The Mystery of Redemption in Work
Continuing our exploration of Working Your Way into Heaven, we'll take a look at Chapter 11, "The Mystery of Redemption at Work."
In recent posts about organizing our work, I shared a daily regimen that essentially attempts to make good use of every minute of the work day. In his discussion of the mystery of redemption at work, Cardinal Wyszynski places this idea into a spiritual context:
"In a well-organized life there are no 'leftovers' in the sense of superfluous actions and superfluous time. Nothing can be wasted, nothing let go. We cannot pass over any opportunity through which the seed of grace and of salvation may increase in us."
Being organized in work makes us more "efficient." But here we're going beyond mere efficiency. Organization serves a spiritual purpose which is beyond efficiency. And how we need it!
"With the help of toil, we can struggle against the corruption brought about in us both by Original Sin and by our own sins."
We're fallen creatures. We struggle daily against temptations, at times, falling into the grip of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. Our work can help us in our struggle against our fallen human nature. As we've already seen, life in the Garden of Eden didn't preclude work. So our need to work didn't come about because of Original Sin. Work is not the result of our being punished for Adam and Eve's sin. Work is integral to us as human beings, a positive, good thing. Indeed, work provides us with a means to struggle against the effects of Original Sin as well as our own individual sins.
And here see how work helps to free us from sin and the temptation from sin.
"Man, when he is forced by work to break with selfishness, frees himself from the flaws and consequences of sin and prepares the terrain for virtues."
Work helps us to turn our gaze away from ourselves and towards the tasks at hand. The difficulties and exhaustion that result from our daily toil are particularly effective in helping to temper our tendency to be self-centered. Far from dragging us down, difficult and exhausting work can lift us up.
However, there are limits to the usefulness of hard work. Work can be too harsh. If so, it can undermine its spiritual purpose.
"We deduce from this that the toil of work can be ennobling: by itself it cannot degrade man. Only badly organized work, or injustice in the way it is regulated - the crushing burden of work beyond human endurance - can degrade man."
While badly organized work can be the result of our own laziness or incompetence, Cardinal Wyszynski is referring to what we might call "sweatshops," where people are worked to the bone for little reward. These became a widespread problem during the Industrial Revolution, as more men migrated to cities to work in factories. The Church immediately came to the defense of those treated badly. Unions were organized to protect workers from abuses.
While most people in developed countries no longer work in factories, never mind sweatshops, all of us encounter difficulties in performing our work. We connect those difficulties with our fallen human nature which introduced such difficulties into human work.
"In every resistance we meet in work, we recognize man's resistance to God."
When we deal with, even overcome, such resistance and perform our work with dignity and efficiency despite its difficulties. we turn our work into an instrument of redemption.
"...so man, however much tried by God, once he has yielded to Him, emerges from every trial more similar to the image of God."
Here we touch on the mystery of redemption in work:
"Work, by its difficulty, redeems, liberates, ennobles, and sanctifies."
Next time we'll continue our discussion of the mystery of redemption in work by more closely considering how hard work can become a supernatural instrument that frees us from sin by uniting us with the suffering Christ.
In recent posts about organizing our work, I shared a daily regimen that essentially attempts to make good use of every minute of the work day. In his discussion of the mystery of redemption at work, Cardinal Wyszynski places this idea into a spiritual context:
"In a well-organized life there are no 'leftovers' in the sense of superfluous actions and superfluous time. Nothing can be wasted, nothing let go. We cannot pass over any opportunity through which the seed of grace and of salvation may increase in us."
Being organized in work makes us more "efficient." But here we're going beyond mere efficiency. Organization serves a spiritual purpose which is beyond efficiency. And how we need it!
"With the help of toil, we can struggle against the corruption brought about in us both by Original Sin and by our own sins."
We're fallen creatures. We struggle daily against temptations, at times, falling into the grip of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. Our work can help us in our struggle against our fallen human nature. As we've already seen, life in the Garden of Eden didn't preclude work. So our need to work didn't come about because of Original Sin. Work is not the result of our being punished for Adam and Eve's sin. Work is integral to us as human beings, a positive, good thing. Indeed, work provides us with a means to struggle against the effects of Original Sin as well as our own individual sins.
And here see how work helps to free us from sin and the temptation from sin.
"Man, when he is forced by work to break with selfishness, frees himself from the flaws and consequences of sin and prepares the terrain for virtues."
Work helps us to turn our gaze away from ourselves and towards the tasks at hand. The difficulties and exhaustion that result from our daily toil are particularly effective in helping to temper our tendency to be self-centered. Far from dragging us down, difficult and exhausting work can lift us up.
However, there are limits to the usefulness of hard work. Work can be too harsh. If so, it can undermine its spiritual purpose.
"We deduce from this that the toil of work can be ennobling: by itself it cannot degrade man. Only badly organized work, or injustice in the way it is regulated - the crushing burden of work beyond human endurance - can degrade man."
While badly organized work can be the result of our own laziness or incompetence, Cardinal Wyszynski is referring to what we might call "sweatshops," where people are worked to the bone for little reward. These became a widespread problem during the Industrial Revolution, as more men migrated to cities to work in factories. The Church immediately came to the defense of those treated badly. Unions were organized to protect workers from abuses.
While most people in developed countries no longer work in factories, never mind sweatshops, all of us encounter difficulties in performing our work. We connect those difficulties with our fallen human nature which introduced such difficulties into human work.
"In every resistance we meet in work, we recognize man's resistance to God."
When we deal with, even overcome, such resistance and perform our work with dignity and efficiency despite its difficulties. we turn our work into an instrument of redemption.
"...so man, however much tried by God, once he has yielded to Him, emerges from every trial more similar to the image of God."
Here we touch on the mystery of redemption in work:
"Work, by its difficulty, redeems, liberates, ennobles, and sanctifies."
Next time we'll continue our discussion of the mystery of redemption in work by more closely considering how hard work can become a supernatural instrument that frees us from sin by uniting us with the suffering Christ.
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