Sadly, though, work that is done with little thought of God can be debilitating, demoralizing and depressing. It can lead to someone sitting in a lonely cubicle wondering, "Is this all there is?" That was a question I often asked myself at my high-stress publications job.
How I wish someone had answered, "No, there is much more!" You just have to realize that Christ is there in the cubicle with you. As St. Josemaría notes, God "waits for us every day," whether we are in the shop, the classroom, the factory, the fields or the home.
In another book "Friends of God," he writes,
"Our Lord wants you to be holy in the place where you are, in the job you have chosen for whatever reason."
He emphasizes the importance of meeting our responsibilities and avoiding the temptation to do a shoddy job. As he puts it,
"What use is it of telling me that so and so is a … good Christian but a bad shoemaker?"
We really are not alone. God is watching us as we fold the laundry, fix the computer or fax the report.
"Since we are convinced that God is to be found everywhere," St. Josemaría writes, "we plough our fields praising the Lord, we sail the seas and ply all other trades singing his mercies."
And by offering the Lord our efforts, however mundane and menial, we can turn our cubicle into a chapel-and our work into a prayer.
Lorraine Murray's recent books include "The Abbess of Andalusia," a biography of Flannery O'Connor, and "Death of a Liturgist," a mystery set at a fictional church in Decatur.
Posted with permission from the Georgia Bulletin, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia.
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