workers in a certain organization in a plant. There was a big executive who was visiting from head office who happened to be walking around the plant and sat in for a few moments on the talk that this person was giving. It was a talk about charity—charity in the workplace.

This executive was very impressed and came to the speaker afterward and said, “Look, keep talking about charity. We need to have more charity on the factory floor, in all sorts of places; more kindness, more patience, more love put into practice.”

St. Josemaría says in the Furrow, “Work is man's original vocation. It is a blessing from God, and those who consider it as a punishment are sadly mistaken. The Lord, who is the best of fathers, placed the first man in Paradise so that he would work” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 482).

He says, “I ask God that you may take as your model Jesus as an adolescent and as a young man, both when he disputed with the doctors in the Temple and when he worked in Joseph's workshop” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 484).

The ordinary things that we do every day are an opportunity for us to grow in holiness.

Communication at work can also be very important. We live in the age of communication. Communication with our boss, communication with our clients, communication with our peers means everything related to communication is important.

Respond to emails punctually. The way that we respond is also important—the tone of the communications that we make, the words that we use—please and thank you.

Order will lead us not to try to do too many things at the same time. As a priority, certain things have to come before others. Usually, it's good to try and do the most difficult thing first, or the thing we least like, and then we can enjoy the other work that we have to do.

Virtue can find very concrete expressions to keep a tidy table. Tidy surroundings tend to enhance efficiency.

Being where we're supposed to be, avoiding going upstairs when we don't need to go upstairs, or downstairs when we don't need to. Some jobs need more attention given to quality, some to quantity. Some things require more study in detail.

We're called to work with serenity and peace, controlling our passions of envy, selfishness, of anger; being available for different tasks; putting other virtues into practice such as justice, prudence, temperance.

There may be injustices that we come across in our work.

St. Josemaría had to move from the Diocese of Saragossa to the Diocese of Madrid, and in one of the books it was versed that there was some “providential injustice” (Andrés Vázquez de Prada, The Founder of Opus Dei: The Life of Josemaría Escrivá, Volume I: The Early Years, Chapter 4).

A very interesting adjective. If you ever were the victim of some injustice in the workplace, it can be consoling to think it's a “providential injustice.”

Somehow God has permitted this thing and there is good in it. “All things turn out for the good of those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). When the cross comes, we can try to carry it silently, with joy, offering to Our Lord that aspect of our work.

The world is advanced by people who take pride in their work. We can get away with inferior workmanship, but God sees it.

Work is a magnificent reality. We perfect ourselves as human persons. We become more Christ-like, more God-like.

Our Lady spent every day of her life just fulfilling ordinary occupations in their home of Nazareth. She went to the well every day for water. She did ordinary things.

We can ask Our Lady that we might grow in this great challenge of the sanctification of our ordinary work so that in it and through it we might bring many other people to be closer to God.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

OLV