Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life
Work can - actually should - help you get to heaven. It will if you allow your work to sanctify your life. This theme permeates most of our posts. One of our sources of inspiration - besides the "hidden life" of Our Lord Himself as he labored in Nazareth before his public life - is a book by Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski: All You Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life.
If you don't know about this great prelate, you should. He succeeded Cardinal Hlond as Primate of Poland in 1948. Thus he led Poland's Catholics throughout their struggle to keep the faith while under the yoke of Communism, until his death in 1981. During that time he spent three long years in prison under the godless overlords of his beloved homeland. The cause of his beatification and canonization began in 1989; we now can call him "Servant of God." Many believed him to be the de facto leader of the Polish nation in his opposition to the Communist usurpers who took over the country under the protective umbrella of the Soviet Union. After decades of living the nightmare of Communist rule, Poland emerged from the shadow of death with the fall of the Soviet's Evil Empire. The Polish nation retained its strong Catholic identity in no small measure due to the efforts of Cardinal Wyszynski.
Such as man can serve as a great example to all of us who work for a living. While we all face challenges in working diligently day to day, few of us faced the sort of challenges this man faced. And yet he continued in his work as chief pastor of his people, administrator of his diocese, and - as mentioned - de facto leader of a nation under the totalitarian thumb of a communist government. We might draw inspiration from such a man as we face whatever challenge or challenges might come our way this day.
For example last week, one of those exhausting grind-it-out stretches at work, we ran into some technical difficulties: a collection of little puzzling misfires that served as a kind of Chinese water torture, even as we plowed ahead to make sure all those urgent and important tasks got done. Eventually, the problems were sufficiently resolved, but not without multiple frustrating attempts to clear things up. By Friday night, as I finished up those last tasks pushed off due to the technical glitches, all I could see was my comfy bed, an image looming large enough to cause me to skip dinner and dive under the covers, seeking blessed relief from the weekly build-up of stress-laced work.
But remembering a man like Wyszynski pulls you out of yourself. You begin to see your problems as "small p" events hardly worth the worry. You ask yourself what sort of spiritual progress you've made in your life: How did you let stress wear you out when total and abiding trust in God should have bolstered your efforts? It's important to separate the concept of "hard" and "stressful" here. Yes, I worked hard all week. But stress? What's that got to do with hard? Again, a real and complete trust in God's love and mercy really should preclude stress and anxiety.
Let's put this another way. If you pray the prayer "A Morning Resolve" before beginning the day's work as I do, you remember these first words:
If you've ever hit these sorts of speed bumps on the road to sanctity, you know that it's back to the drawing board. Time to pick yourself up and start all over again, which is basically what I intend to do now. Forget self. Forget focusing on my progress.
Did Cardinal Wyszynski hit speed bumps? I can't say. But he was a man, just like us. So maybe - or likely - he did. Did he give in to thoughts of discontent, anxiety, discouragement? Perhaps. But persist he did to the very end in the face of odds that would overwhelm many if not most of us.
We'll be taking a look at what this holy man had to say about work in the weeks to come. Meanwhile you might want to invest in a copy of All You Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life.
If you don't know about this great prelate, you should. He succeeded Cardinal Hlond as Primate of Poland in 1948. Thus he led Poland's Catholics throughout their struggle to keep the faith while under the yoke of Communism, until his death in 1981. During that time he spent three long years in prison under the godless overlords of his beloved homeland. The cause of his beatification and canonization began in 1989; we now can call him "Servant of God." Many believed him to be the de facto leader of the Polish nation in his opposition to the Communist usurpers who took over the country under the protective umbrella of the Soviet Union. After decades of living the nightmare of Communist rule, Poland emerged from the shadow of death with the fall of the Soviet's Evil Empire. The Polish nation retained its strong Catholic identity in no small measure due to the efforts of Cardinal Wyszynski.
Such as man can serve as a great example to all of us who work for a living. While we all face challenges in working diligently day to day, few of us faced the sort of challenges this man faced. And yet he continued in his work as chief pastor of his people, administrator of his diocese, and - as mentioned - de facto leader of a nation under the totalitarian thumb of a communist government. We might draw inspiration from such a man as we face whatever challenge or challenges might come our way this day.
For example last week, one of those exhausting grind-it-out stretches at work, we ran into some technical difficulties: a collection of little puzzling misfires that served as a kind of Chinese water torture, even as we plowed ahead to make sure all those urgent and important tasks got done. Eventually, the problems were sufficiently resolved, but not without multiple frustrating attempts to clear things up. By Friday night, as I finished up those last tasks pushed off due to the technical glitches, all I could see was my comfy bed, an image looming large enough to cause me to skip dinner and dive under the covers, seeking blessed relief from the weekly build-up of stress-laced work.
But remembering a man like Wyszynski pulls you out of yourself. You begin to see your problems as "small p" events hardly worth the worry. You ask yourself what sort of spiritual progress you've made in your life: How did you let stress wear you out when total and abiding trust in God should have bolstered your efforts? It's important to separate the concept of "hard" and "stressful" here. Yes, I worked hard all week. But stress? What's that got to do with hard? Again, a real and complete trust in God's love and mercy really should preclude stress and anxiety.
Let's put this another way. If you pray the prayer "A Morning Resolve" before beginning the day's work as I do, you remember these first words:
I will try this day to live a simple, sincere, and serene life, repelling every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement...And yet the week produced a good dollop of anxiety. Seems like a lack of spiritual progress, doesn't it?
If you've ever hit these sorts of speed bumps on the road to sanctity, you know that it's back to the drawing board. Time to pick yourself up and start all over again, which is basically what I intend to do now. Forget self. Forget focusing on my progress.
Did Cardinal Wyszynski hit speed bumps? I can't say. But he was a man, just like us. So maybe - or likely - he did. Did he give in to thoughts of discontent, anxiety, discouragement? Perhaps. But persist he did to the very end in the face of odds that would overwhelm many if not most of us.
We'll be taking a look at what this holy man had to say about work in the weeks to come. Meanwhile you might want to invest in a copy of All You Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life.
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