The sanctification of
work (E.J.Tyler)
1. Life
and work
When we
look out on the universe we see constant activity with one
thing acting on another causing it to change in some way. The inanimate
world is caught up in activity of various kinds which by analogy could
be called “work” - in the sense of one thing “working” on another and
achieving various results. We look at the animal and insect kingdom and
again there is constant activity, with living things engaged in
activities that enable them to live and propagate and prosper. Their
activity could by analogy with the activity of man be called their
“work.” We do not say that an animal or an insect is “working for its
living”, or “working” at some goal because the word “work” or “a work”
includes the notion of a free activity ordered towards some freely
chosen goal, service or project, whereas the animals and insects are
engaged in their activity by instinct and compulsion. But man is free
and so he truly engages in a work, his work. Moreover, the general
sense of man is that his work is very important to his life and almost
defines him. I remember asking a small girl what she would like to do
in life. She thought for a moment and said that she would like to be a
mother. Her answer was an excellent one, and it also implied that the
term “work” conjures up in one’s mind and imagination something very
important to human life. There is the sense that human life is very
largely about life’s work, just as, indeed, the life of insects and
animals is very largely about their activities.
2. God has revealed
that he
works
In the Book of Genesis at the beginning of the Bible
God
is portrayed as engaged in the work of creating the world. To stress
that we ought regard it as real work God is shown as doing this over a
working week, and then as resting on the Sabbath day. Putting it in
these terms makes it very clear to the ordinary reader that God is very
much at work. He achieves certain things on certain days. Moreover, at
the end of every working project such as the creation of the moon and
the stars, God is described in the inspired text as looking on what he
had done and seeing it to be good - and in the case of man, he sees
that his work is very good. God is shown in the Scriptures as having
done good work. In the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, God is
portrayed fashioning man from the clay of the earth, and then of
creating the woman from the side of the man. Again, God is shown to be
at work. So then, creation is God’s work, and because of its radical
transience and dependency, it is an ongoing work of God. He continues
his creative activity by sustaining everything in existence. So God
wants us to look on him as always working. He is constantly working for
our benefit, for he is a God of love.
In the Gospel on one occasion our Lord was
attacked
by the scribes and Pharisees for healing on the Sabbath and his
response was that inasmuch as his Father keeps on working he works too.
Of course his work of healing was not a violation of the Sabbath rest,
and our Lord declared that he had come not to abolish the Law but to
fulfil it. So then, God is revealed in the Scriptures as one who works
and all creation depends constantly on his work. That, surely, sets the
pattern.
3. Man and creation
reflect
the Creator who works
In that first chapter of the Book of Genesis, God is shown as
making
man in his own image and likeness. “Let us make man in our own image
and likeness,” the text reads. That likeness of man to God is shown to
include the fact that he works. God works, and when he creates man in
his own image he sets him to work, and indeed gives him a great work to
do. The work given to him is that of propagating his own kind and thus
filling the earth. Man is also given the work of mastering the earth,
which is to say of making it a fit home for himself and a place where
he is able to live and flourish in the way God intends. Just as God
looked on all he had made including man himself and saw that it was
good, man in his turn is called to work on the world he has been placed
in and then be able to look on the world that has been developed by his
work and see that it is good. Man has the vocation to be like God in
doing good work. Even the inanimate creation which develops, maintains
and enriches itself by its constant activity reflects the Creator who
is at work. As mentioned above, the animate world of insects, birds and
animals are all engaged in activity and expenditure of energy which
reflects and imitates the constant activity of the Creator. So does
man, as I have pointed out.
