The Economy and Our Work - The Church and Our Spiritual Life

Today we look at some connections between our work, our spiritual life, the economy and the Church.

When you're in business, you contribute to the economy. So you pay attention to what's going on in the economy. A strong economy may or may not help your particular business. Same goes for a weak economy. 

But you're still interested in what's happening in the overall economy. For example, a severe recession may impact your customers or clients. If they suffer economically, they'll be less inclined to buy your products or services. In a strong economy, people tend not to watch their spending so carefully. So you're less likely to find resistance to price.

But our immediate focus in our daily work will be the tasks at hand, the benefit we can provide to our clients and customers. Without such focus, nothing will be accomplished. 

We find here the need for balance. Most of our time will be spent on our own specific work. But it's important to know what's going on in the general economy as well.

Now we connect to our spiritual life and the Church. When each of us either builds and strengthens our spiritual life or ignores it, we contribute to our Holy Catholic Church - for good or for ill. A healthy and strong Church, can readily help us to work out our salvation each day. When it is less healthy, help can be hard to come by.

Should Catholic men at work be as interested in what's going on in our Church as we ought to be in the economy? I think so. When it comes to working out our salvation, none of us can really go it alone in this world. We need to rely on God, first an foremost of course. But we also develop spiritual discipline to, as it were, do our part.

If, as part of our spiritual discipline, we read Scripture we will rely on good, accurate translations, along with solid commentary to help us understand what we're reading. If we read spiritual works, we need to know how to find solid orthodox works. For those who seek spiritual direction, a good, holy priest is essential. 

When the Catholic Church is strong and healthy the resources we need are readily available. But if, like now, the Church is not so healthy, we may not get the support we seek. The argument can be made that, in its current state, blindly trusting any source or resource that labels itself "Catholic" would be a potential mistake. Do I need to explain this in any detail? I hope not.

When I begin the workday, my main focus is on the work at hand. Yet what's going on "out there" in the economy can and does effect my business. In practicing my Catholic religion, I focus on my personal prayer and study, and on trying to be a good example to others. Yet the state of Holy Mother Church can and does effect my spiritual life.

In my work, when the economy isn't doing all that well, I can and do double down on my efforts to provide a product or service that my clients and customers will find valuable - valuable enough to buy those products or services. In my spiritual life, when Holy Mother Church isn't doing all that well, I need to make a special effort to keep up my prayer and good works, even in the face of disappointing or disconcerting news I read about our Church.

Since this C-Virus Mess ripped into us over a year ago, the economy has been difficult. Maybe it will get better soon. For many years now, our Holy Church has had a rough ride. Maybe it will get better. In either case, we really don't know if and when.

When things aren't going well around us, it might help to remember pendulums. They swing back and forth over and over. Economies have their pendulum swings. At extremes we refer to these as booms and busts. So too has our Catholic Church had pendulum swings. And sometimes these go to extremes as well. Right now that extreme is more bust than boom. That's just how it is.

Knowing how things are going is a good idea. But we have little control over the state of the economy or the state of the Church. What we can control is what we do. 

Today, we can get to the tasks at hand that will keep our business healthy. And we can get to attend to our spiritual life to keep our soul healthy.