Work as a Means of Interior Sanctification - Part 4
A Catholic knows the fundamental importance of the interior life. (For a quick refresher, try HERE or HERE.) Last time, when we finished our lesson from Working Your Way into Heaven by Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, we learned that
"Next to interior life, an active life is one of the most direct ways of bringing one close to God."
For most of us, our active life consists primarily of our work. With that in mind, these words of Cardinal Wyszynski should prove encouraging:
"Those whose lives are closely bound up with work usually have a greater love for God than have the idle."
Is that true for you? Do you find your work enhances your love for God? It can. And so we continue our study and discussion of Working Your Way into Heaven - to deepen our understanding of the proper role of work in our lives, and help us turn our work into an act of love for God.
Of course, we need to recognize first that He is present with us as we go about our business, right here, right now. Any way we turn, we find Him. Any time we choose, we can turn to Him. Let's cultivate this sense of His Presence every day. We can start doing that by recognizing just how much we need Him.
"We approach God in our work, knowing that we can do all things, but only by relying on the help of God."
Let's also recognize that the true value of our work ultimately derives not from how hard we work or how efficiently we complete our daily tasks:
"Man, in fact, creates nothing...by his toil he causes the works that have been created by God to attain the perfection that is proper to them and to which they have been ordained..."
When we have a tough day on the job, when we face difficulties in our daily work, our Catholic religion provides a salutary explanation that puts those difficulties in context:
- ...we experience toil and hardship that we can offer to God as a measure of atonement for human sins. The hardship of work flows from the clouding over of will and reason by Original Sin..."
As we've learned in the past, work in and of itself wasn't ever meant to be a punishment. Original Sin brought pain and suffering into our world. Part of the deal was that our work became hard, even harsh for some of us. But by performing our work, even when it is most difficult, through Him, with Him, in Him, we can experience a kind of redeeming aspect of our daily labor.
"...only the work that is undertaken out of love of God is salutary and meritorious...
Of course, that won't ameliorate the difficulties we may encounter. It simply raises the difficult to the Divine, as a kind of offering. Knowing this, we can rejoice in even the meanest, toughest sort of work.
- The lowest work can, through love, raise one to the heights of holiness, while the loftiest work, when it is performed without love, lowers and damns one. "I may give myself up to be burned at the stake; if I lack charity, it goes for nothing." (1 Cor. 13:3)
This should encourage those of us who don't have the "ideal" job. Of course, if you're in a position to seek and find a better situation, go for it. Just don't waste those precious (if less-than-stellar) moments you spend in your current situation. Remember that your work, no matter what sort of work it may be, can serve as a means of interior sanctification.
Thanks be to God!
"Next to interior life, an active life is one of the most direct ways of bringing one close to God."
For most of us, our active life consists primarily of our work. With that in mind, these words of Cardinal Wyszynski should prove encouraging:
"Those whose lives are closely bound up with work usually have a greater love for God than have the idle."
Is that true for you? Do you find your work enhances your love for God? It can. And so we continue our study and discussion of Working Your Way into Heaven - to deepen our understanding of the proper role of work in our lives, and help us turn our work into an act of love for God.
Of course, we need to recognize first that He is present with us as we go about our business, right here, right now. Any way we turn, we find Him. Any time we choose, we can turn to Him. Let's cultivate this sense of His Presence every day. We can start doing that by recognizing just how much we need Him.
"We approach God in our work, knowing that we can do all things, but only by relying on the help of God."
Let's also recognize that the true value of our work ultimately derives not from how hard we work or how efficiently we complete our daily tasks:
"Man, in fact, creates nothing...by his toil he causes the works that have been created by God to attain the perfection that is proper to them and to which they have been ordained..."
When we have a tough day on the job, when we face difficulties in our daily work, our Catholic religion provides a salutary explanation that puts those difficulties in context:
- ...we experience toil and hardship that we can offer to God as a measure of atonement for human sins. The hardship of work flows from the clouding over of will and reason by Original Sin..."
As we've learned in the past, work in and of itself wasn't ever meant to be a punishment. Original Sin brought pain and suffering into our world. Part of the deal was that our work became hard, even harsh for some of us. But by performing our work, even when it is most difficult, through Him, with Him, in Him, we can experience a kind of redeeming aspect of our daily labor.
"...only the work that is undertaken out of love of God is salutary and meritorious...
Of course, that won't ameliorate the difficulties we may encounter. It simply raises the difficult to the Divine, as a kind of offering. Knowing this, we can rejoice in even the meanest, toughest sort of work.
- The lowest work can, through love, raise one to the heights of holiness, while the loftiest work, when it is performed without love, lowers and damns one. "I may give myself up to be burned at the stake; if I lack charity, it goes for nothing." (1 Cor. 13:3)
This should encourage those of us who don't have the "ideal" job. Of course, if you're in a position to seek and find a better situation, go for it. Just don't waste those precious (if less-than-stellar) moments you spend in your current situation. Remember that your work, no matter what sort of work it may be, can serve as a means of interior sanctification.
Thanks be to God!
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