What Is The Real Reward For Our Work?

What is the real reward for our work? You know, we're not talking about our paycheck here. Ideally, there's more to our daily labor than just checking in aand rolling up another day at the job to get our pay.

If we take the trouble (trouble?) to offer up all of our work for the greater glory of God (and we do, right?), then that would seem to be it's real reward. We work for His greater glory.

How do we do this? It could be a simple but sincere intention. At the beginning of the day, perhaps we develop the habit of stating - out loud or mentally - that intention. We might even do so as we begin each task throughout the day. 

Well, maybe it is asking a bit much to do so before each and every task. But we might do so at least from time to time, just as we might pause - if only for a second - and pray a silent aspiration, something like "All for Thee my God," or "I love You Jesus." Don't have one or more aspirations ready to go? OK. But try now to settle on at least one if not a few. Have them at the ready. 

Rather small and simple suggestions, no? But isn't that the way of the world and our work in it. For the most part, days come and go, more or less the same. Sure, exceptions pop up; maybe even dramatic exceptions, both for the good or the not-so-good. But on average each day - for most of us - is likely much like the last. So small and simple will work just fine, even better than fine.

And at the end of the day, if we wisely develop the habit of examining how the day wen, both at work, and in our spiritual life, we may well find a palpable reward in recognizing a job, even a day, well done. 

Then again, at times we may find ourselves engaged in some project or task that is "bigger" than the usual in some way. And such an event may carry a special reward. 

Father Willie describes one such very special event that engaged his work as a priest. The following excerpt from O’Rahilly’s biography of Fr Doyle recalls Christmas Eve and Midnight Mass during the war in 1916…

Christmas itself Fr. Doyle had the good luck of spending in billets. He got permission from General Hickie to have Midnight Mass for his men in the Convent. The chapel was a fine large one, as in pre-war times over three hundred boarders and orphans were resident in the Convent; and by opening folding-doors the refectory was added to the chapel and thus doubled the available room. An hour before Mass every inch of space was filled, even inside the altar rails and in the corridor, while numbers had to remain in the open. Word had in fact gone round about the Mass, and men from other battalions came to hear it, some having walked several miles from another village. Before the Mass there was strenuous Confession-work. “We were kept hard at work hearing confessions all the evening till nine o’clock” writes Fr. Doyle, “the sort of Confessions you would like, the real serious business, no nonsense and no trimmings. As I was leaving the village church, a big soldier stopped me to know, like our Gardiner Street friend, ‘if the Fathers would be sittin’ any more that night.’ He was soon polished off, poor chap, and then insisted on escorting me home. He was one of my old boys, and having had a couple of glasses of beer — ‘It wouldn’t scratch the back of your throat, Father, that French stuff’ — was in the mood to be complimentary. ‘We miss you sorely, Father, in the battalion’, he said, ‘we do be always talking about you’. Then in a tone of great confidence: ‘Look, Father, there isn’t a man who wouldn’t give the whole of the world, if he had it, for your little toe! That’s the truth’. The poor fellow meant well, but ‘the stuff that would not scratch his throat’ certainly helped his imagination and eloquence. I reached the Convent a bit tired, intending to have a rest before Mass, but found a string of the boys awaiting my arrival, determined that they at least would not be left out in the cold. I was kept hard at it hearing Confessions till the stroke of twelve and seldom had a more fruitful or consoling couple of hours’ work, the love of the little Babe of Bethlehem softening hearts which all the terrors of war had failed to touch.

The Mass itself was a great success and brought consolation and spiritual peace to many a war- weary exile. This is what Fr. Doyle says:

“I sang the Mass, the girls’ choir doing the needful. One of the Tommies, from Dolphin’s Barn, sang the Adeste beautifully with just a touch of the sweet Dublin accent to remind us of home, sweet home, the whole congregation joining in the chorus. It was a curious contrast: the chapel packed with men and officers, almost strangely quiet and reverent (the nuns were particularly struck by this), praying .and singing most devoutly, while the big tears ran down many a rough cheek: outside the cannon boomed and the machine-guns spat out a hail of lead: peace and good will — hatred and bloodshed!

“It was a Midnight Mass none of us will ever forget. A good 500 men came to Holy Communion, so that I was more than rewarded for my work.”

Whether ordinary or special, when our work is done for the greater glory of God, and is so offered to Him each day, whatever the particular nature of that day's work will bear its own reward.