The Octave of Easter at Work

 (re-post from 2023)

The Octave of Easter gives us a full week of Easters. Easter Sunday has passed of course. But Easter remains with us in all its fullness throughout the Octave. 

Octaves are meant to kind of stretch out the graces that come with great feast days. And there's no greater feast day than Easter (with Christmas a close second?). So here we are in this glorious grace-filled Octave.

Of course, many of us are at work. And it's likely our bosses, clients, customers, perhaps most of our co-workers, are basically oblivious to the reality of the Octave of Easter. So it's pretty much up to us to make this an spiritually exceptional time, even as we put our shoulders to the plow and get on with the tasks at hand. The world surrounding us may be thoroughly secular, but we don't have to let that deter us from keep a good, holy Octave.

Not that the world should take all the blame. Even those of us who managed to keep Lent reasonably well may tend to "relax" a bit more than we should.

Of course, relaxing our spiritual muscles in the aftermath of our special practice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving isn't such a bad idea. If you do any kind of rigorous physical exercise, you know that intervals of rest are essential to avoid injury and come back strong for the next session. So if our Lenten exercises were rigorous, some respite makes a lot of sense. Just be sure that respite doesn't result in renunciation or total rejection of the more muscular spiritual discipline that Lent brought to us.

A simple comparison between the Season of Lent and the Easter Season now underway may provide some context for all of this:

Lent urges us to draw away from the pleasures and enticements of this world. Easter brings us hope of eternal life in the next - a much, much better life. Ideally, having withdrawn our attention and devotion to the things of this world, we have cleaned the slate and prepared ourselves for that which Our Lord suffered and died for: our salvation.

We might compare this to our worldly work. I suspect all of us have periods where we need to apply more time and effort, others less so. In my own work, this more intense exertion could be focused on the business itself or the knowledge I need to obtain to perform the services I provide. 

When I focus on improving the business itself, I'm typically looking to improve, increase, or streamline how I run the business. Improvement also focuses on producing better quality work. Increase mean adding and/or expanding on the services I offer. Streamlining helps me to concentrate my efforts in order to get things done in a shorter time frame. This frees up my time for additional projects.

The object of these efforts is not to create relief from work itself. It's to make the work better: to serve others needs more efficiently, more effectively. What else am I in business for? (Yes, to make money of course. But, seriously, if I come to you and say, "Please pay my fee so I can make money," would that entice you to use my services?)

As for increasing knowledge - aka "continuing education" - that's an ongoing effort, with both formal classes, webinars, and independent study. There's not other way to keep up with a changing world, as well as changing attitudes and appetites of clients.

But, as with our Lenten discipline, you need to mix things up, take a break from the breakneck effort that comes with improving the business and advancing core skills and knowledge. 

The perfect application of this to the Easter Octave: Combine the spiritual and practical. If you trim those extra devotions and daily exercises in your spiritual regimen, do the same at work.

This happy combination has been an object of desire for many years. But lately, there's been some progress. This year I am (he said with determination) going to ease up. I do hope, however, that the space created allows me to pursue other matters that have built up in my personal life. Oh, and these too can be done for the greater glory of God, just as try to do in our work and our spiritual lives.

Heck, everything can - and should be done - for the greater glory of God, right?

Hmm...so the glory of the Easter Octave helps us give greater glory to God. I think I got it.

Happy Easter!