The Supernatural Organization of Our Work - Part 3
We continue our thread from last week about the supernatural organization of our work, derived from the chapter of the same name in Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski's Working Our Way into Heaven.
This week we kick off with a definition offered by Cardinal Wyszynski:
"supernatural organization of work: a division of work into a number of little activities, each of which we give back to God in a separate act of love. It is possible to set all the activities of the day into this framework. However it is sufficient to get through some determined task well once during the course of the day in order to acquire wonderful fruits in the sanctification of the temporal."
So, if you can organize your entire day such that every piece becomes like the movement in a great symphony, your Symphony of Work offered to the Almighty, great. If not, you can simply focus on the task at hand.
In many previous posts, we've offered various suggestions about how we might elevate our daily toil above it's natural, worldly environment such that it takes on the character of a prayer. For example, we may simply make a conscious determination of our will to work "for the greater glory of God." That's a direct and simply way. We know God will recognize our act of will and accept it as an offering to His Majesty. Anyone can do this. And if we do it with love, a love of our Heavenly Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of their Love, i.e., the Holy Spirit, our offering becomes more than a formal declaration conceived in our intellect: It takes on the character of a truly heartfelt, personal offering from the depths of our eternal soul to the Holy Trinity, One God.
(Okay, given the fact that I'm neither saint, nor spiritual master, nor theologian, maybe I'm pushing the envelope a bit with those somewhat high-falutin' words; but, really it's not pretension or exaggeration. I think if you know your Catholic Faith you'll understand what I'm talking about.)
However, we can also be more down-to-earth in our intention. Here's one way suggested by Cardinal Wyszynski to help us simply focus on the task at hand:
"for instance, suppose we have been given a set task to perform. We go over the course of action in our mind, the whole process, with all the movements involved: deeds and actions, thoughts and plans, hopes joys, and fears. In the course of this task we shall with the help of the rational will, have to join together a series of deliberate actions. What will the worth of this work be? Shall we be able to raise it above the temporal, to sanctify it and ourselves in it, to extend its perspectives as far as the gates of heaven? Or shall we keep it from ever rising above the earth. Let us make a start anyway!"
Here we're really digging down to the nitty-gritty of the task at hand. We've broken it down into its component parts, each of which will take a certain effort and a certain amount of time. As we commence working, we can even consciously unite the series of thoughts, words, and actions that make up the whole and consciously place them under the watchful eye of God.
A simple, obvious example of this effort might be my writing this particular blog post. I begin with a general idea, the supernatural organization of our work, and break it down into a number of component parts: First, provide a definition of "supernatural organization of our work"; then provide a couple of examples of just how we might go about organizing our work to raise it to a supernatural level. So we see here the specific definition our endeavor, i.e., the supernatural organization of our work (thanks to Cardinal Wyszynski), and two examples of how we go about accomplishing it: one that more general, "lofty" (or "high-falutin" if you prefer), the other a more detailed and specific approach.
Here's another example from my own experience. Last week I blocked out a chunk of time to compile a report we typically produce every quarter. All the steps for compiling the report are already documented in writing, which provides us with all the movements involved: deeds and actions, thoughts and plans. With all that already broken down, I could focus on the "hopes, joys, and fears" involved in this project. Indeed, the report will be used to facilitate a transaction whose consequences are, at the moment, unknown to some degree. We have hopes that all parties will benefit, but we'll had no way of knowing those consequences until we completed our report, which will reveal key information needed to move on to the transaction. As I think more about this, I can certainly conceive of the "hopes, joys, and fears" that may manifest themselves in the clients and professionals involved, in differing ways and different degrees. In fact, just writing this makes me aware of my own hopes, joys, and fears, since our work will serve as a both a guide and catalyst for this transaction, and we want to do what's right for all parties. This approach makes the report "come alive" in a sense. Taking it a step further, with the feelings and fate of the parties in mind, we can super-naturalize our work as we ask for God's grace for all involved.
Perhaps you can come up with similar examples in our own work.
