Our Daily Work Really Does Help Us "Come To God"

Our recent Sunday posts have urged us to become more like Jesus. Today we will build on this and consider the idea that our daily work can help us "come to God." The phrase originates in something written by Fr. Leen, whose work we've quoted in the past. 

Father connects this idea with "Holy Hope." He points out that, in our spiritual life, we more easily think of Faith and Charity as virtues to inculcate in our daily thoughts, words, and deeds. Hope not so much. 

Why not?

Well, it seems that if we really did give hope a central place in our spiritual life, we would need to believe that we can - here and now - grow closer to God. Or at least we would sincerely make the effort day in and day out. 

What that entails is eschewing the idea that we sinners really can't hope to grow close to God - beyond a certain point - because, well, we're sinners. And God is as far from sin as can be imagined. Sin and God simply don't mix. 

So how can we grow closer to God - even approach or "come to" God - bearing our sins and imperfections? 

Of course, on our own we can't. But this would be where Holy Hope picks up the infinite slack that prevents our really trying and believing we can.

Now, before we conclude this Holy Hope remains out of reach, Father begins his little instruction by noting that Mary is the Mother of Holy Hope. And we Catholic men at work should know by now that Mary, Mother of Our Lord, Mother of God, is our Mother too. And as our Mother, she has our interests at heart. And that interest centers on our becoming holy, becoming more like Her Son, indeed becoming saints. 

Sure, she can be approached for special favors. And sometimes she does come through for us. But one favor her intercession will always find an effective response is in our becoming saints. What mother would not want the best for her child, and what could be "more best" for our Mother Mary than our becoming saints?

Anyway, let's let Father Leen kick this up a notch and take us to the point where we will see not only how we can come to God, but that our coming to God should be weaved into our daily work, minute by minute. 

“Mary is the Mother of Holy Hope. Why of Holy Hope? It seems as if but few realize the extraordinary importance of Holy Hope in the spiritual life. This may seem a rather unimportant virtue. They consider it of less importance than that of her theological virtues of Faith and Charity, and the least practical of the three in the handling of daily life. Why is this? There are few who in their daily lives act sustainedly in the virtue of Hope. We act in Faith and in a certain measure in Charity. Why is it so difficult to act in Hope? Hope is a tending towards an object that is distant, an object not yet acquired, and possibly in itself extremely difficult of attainment. Our tending towards the object is sustained and buoyed up by the consciousness that we have at our disposal means which will help us to attain it. 

“What is the object, distant and difficult to attain, of the virtue of Hope? What can be more difficult of attainment to the creature than God? Only God can reach God. Is it not an extraordinary thing that a creature should aspire to such a goal, aspire to reach God, to rise to that power, that activity, which will put it in possession of God, and that even here and now? We may ask ourselves how many people, in the ordinary activities of daily life, press on in the hope of coming thereby to God. We hope to reach him in prayer, but do we seek to find Him in our ordinary daily duties – in teaching a class, in sweeping a room, in working at the sewing machine? In these activities, do we act in the way of Hope? Do we realize that in these things we can tend continually towards God, so that there need be no moment of life, no activity, no duty, in which we are not tending towards Him. We act in Faith. We act in Charity. Why do we not act in Hope?” (Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp.)

So there we have a lesson in the central importance that Hope will play in our daily efforts to grow closer to God through the diligent performance of our daily work.