Human work takes many forms: it can unfold in silence or on teams, visibly or invisibly, with public recognized or without it. Beyond these differences, however, Christian tradition has always seen work as a reality endowed with profound spiritual dignity.
The types and circumstances of human work are innumerable and profoundly varied. Common to all by virtue of the same human condition, work is carried out in very different contexts, subject to profound transformations throughout history and, not infrequently, throughout our personal lives.
Some people work in spacious places, in constant contact with many other people (for instance, in the shared spaces of large organizations) and others work on their own and determine their own work environments. Some jobs are done in teams and others require silence and solitude; some tasks cannot be carried out without the hum of a machine, because they involves operations beyond human strength, while others demand total silence because of the need for concentration, precision, and incredibly fine handiwork.
In some jobs, like that of doctors, teachers, or receptionists, the dimension of service is patent; in others, on the contrary, service to one’s neighbor is implicit and personal relationships are less immediate. Dedicating oneself to scientific research is not equivalent to satisfying a client; producing food is not the same as writing a book. Some efforts naturally receive recognition and reward, and others that frequently go unnoticed.
Their craft is their prayer
A passage from Sacred Scripture, in chapter 38 of the Book of Sirach, presents with singular vividness the dynamism of multiple human occupations, especially manual work and the crafts, highlighting their dignity before God. The artisan, the potter, the farmer or the blacksmith do not seem to occupy themselves with elevated realities nor do they figure among the counselors of kings; their activity takes place far from the spheres of power and political deliberation. And yet, thanks to their persevering and silent work, human society can sustain itself and progress:
“All of them [the worker, the artisan, the blacksmith and the potter] trust in their hands, and each one is skillful in his craft. Without them no city is built, no one could reside in it or circulate through it. But they are not sought for the counsel of the people, they do not have a special place in the assembly, they do not sit in the tribunal and they do not know the dispositions of the law. They do not make instruction or law shine, they do not appear among the authors of proverbs, but they consolidate the construction of the world, and the craft they perform is their prayer” (Sir 38:31-34).
By affirming that “their craft is their prayer,” the sacred author recognizes that all human work, even that which seems least influential or important among the powerful of the earth, is a prayer that rises to God. We do not need to abandon the world to praise God and converse with Him; we can speak to Him through the work we perform.
Saint Josemaría’s teachings are situated in continuity with this biblical perspective, characteristic of the sapiential tradition of the Old Testament. He preached constantly that all work can become a place of encounter with God and that no human task, however humble it may seem, lacks a divine spectator. Since for the great majority of people daily work is the usual context of life, it is just there, in that daily work, that we are called to live the Christian virtues and, therefore, set out toward sanctity, in union with Jesus Christ.
“The Work was born to help those Christians, who through their family, their friendships, their ordinary work, their aspirations, form part of the very texture of civil society, to understand that their life, just as it is, can be an opportunity for meeting Christ: that it is a way of holiness and apostolate. Christ is present in any honest human activity. The life of an ordinary Christian, which to some people may seem banal and petty, can and should be a holy and sanctifying life” (Conversations, no. 60).
In one of the previous articles, we considered the consequences of the fact that the incarnate Word assumed a true humanity, with all the network of relationships proper to it, and moreover exercised a particular trade, that of carpenter. At least two implications of special relevance to our theme derive from these reality.
First, that ordinary life – as it was assumed and lived on earth by the Son of God – constitutes a sphere in which all can identify with Christ and, therefore, sanctify themselves. Second, that the multiplicity of circumstances proper to daily existence and work confers on this call a truly universal dimension, making it accessible to the immense majority of men and women of all times.
This last consideration, synthesized by the founder of Opus Dei in the expression, “the divine paths of the earth have been opened” (cf. Instruction, May 1935, no. 1), highlights the close relationship between the sanctification of work and the universal call to holiness. However, this connection raises some questions. What is the relationship between these two realities in Saint Josemaría’s teachings? What is original in his thought, with respect to the theological tradition of his era?
The universality of holiness and the mission of Opus Dei
The universal call to holiness, strictly speaking, does not derive from the universal dimension of the various earthly activities carried out by men and women. At its root, the universal call to holiness is an expression of the vocation to identify with Jesus Christ that every believer receives as a gift a task in baptism. Every baptized person is called to be holy; moreover, every human being is holy, insofar as he or she is destined to be a living member of the Mystical Body of Christ. Among them are also counted those who will never work: for example, those who abandon the world to dedicate themselves to contemplation, or those who do not have a trade or profession.