4. Man needs to work
Indeed, if man does not work he will not thrive nor flourish. He
will
deteriorate and die, and animals and insects will die too if they are
not active about it. This is all a manifestation of the pattern of work
which flows forth from the nature and action of God. So then, apart
from human work being a reflection of the activity of the Creator, work
is also an indispensable requirement for limited creatures with an
inbuilt drive and need for perfection. We want to flourish, we want to
improve, we want to be as good and as best we can. We want to make the
best of it in life - at least that is our instinctive desire. Many
sadly settle for a lazy mediocrity and give up the struggle to work at
this perfection but that is not what we instinctively desire. People
settle for these half-measures because of their laziness, or their
disappointments, or their undisciplined interests. But if we act
on this instinctive desire for perfection, and discover what we ought
be concentrating on in order to attain this perfection of our nature,
then we will realize that it requires work. We shall have to work at
it, and work at it hard. We must be prepared to endure monotony,
discomfort and other forms of suffering and difficulty if we are to
achieve the kind of perfection and do the good we have set our hearts
on and are called to.
5. The work of personal
sanctity
If we do not take care, it is possible that what we have chosen to
work
at could be a waste of time. That is to say, we must work at trying to
know in what lies the true perfection of our life and being. For this
we have the teaching of Christ. He has told us that our true perfection
is to be found in holiness, in a share in the holiness of Christ
himself. On one occasion a young man came to our Lord and asked him
what he had to do in order to get to heaven. Our Lord told him that he
had to keep God’s commandments, and the ones our Lord specifically
mentioned were those that had to do with our actions towards our
neighbour, our spouse and our parents. The young man said that he had
kept all those since his earliest days, and our Lord did not question
that. In fact, he looked on him with love and proceeded to tell him
what more he needed to do if he wished to be perfect. It was to go off
and give his possessions to the poor, and then come back and follow
him. But the rich young man went off sad, not wanting to forego the
things he was attached to in order to gain the perfection our Lord laid
out before him. The point here is that the perfection God plans for us
and which we ought be working at involves the following of Christ with
an undivided heart, a heart totally attached to him. Therein will lie
our perfection and that, therefore is what we ought be working at. Our
work in life lies there. In the person of Christ man finds his
perfection.
On another occasion our Lord said to the crowds
he
had just fed that they ought not be working simply for food that will
not last. They ought be working for food which will last for ever, the
food which he could give them. They asked him, what is the work that
God wants us to be working at? Our Lord answered, this is the work of
God: that you believe in the one he has sent. So they were called to be
especially working at faith, at growing in this faith, and in faith at
making him the centre of their life. I remember years ago speaking to
the brother of a famous current affairs television personality of that
time. I asked him whether his well-known brother practised his faith.
He answered that his brother did not “work at it.” That was a good
answer because it highlighted the fact that we are called on by God to
work at our life of faith in our Lord. We are to work at our life in
Christ, and at our growth in holiness. That is the fundamental work of
life and even if much of our other work for various reasons does not go
well, the one thing necessary is that the work of personal holiness in
Jesus our Lord be done well. We are called to personal sanctity, and it
requires daily and unremitting work. In fact, it is the toughest work,
and it is by doing this work that we shall be able to sanctify the work
for others that we are engaged in daily.
6. Our daily
professional
work
It is our daily professional work that more usually receives
the
name of “work.” Whether or not people have heard the call to work at
personal sanctity, at least they know that their daily professional
activity is true work and very much their work in life. Our daily work
is our work of service to others, the work whereby we earn our living,
the work which God has placed in our hands, the work which constitutes
our responsibilities. It could be our work as a spouse or as a parent,
it could be work as a student, it could be in the office, the
classroom, the home, or wherever. That work is the direct means whereby
we contribute towards the development of others and of the world. By
doing this we are collaborating with God in his sustaining work as the
Creator. If we do it for him and for others in him, and do it with as
much thoroughness as we can, we shall be making it something holy and
like God’s work. Of course this will only be possible if we are
working at our spiritual life and especially at our life of daily
prayer. By sanctifying our work and making it something good and done
prayerfully and in partnership or union with God, we shall ourselves be
sanctified by that holy activity, and of course we shall be sanctifying
others by that sanctified work. We only have to think of what happens
to a person who is not working at all. That person deteriorates in so
many ways, in focus, in personal happiness, and also in his spiritual
life. Even a retired person ought in some sense take up some work, even
if it is not paid work. When she was entering her last sickness at the
age of 33, St Bernadette Soubiroux said that she was beginning her last
“job”. Sickness became a work for God, pervaded by her life of prayer.
