Professional Prestige

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, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We're told in the Book of Proverbs: “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).

One of the goals of our Christian life is to be somebody who does a good job.

The question could be asked: “What is the lamp from which the light of Christ may shine forth into our environment?” The answer could be: it's our top-quality work and the professional prestige that comes with it.

What good would the apostolate of a mother be if she did not conscientiously take care of her family? Or how can a student who doesn't study speak about human and supernatural virtues to his friends? How can a Catholic businessman who doesn't practice the Church's social doctrine talk about high ideals with his employees?

If a Christian were to ignore the practice of human virtues, their life would be nothing but wishful thinking. Apparently pious but nonetheless sterile desires in the realm of personal sanctity have little positive influence on other people.

Yet Christ and His Church command us to have a real impact on the world around us.

“Every Christian should make Christ present among men. That person ought to act in such a way that those who know him sense ‘the fragrance of Christ’ (2 Cor. 2:15). People should be able to recognize the Master in His disciples” (Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 105).

I heard of a lady a number of years ago who worked at the university for a number of years, and then she passed away.

When they were planning her funeral, the head of that faculty asked if the faculty could take care of organizing her funeral, because “she was responsible for the unity in our faculty and our department.”

It was a very wonderful compliment. This lady had tried to be all things to all men. She'd been there for her colleagues. She was good at her job. Obviously also, she went the extra mile in helping people around her to be happy.

You could say that she carried with her the fragrance of Christ.

Following Christ means that spiritual and religious principles should be actualized in ordinary life. A Christian should not only be different but should be seen to be different.

The sick person can give light if they bear their infirmity with a supernatural sense.

Our Lord wants the Catholic pharmacist to be knowledgeable and perfectly competent with the medicines that he or she sells. Equally, when it's necessary, Our Lord expects that that person will know how to give good human and supernatural advice.

Similarly, the taxi driver should be thoroughly familiar with the streets of a big city. The bus driver should show his concern for his passengers by driving carefully.

I heard of a very elderly nun in another country once who was quite a well-known personality. But she, in her old age, developed Alzheimer's.

Somehow, one day, she managed to get out of the convent where she was living. Although there were a lot of safeguards for her not to get out, she managed to get out.

She hailed a taxi and got into the taxi. This was somewhere in Asia, and she said to the taxi driver: “Take me to Ireland.”

The taxi driver was a bit surprised because he knew all the streets of the city, but he didn't know of any street called Ireland Street. From a slightly further conversation with this good lady, he realized there was something wrong; that she was not altogether there.

He didn't know very much or even anything about the Catholic Church, but he did know of one orphanage that was run by some Catholic brothers, so he drove her there.

When she got out of the car, she walked into the place and told the receptionist: “I've just arrived from Ireland and my bags are at the airport.”

Now, the Rector of that particular place at that particular moment happened to be at the airport. He wasn't expecting anybody unusual coming from Ireland or anywhere else, so he was a bit surprised.

Anyway, he went, and he tried to look for the bags of this good person. When he found they weren't there and the bags he was looking for were not available, he began to realize something funny was happening.

Eventually, he went home. When he saw this good, elderly nun who was well-known in Catholic circles, he realized who it was and what the problem was. He was able to bring her back to the convent where she was safely looked after, and she lived happily ever after.

In some ways, it was a good example of that good taxi driver who did what he could. He went the extra mile. He was very professional, and you could say that he contributed to the prestige of his fellow taxi drivers by taking such good care of his passengers.

In Christ is Passing By, St. Josemaría said, "Professional work is also an apostolate, an opportunity to give ourselves to others, to reveal Christ to them and to lead them to God the Father—all of which is the overflow of the charity which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts” (J. Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Point 49).

A good sign of the fact that we use that prestige and do apostolate with our colleagues and friends is that we talk to them about spiritual things, about the deeper realities of life which, possibly, nobody else ever talks to them about.

This is what true friendship is all about. We open the drawbridge of our hearts. We let it down.

We let people look into our hearts and see what makes us tick so that hopefully, they see there's something there that they don't have. They begin to want it and they let down the drawbridge of their hearts. There’s communication, a heart-to-heart relationship.

This is the way to do apostolate with the people around us—to talk to them on a level that perhaps no other friends can talk to them.

That means we try to foster the good of their soul. We talk to them about getting to Confession, or perhaps doing a retreat, coming to a recollection. We help them to improve the quality of their lives and ultimately help them to get to heaven.

Our professional prestige is worth very little if it's not the hook on which we can put the bait in order to win fish for Christ.

St. Josemaría in The Forge says, “You cannot forget that any worthy, noble, and honest work at the human level can—and should!—be raised to the supernatural level, becoming a divine task” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 687).