To all, whatever their circumstance of life – lay, religious, priest; healthy or sick; immersed in the activities of the world or separated from them – God issues a call to be configure with his Son made man for us. Although this perspective is clearly present in the New Testament and in the tradition of the first centuries of Christianity, it was forgotten during long periods of history. Kept alive by some authors of the modern and contemporary age, such as Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Alphonsus Mary de' Liguori, and Saint John Henry Newman, among others, it will become the center of Saint Josemaría’s message from the 1930s on, and subsequently taken up with authority by the Second Vatican Council in its doctrine on the People of God (cf. Lumen gentium, chapter 2).
What characterizes the mission of Opus Dei, then, and in what way does preaching about the sanctification of work – with its three dimensions of sanctifying work, sanctifying oneself in work and sanctifying others through work – contribute to understanding the universal call to holiness present in Jesus Christ’s Church?
From the content of the Letters and Instructions, particularly the passages in which Saint Josemaría defines the mission of the new institution that he feels called to promote, we can deduce that the pastoral purpose of Opus Dei is to offer spiritual and ascetical means that allow the call to holiness to be answered in the context of work and ordinary life. In other words, to help Christians imprint a Christian form on work, human society, and the activities that are developed in the middle of the world.
“How clear it was, for those who knew how to read in the Gospel, that general call to holiness in ordinary life, in the profession, without abandoning one's own environment! However, for centuries, the majority of Christians have not understood it: the ascetical phenomenon could not occur of many seeking holiness in this way, without leaving their place, sanctifying the profession and sanctifying themselves with the profession” (Letter 3, no. 91).
“My daughters and sons, the spirit of Opus Dei embraces the most beautiful reality that any dignified and noble work in the human sphere can become a divine task. There is no incompatibility between Christian morality, Christian perfection, and any licit profession, whether intellectual or manual, whether people consider it important or humble” (Letter 14, no. 5).
Saint Josemaría understands that the message of Jesus Christ will be able to reach all environments and all corners of society through the lay faithful present in all professions and activities, contributing to the reconciliation of the world with God.
“We can easily go to all places of work, even to environments of secularism, where God is ignored or hated, immersing ourselves in our ordinary professional tasks: something that is proper to the essence of our vocation and which, if removed, would make us lose all possibilities of sanctification according to our spirit, and all possibilities of apostolate in the world” (Letter 13, n. 115).
“It has been two years since, in accordance with the needs of the Work, I moved to Rome. My main occupation in those days was to make the Work understood by the people who govern the Universal Church; there came a moment when I decided to use an illustrative example. Speaking with Cardinal Lavitrano, I showed him the photograph of a brother of yours, an opera singer, performing in a theater. And I commented: ‘Do you see that we are ordinary people, that ours is to sanctify all professions and all the ways of working proper to men who do not separate themselves from the world?’” (Letter 14, no. 2).
To carry out Opus Dei’s mission, Saint Josemaría understood that the lay faithful needed specific formation that would enable them to give witness to the Gospel in the professional sphere and in ordinary life. It was a matter, ultimately, of nourishing themselves on what can be called a “spirituality of work,” adequate to the cultural and social conditions of our time.
In this light, we can also understand the role he assigned to the priests whom he wished to incardinate in the new institution: the ministerial priesthood should offer the laity immersed in temporal realities the spiritual direction and formation necessary so that they could fully exercise their common priesthood.
Although the universal call to holiness does not derive from the mere existence of multiple work contexts susceptible to sanctification, in the Church, the founder of Opus Dei’s teachings have contributed to strengthening the conviction that “in work and through work, one can and must be holy” and, therefore, that holiness is a goal that Jesus Christ truly proposes to all.
Expressed another way: Opus Dei is not necessary to proclaim the universal call holiness, and no institution in the Church claim it as an exclusive mission or charism. However, God wished to raise up Opus Dei to show in a concrete way that this holiness is also possible for those who work and lead an ordinary life in the middle of the world, providing them with the spiritual and ascetical means necessary to attain it.
The novelty of the message may be appreciated with greater clarity if we take the dominant ecclesial context in the West until the first decades of the 20th century into account. In that framework, the call to holiness was frequently interpreted as an invitation to abandon secular work and ordinary life to embrace a new state of life (clerical or religious) that involved leaving the realities of the world behind.
“I often feel like shouting in the ears of so many men and women in offices and shops, in the world of the media and in the law courts, in schools, on the factory floor, in mines and on farms, and telling them that, with the backing of an interior life and by means of the Communion of Saints, they ought to be bringing God into all these different environments, according to that teaching of the Apostle: ‘Glorify God with your life and carry Him always with you’” (The Forge, no. 945).