Next time we'll wind up our discussion of the supernatural organizations of our work as we heighten our awareness of God's Presence and our own desire and efforts to both reveal and offer up our daily work to Him.
This week we kick off with a definition offered by Cardinal Wyszynski:
"supernatural organization of work: a division of work into a number of little activities, each of which we give back to God in a separate act of love. It is possible to set all the activities of the day into this framework. However it is sufficient to get through some determined task well once during the course of the day in order to acquire wonderful fruits in the sanctification of the temporal."
So, if you can organize your entire day such that every piece becomes like the movement in a great symphony, your Symphony of Work offered to the Almighty, great. If not, you can simply focus on the task at hand.
In many previous posts, we've offered various suggestions about how we might elevate our daily toil above it's natural, worldly environment such that it takes on the character of a prayer. For example, we may simply make a conscious determination of our will to work "for the greater glory of God." That's a direct and simply way. We know God will recognize our act of will and accept it as an offering to His Majesty. Anyone can do this. And if we do it with love, a love of our Heavenly Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of their Love, i.e., the Holy Spirit, our offering becomes more than a formal declaration conceived in our intellect: It takes on the character of a truly heartfelt, personal offering from the depths of our eternal soul to the Holy Trinity, One God.
(Okay, given the fact that I'm neither saint, nor spiritual master, nor theologian, maybe I'm pushing the envelope a bit with those somewhat high-falutin' words; but, really it's not pretension or exaggeration. I think if you know your Catholic Faith you'll understand what I'm talking about.)
However, we can also be more down-to-earth in our intention. Here's one way suggested by Cardinal Wyszynski to help us simply focus on the task at hand:
"for instance, suppose we have been given a set task to perform. We go over the course of action in our mind, the whole process, with all the movements involved: deeds and actions, thoughts and plans, hopes joys, and fears. In the course of this task we shall with the help of the rational will, have to join together a series of deliberate actions. What will the worth of this work be? Shall we be able to raise it above the temporal, to sanctify it and ourselves in it, to extend its perspectives as far as the gates of heaven? Or shall we keep it from ever rising above the earth. Let us make a start anyway!"
Here we're really digging down to the nitty-gritty of the task at hand. We've broken it down into its component parts, each of which will take a certain effort and a certain amount of time. As we commence working, we can even consciously unite the series of thoughts, words, and actions that make up the whole and consciously place them under the watchful eye of God.
A simple, obvious example of this effort might be my writing this particular blog post. I begin with a general idea, the supernatural organization of our work, and break it down into a number of component parts: First, provide a definition of "supernatural organization of our work"; then provide a couple of examples of just how we might go about organizing our work to raise it to a supernatural level. So we see here the specific definition our endeavor, i.e., the supernatural organization of our work (thanks to Cardinal Wyszynski), and two examples of how we go about accomplishing it: one that more general, "lofty" (or "high-falutin" if you prefer), the other a more detailed and specific approach.
Here's another example from my own experience. Last week I blocked out a chunk of time to compile a report we typically produce every quarter. All the steps for compiling the report are already documented in writing, which provides us with all the movements involved: deeds and actions, thoughts and plans. With all that already broken down, I could focus on the "hopes, joys, and fears" involved in this project. Indeed, the report will be used to facilitate a transaction whose consequences are, at the moment, unknown to some degree. We have hopes that all parties will benefit, but we'll had no way of knowing those consequences until we completed our report, which will reveal key information needed to move on to the transaction. As I think more about this, I can certainly conceive of the "hopes, joys, and fears" that may manifest themselves in the clients and professionals involved, in differing ways and different degrees. In fact, just writing this makes me aware of my own hopes, joys, and fears, since our work will serve as a both a guide and catalyst for this transaction, and we want to do what's right for all parties. This approach makes the report "come alive" in a sense. Taking it a step further, with the feelings and fate of the parties in mind, we can super-naturalize our work as we ask for God's grace for all involved.
Perhaps you can come up with similar examples in our own work.
Next time we'll wind up our discussion of the supernatural organizations of our work as we heighten our awareness of God's Presence and our own desire and efforts to both reveal and offer up our daily work to Him.
Comments