Our role in the middle of the world is to be saints in being good citizens, to work for the sanctification of ourselves and for the sanctification of others.

If Our Lord gives us the talents to be a person in a key position in society where key decisions are made for the well-being of society, for the country, for people, we have to try and do everything we can to be that person.

Aggression on the corporate ladder is perfectly compatible with humility and holiness.

Maybe we're not called to be that person, but we're called to be close to that person, to influence them, to have their ear for the good.

If we've been called to be a lay person in the middle of the world, then we're called to have an influence. A good question to ask ourselves is: What national and international organization do I belong to? Am I really “launching out into the deep” (Luke 5:4-5) to have an influence that God wants me to have?

This brings a great sense of responsibility in our work. Our ability to respond to God is a sign of our human dignity. Only a free agent can choose to be responsible and choose to do what conforms to the will of God and their perfection.

This means that in our professional work, we're never willing or ready to do anything wrong. Often, in standing up for what is right, we also gain our prestige.

Each of us has to choose to act responsibly in daily work, to try and make sure that our work is ordered to the glory of God and to the service of society, to the fulfillment of our family obligations.

A Christian with this sense of responsibility will endeavor to study as well as he possibly can, and then perform to the highest standards in their place of work and make the effort to keep abreast of new developments so that they know what's going on in their profession.

St. Josemaría liked to say that if you choose one specific area of your professional work and you read everything that's coming out in that area over a couple of years, you may become the national expert in that particular area.

That gives you a platform from which to evangelize, to influence other people in society, because very often the previous expert may have died.

In The Forge, we're told: “Jesus, Our Lord and Model, growing up and living as one of us, reveals to us that human existence—your life—and its humdrum, ordinary business, have a meaning which is divine, which belongs to eternity” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 688).

We're also told that Our Lord was questioned initially in His life because He was the son of the carpenter. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon?" (Mark 6:3).

Joseph was well known; he had a certain professional prestige.

Likewise, Matthew: “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man sitting in the customs house named Matthew and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him” (Matt. 9:9).

Matthew was in the place where he should have been. That’s very important in our work. Matthew was doing what he should have been doing.

That's why Our Lord saw him: ‘This is a person with the human qualities that could be the sort of apostle that I want to build my Church.’

The approach to studying as well as possible and performing to the highest of standards, yields as a bonus the valuable asset of professional prestige.

That goal holds true for all kinds of professions: for the mother of a family, the office worker, businessman, tradesman, or the university professor.

“Whenever your will may weaken a little bit in your ordinary work,” we could be reminded of the words of St. Josemaría who said: “Study, work, is an essential part of my way. If I were discredited professionally as a consequence of my laziness, it would make my work as a Christian useless or impossible. To attract and to help others, I need the influence of my professional reputation, and that is what God wants” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 781).

That doesn't mean that we have to be particularly intelligent. Often people don't particularly admire intelligent people because they might not be all that good at their work. They might be lazy or careless or take things for granted.

What people admire is someone who is competent, who does a good job.

“Show me a man,” said the Book of Proverbs, “who does a good job, and I will show you a man who is better than most and worthy of the company of kings.”

People admire people who know their job, who do things well, who take care of details, irrespective of their particular intellectual talents.

St. Josemaría liked to say: "Never doubt that if you abandon your task, you are going away from God’s plans and leading others away from them!” (Ibid.).

From the very first moments of His public life, Our Lord was known as the carpenter, the son of Mary. At the time of His miracles, people exclaimed, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37).

"All things" means absolutely everything: “not only the great miracles” where He fed five thousand people, “but also the little everyday things that didn't dazzle anyone, but which Christ performed with the accomplishment of one who is perfect God and perfect man” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 56).

I remember somebody remarking about a particular surgeon that we used to work with. He said, ‘You can see that he really loves his work. He goes about his task with great care, great interest.’

That was a great compliment. The way that that man worked spoke reams about his approach to his work.

As Our Lord's sign of respect for human work, He frequently used examples from the most varied occupations in His teaching.

“It could be said that He looks with love upon human work and the different forms that it takes, seeing in each one of these forms a particular facet of man's likeness with God the Creator and the Father” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Laborem exercens, September 14, 1981).

If we are to have professional prestige, we must aim at mastering our occupation or craft or profession. That doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen with reading one textbook or getting good marks in one exam. It's the work of a lifetime.

Even if we're not particularly gifted intellectually, we can still grow along those lines to be someone of great prestige because over time, we have acquired talents, or we have acquired the habit of doing things well, or producing wonderful things. The best wine may come at the end (cf. John 2:10).