“Many things, whether they be material, technical, economic, social, political or cultural… when left to themselves, or left in the hands of those who lack the light of the faith, become formidable obstacles to the supernatural life. They form a sort of closed shop which is hostile to the Church. You, as a Christian and, perhaps, as a research worker, writer, scientist, politician or labourer… have the duty to sanctify those things. Remember that the whole universe — as the Apostle says — is groaning as in the pangs of labour, awaiting the liberation of the children of God”
(Furrow, no. 311).
A spirituality for the world of work
Numerous are the teachings and examples with which the founder of the Work exhorted his spiritual children to discover in work and in ordinary life the privileged place of their encounter with God, and not something that distracts, separates or distances them from the ideal of holiness. One of the best-known texts in this regard is the homily pronounced on October 8, 1967 on the campus of the University of Navarre and subsequently published with the title, “Passionately Loving the World.” In it, Saint Josemaría affirms that spiritual life and ordinary work cannot constitute in the believer a kind of “double life”: the invisible God is encountered in the most visible and material realities. Moreover, if we do not learn to discover God in ordinary life, we will hardly be able to find Him elsewhere.
The founder of Opus Dei’s preaching configures what we might call a “spirituality of work for our time.” Throughout his life, he offered concrete advice for nourishing prayer and cultivating an authentic contemplative life in the midst of daily occupations. He suggested, for example, uniting our work to the Eucharistic sacrifice, exhorting his spiritual children to convert the entire day into a prolongation of the Holy Mass.
He also recalled that the witness of faith finds a privileged sphere in professional relationships, especially in the example of working justly and charitably, with human competence and professionalism. It is not only a matter of praying at beginning, middle, or end of our work, but transforming the work itself into prayer.
There are many ways to maintain the presence of God during the long hours of the workday: knowing ourselves to be in the presence of God the Father, who looks at us lovingly; renewing the awareness of working for Christ, with Christ and in Christ; listening to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, who helps us see what God asks of us at each moment and how we can exercise justice and charity with the people around us... Saint Josemaría recommended filling the day with small gestures of love: glancing at an image of the Virgin Mary or a small crucifix on our desk; raising our minds to the nearest Tabernacle (cf. The Forge, nos. 745-746); praying the Angelus at midday, with the Church; converting repetitive and mechanical acts into an occasion to recite brief aspirations interiorly; seeing the people we are called to serve behind the documents we study; seeking God in others’ faces; consoling companions in need, with words and example; doing our least pleasant tasks – which are often the most necessary – first and uniting them to Christ’s sacrifice; and, finally, considering our desk or work station as an altar at which we unite ourselves daily to our Mass.
“Faith, hope and charity will come into play in your professional work done for God. The incidents, the problems, the friendships which your work brings with it, will give you food for prayer. The effort to improve your own daily occupation will give you the chance to experience the cross which is essential for a Christian. When you feel your weakness, the failures which arise even in human undertakings, you will gain in objectivity, in humility and in understanding for others. Successes and joys will prompt you to thanksgiving and to realize that you do not live for yourself, but for the service of others and of God” (Christ is Passing By, no. 49).
Work life is not an obstacle to prayer life. On the contrary, it is a sphere in which our prayer can take root and unfold with depth. In it, we discover the hidden sacrifice that gives meaning to what we do and reveals its spiritual significance to us:
“Our being children of God, I insist, leads us to have a contemplative spirit in the midst of all human activities; to be light, salt and leaven through our prayer, through our mortification, through our knowledge of religion and of our profession. We will carry out this aim: the more within the world we are, the more we must be God’s” (The Forge, no. 740).
“You ask me: why that wooden Cross? — And I copy from a letter: ‘As I look up from the microscope, my sight comes to rest on the cross — black and empty. That Cross without its Crucified is a symbol. It has a meaning which others cannot see. And though I am tired out and on the point of abandoning the job, I once again bring my eyes to the lens and continue: for the lonely Cross is calling for a pair of shoulders to bear it’” (The Way, no. 277).
How are we to find God in work in the 21st century?
Affirming that human work and professional activity are the place of our encounter with God may sound like an edifying formula, typical of spiritual literature, but seemingly disconnected from our everyday experience in the 21st century. For some, an explicit reference to God in the secular world of labor relations might even seem like an artificial or abstract strategy to anesthetize real problems: pressing social issues, the complex consequences of unemployment and migration, and conflicts between employees and employers, citizens and the state, competitors in the market, or rivals aspiring to management positions within the same company.