All this indicates that whatever be our work, no matter how humble and
unacknowledged, that job is a very important means of personal
sanctification and, in the divine plan, of serving God. Let us often
think of the daily work of the Holy Family. It is a model for us.
Everything they did was done in prayerful union with God.
7. The
significance of
difficulty and suffering
I remember watching an interview with the famous filmmaker
of
wildlife documentaries, Sir David Attenborough. He was asked if the
wonder of the animal and insect kingdoms deepened in his mind a
conviction of the reality and greatness of the Creator. His answer was
surprising because he said it did not. In fact, it caused a problem for
him because he could not understand the cruelty that pervaded nature.
Animals turned on one another and inflicted merciless harm and death
for their own benefit. How could a good God arrange things this way?
But there is another way of looking at this very cruelty. We see
throughout the animal and insect kingdom the life of one animal being
given up in the processes of nature for the sake of the life and
welbeing of another. That is what is happening amid the “cruelty.” Is
not this a remote reflection of love? Love gives of itself at its own
cost, and the highest love is when one lays down one’s life for the
sake of the other. The animal kingdom is incapable of love and acts on
instinct, and of course we see closer reflections of love even in the
animal kingdom, with animals going to defend their offspring at risk to
themselves. But even the pattern of animals being destroyed and
consumed by other animals is a dim reflection of the Love that is at
the heart of the universe, the love that is the life of God. Nature, as
it were, in a costly process gives up the life of one animal for the
good of another. For when God became man to save the world from sin,
his life was given over into the hands of unjust persons in order that
we might live. That pattern of dying in order that others may live is
the highest and noblest form of life and love, and we see reflections
of this pattern of sacrifice and dying for the sake of others
throughout reality, thus bearing the imprint of the Creator, and -
viewed in the light of revelation - of the Trinity and its life of
total self-giving. The structure and elan of nature dimly reflects the
loving heart of reality.
8. The example of Christ
Christ invites us to follow him in everything and our whole life
ought
be stamped with his likeness. Now, how does our Lord describe the
imitation of him? He describes it in terms of difficulty and suffering.
It is a life of bearing the cross, a life of dying that others may
live. By dying he destroyed our death. This is to be the pattern of our
work in life. Its difficulties and sufferings are part and parcel of
the loving service that ought distinguish our work. If our work makes
us suffer, if we seem to be spent for others as a result of our work,
then this is simply what the imitation of God and Christ entails. If we
want love to flourish in our life and make our life like that of God as
he is revealed to us in the person of Jesus, then our work will have a
crucial part to play. We shall have to aspire to work with love in
imitation of our Lord, working for Christ and working for others in
Christ, and precisely in our work bearing as his children the likeness
of God our Father. If our work is difficult, that is the chance to be
sanctified. If the prospect of working thoroughly and with love is a
prospect that appears difficult and self-sacrificing, that is the
chance to be true children of our working Father, and to live in
imitation of Christ our brother and redeemer.
9. The sanctification
of work
It is often said that we work in order to live. It is also often
pointed out that we ought not live in order to work. That statement is
true when understood in a certain way. We ought not make a wrong kind
of work the centre of our life, neglecting other basic work
responsibilities such as our own spiritual life, our quest for
holiness, our family life, our proper health, and in any case doing our
work for the wrong reasons. The typical workaholic who lives for his
work in a wrong way does not do it for God. He does not try to sanctify
his work according to the mind of Christ, but works according to the
mind of the world. Let us serve Jesus our Lord by our work and in this
way collaborate with God in the development and redemption of the
world. .