That means we need to dedicate the necessary time for learning, for practice or study, by setting goals in order to perform better in our chosen vocation each day, even after we've completed our formal course of study or training.

There's always something new to learn. As we get older, that something may be learned from young people.

Very often a student's report card can be a good indicator of their love of God and of their neighbor, because deeds are love—or at least the effort they put into getting a good report card.

As a logical consequence of that commitment, the faithful Christian will be respected by his colleagues as a good worker or a good student.

I remember a cardiothoracic surgeon, who has now gone to his reward, telling me that very often his colleagues gave him the difficult heart cases.

That was a sign of his respect and his prestige. Among his colleagues, he was somebody who did a good job.

That sort of person, almost without realizing it, will show how the doctrine of Christ can become a reality in ordinary life.

That fact bears out something that was pointed out by St. Ambrose many centuries ago: that things appear less difficult to us once we see them done by others (cf. St. Ambrose, Treatise). Everyone has a right to this good example from us.

One of the greatest things we can give to the people who come after us is a good example in the work that we do, in the tasks we carry out, in every area of human life.

Professional footballers can have an enormous influence on young people. They see the way the footballers score the goals, and also the way that they behave off the field.

All of us are called to be beacons of light in the middle of the world.

It's a truth of our faith that Christ's message has not been spread by human means, but under the impulse of divine grace. It's also true that a meaningful and lasting apostolate must be founded on people who embody the human virtues.

St. Josemaría liked to say that sometimes we give a lot of importance to supernatural virtues, but we can forget about the human ones. We can focus a lot on Christ as God, but we can also forget a little about Christ as a man. We have to imitate the man Christ and the woman, Our Lady.

If we don't live those human virtues, other people could be repulsed by the disparity between what Christians practice and what Christians preach. They have to see virtues lived out, which is holiness, in ordinary realities.

The first place we have to live those virtues is in the home, in the domestic Church, so that our children grow up knowing what it means to live like a wonderful human being, a great human being.

The Second Vatican Council declared, “One of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between the faith which many profess and their practice of their daily lives. … The Christian who shirks their temporal duties shirks their duties towards their neighbor, neglects God, and endangers their eternal salvation” (cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et spes).

Sometimes those virtues have to be practiced in difficult decisions in the home by a mother or a father.

Sometimes they might have to be practiced at a committee meeting or a board meeting of an important organization, and we might be the only person on that board who stands up for what is right. Or we might even be asked to leave the board because of what we have said, because we have disagreed.

But these are key moments to practice those virtues, to show our Christian principles, to reflect Christ in all situations.

“Christians have to try and follow the example of Christ who worked as a craftsman. We can be proud of the opportunity to carry out our earthly activity in such a way as to integrate human, domestic, professional, scientific, and technical enterprises with religious values, under whose supreme direction all things are ordered to the glory of God” (Ibid.).

St. Josemaría liked to say that “professional prestige is the ‘bait’ with which to catch fish” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 372), to give an apostolic orientation to everything that we do.

We have to speak about God to our companions at work who share with us the same professional interests, weariness and difficulties, which facilitates communication, mutual help, and consequently, sincere friendship.

Knowing that somebody who is their equal is struggling for holiness, seeking God, can move them much more than a thousand speeches from other people.

Everybody values a job well done and the person who works well, like Our Lord, attracts the most people. Our work would not be sanctified if it was not that bait with which to fish for souls.

In Christ is Passing By, St. Josemaría says "Professional work is also an apostolate, an opportunity to give ourselves to others, to reveal Christ to them and lead them to God the Father—all of which is the overflow of the charity which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts” (J. Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Point 49).

Our Lord in St. John said, “When I am lifted from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). We have to place Christ there, lifting up from the earth.

Part of that professional prestige comes from doing things with human perfection, putting intensity into our work, finishing things well. Aristotle used to say, “Happiness comes from the full use of our powers along the lines of excellence.”

Details in our work are important: doing things on time, starting on time, finishing on time, taking pride in our work, having rectitude of intention, going out of ourselves to produce a masterpiece.

Martin Luther King said that: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even 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 will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”

So many define professionalism as producing the best work, irrespective of how we're feeling. Doing things well doesn't depend on our mood, or the weather, or a whole series of other factors. We have to try and conquer our feelings to produce that masterpiece.

It's good if we try to have ambition, to be somebody. No one can be good at everything, but we all can try to become the best at what we do.

We can ask Our Lady that she might help us to grow in that aspect of our work, and for growing in our professional prestige so as to be more effective in the place where God has placed us, and to help our work to truly be that “hinge of our sanctification” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 61). that God has called it to be.

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, Saint 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.

RK