Especially in industrialized Western societies, many work environments are plagued by anxiety and competitiveness, personal and group tensions, haste and fragmented relationships, and other factors that frequently lead to suspicion and distrust. In our contemporary consumer society, “working well” may not refer to the exercise of virtues, but to maximizing profits, increasing media visibility, or strengthening a corporate brand.
The accelerated pace of production and the little time granted for decision-making favor stress and impoverish the quality of personal relationships, often reducing them to instrumental bonds and displacing them to the virtual plane. For many people, work seems like a burden to escape from, not as a reality to be sanctified. Real life seems to begin when the workday ends; only then, according to this understanding of work, do we return to being our true selves, able to dedicate ourselves to our loved ones, interests, and whatever else fulfills us, humanly speaking. In some retirement celebrations, we hear exclamations like, “Finally free!,” a cultural symptom of an understanding of work as slavery, a burden, and a limitation.
If this is the world we live in, the inevitable question is: what can the founder of Opus Dei’s message about the sanctification of work say to men and women of our time? It is, undoubtedly, a countercultural proposal. Saint Josemaría was already fully aware of this when he wrote some of his spiritual considations, later compiled in Furrow:
“Some people act out of prejudice in their work: on principle they trust nobody, and it goes without saying that they do not understand the need to seek to sanctify their job. If you mention it to them they tell you not to add another burden to their own work, which they put up with reluctantly as if they were supporting a heavy weight. That is one of the battles of peace we have to win: to find God in our work and, with Him and like Him, serve others” (Furrow, no. 520).
He invites all people, including those who do not share the Christian faith, to weave sincere, constructive human relationships, recognizing and valuing each person’s talents, and seeing work as service and not merely self-affirmation. He invites workers to be guided by Christian charity and commit to fostering unity, not division, and trust, not antagonism.
He also reminds us that the dignity and importance of a task is not measured by the results achieved or the benefits generated, but by the love with which it is performed and by the spirit of service that inspires it.
“There are no jobs of little importance: all are of great importance. The importance of a job depends on the personal conditions of the person who exercises it, on the human seriousness with which he performs it, on the love of God that he puts into it. Noble is the job of the farmer, who sanctifies himself cultivating the land; and that of the university professor, who unites culture to faith; and that of the artisan, who works in his own family home; and that of the banker, who makes economic means fruitful for the benefit of the community; and that of the politician, who sees in his task a service to the good of all; and that of the laborer, who offers to the Lord the effort of his hands” (Letter 14, n0. 5).
The founder of Opus Dei teaches believers that work, family and spiritual life are not separate spheres, but dimensions meant to integrated in a sanctified and sanctifying existence. He reminds us that our apostolate and relationship with God do not begin when the workday ends, but rather spring forth and unfold in the very exercise of work.
Likewise, he suggests that the professional mentality we develop at work can illuminate other spheres of life: it helps us raise our children, participate in social life, and responsibly organize our leisure time. He teaches that we can continue loving in the workplace if we know how to love at home with our families; that the Mass each of the faithful lives through the common priesthood can be extended through all 24 hours of the day; that every minute has an eternal value; and that each moment a chance to love God and others.
For Saint Josemaría, work is also the channel for directing our energies and desires for service in favor of the common good, not only our personal benefit: a person who wants to sanctify his work “cannot turn [their] back on any concern or need of other men, [their] brothers” (The Forge, no. 453). This horizon of service makes our personal work meaningful and valuable.
Finally, Saint Josemaría’s exhortation to live as “contemplatives in the middle of the world” has direct consequences in the context of daily work. Those who adopt a contemplative gaze in the various activities of the workday know how to give thanks to God for the virtues of the people around them; they forgive misunderstandings and offenses from the heart; they are attentive to the lonely, suffering, and left behind; they recognize the dignity of the image and likeness of God in each person.
Those who contemplate God is their work look at creation as his children, marvelling at its beauty and the order of its laws, allowing themselves to be surprised by technological achievements, and rejoicing when they can build up society by forming relationships characterized by charity and justice. And they praise God for the grace of being able to cooperate in leading creation to its fullness through their own work.
“We see the hand of God, not only in the wonders of nature, but also in our experience of work and effort. Work thus becomes prayer and thanksgiving, because we know we are placed on earth by God, that we are loved by him and made heirs to his promises” (Christ is Passing By, no. 48).
This series is coordinated by Professor Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. It includes other contributors, some of whom are professors at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome).