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.)