And God blessed them, “Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air
and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
[Gen. 1: 28]
God intends, with the help of our
hands, to fill the earth with good things. By adding new value
to created things through our work, we receive God’s blessings
for ourselves. Through recognizing God’s intention for us we
fulfill His goals. When we grasp God’s intentions and cooperate
with Him, our heaviest work loses some of its burden. Work takes
on nobility, sublimity, and dignity. Even the dirtiest work
becomes
the service of God. The lowest work requires humility and an
awareness of our sonship to God. When we work in any field: in
the office, in a mine, in the kitchen or factory, we are in
contact with God’s gifts: through them we can perceive some
evidence of God’s love.In the world, the value of work is
generally judged from the material point of view, according to
the amount and cash value of what it produces. Work, however,
plays a part in the interior life of man. We are destined not
only for work alone but for prayer, too. Work can influence the
sanctification of man, as the inner harmony of human life has a
big influence on work. Everything we do has some connection
with the sanctification of the human soul and profits us not
only materially but spiritually. 
Work expresses our love for the
Creator. Work is an agent of development and formation of love.
We are appointed to every useful and purposeful work by God who
calls us by a vocation or sense of mission, or through
compliance and obedience to our superiors. God entrusts us with
the small details of temporal life and repays our faithfulness
with life everlasting.
The value of human acts does not
depend on what kind of work we do but on how we do it, on the
degree of our love and submission to God. Man, by his work,
becomes God’s friend. Through work we enter into direct
relationship with things around us that reflect the necessity of
a Creator. We come to know God through our work. Work
contributes to our salvation. Work done for the love of God is
the participation of man not only in the act of creation, but
also in the act of our salvation. We can offer the hardships of
every type of work to God as a measure of atonement for human
sin. It has to be work, however, that is only undertaken out of
love of God. Work that is driven by desire for profit or wages,
will not bring about man’s salvation. Work done without love has
no power to redeem, nor increase God’s glory.
Prayer is a necessary component of
work because work is done for love of God and His people. This
love cannot exist without prayer. As a result of original sin,
our faults emerge in regard to work: slowness, laziness, love of
comfort, impatience, lack of endurance, and so on. That is why
we need to subject these faults to the cleansing power of prayer
to achieve peace and harmony. It is not possible to do lasting,
versatile, fruitful, and effective work without linking it with
prayer. It is very difficult to pray while working because we
usually are completely immersed in our work. We can pray at
work by remembering God’s presence that always accompanies us,
and by offering our work to God, directing the object of our
work toward Him. The way each person prays at work will vary
according to each one’s personal characteristics and spiritual
capacity. There will always be varied spiritual compensations
in the work-world, as there are different kinds of work and
people in different stages of loving God.
In every kind of work there is a
certain sacrifice of oneself. There is no work without
sacrifice just as there is no sacrifice without some
relinquishment. Work comprises not only the task of life on
earth, but also the task of eternal life. Work is an instrument
of salvation. We need to offer God not only our own work but
also the work of those who curse it and disavow any spiritual
benefit in it. We must guide all workers to embrace the
redemptive destiny of their work.
Every achievement, every fruit of
work, brings with it a natural reward in the form of tremendous
joy.
“Come to me all you who labor
and are burdened; I will give you rest.”
[Matt 11:28]
(Anna
Gromek is a leader of the Divine Mercy Prayer Group at St.
Mary Church in Wayne, Michigan, and the Christ the King Prayer
Group at Our Lady of Czestochowa Church, in Sterling Heights,
Michigan, and a member of the DCCR Assembly.)
