IS YOUR WORK LIFE STUCK IN A RUT? HAS IT BECOME JUST ROUTINE?
We all go through periods in our life when our work life seems like we are in a rut. We do not feel inspired. Everything seems to be just routine. At times this may even lead to feeling like we are 'leading a life of quiet desperation', as penned by Thoreau.
How do we get the spark back in our work lives? How do we get out of it being just routine?
What if we could take the prose of everyday work and turn into poetry? What if we could turn it not only in to poetry but heroic verse?
St. Josemaria Escriva provides these inspiring thoughts on this:
"When you started your ordinary work again, something like a groan of complaint escaped you: "It's always the same!" And I told you: "Yes, it's always the same. But that ordinary job - which is the same one your fellow workers do - has to be a constant prayer for you. It has the same loveable words, but a different tune each day. It is very much our mission to transform the prose of this life into poetry, into heroic verse. (Furrow, 500)
So how do we go about transforming the ordinary prose of our work into poetry and even into heroic verse? St. Josemaria gives us the first clue. He tells us that our work must become "a constant prayer". This begs the logical question, how can we make our work a constant prayer and yet get our work done? Don't we need to focus on our work to do it successfully? Yes we do need to focus on our work. The saint is not telling us to stop doing our jobs or to become like religious whose work is actually prayer. But he is telling us what St. Benedict revealed over 1500 years ago, that all of our lives should be ones of "Ora et Labora" or prayer and work, not one or the other.
St. Benedict taught the world that even in a religious community people need to employee their time to both work and prayer. He created a rule of life for his order that has been a model in the world for over 1500 years. He explained that even though our days have specific times for work and prayer, that one can actually turn the entire day into prayer, by turning our work into a prayer. He taught that we can truly live the teaching of scripture to "pray without ceasing" by uniting our prayer and work, "ora et labora". Everyone, not just religious communities, can turn their work into a prayer. When we habitually turn our work into a prayer, we begin to integrate God into our work. It is through this union with God that we can take even the most mundane elements of work and turn them into heroic verse.
Drawing from St. Benedict and St. Josemaria, we can very practically learn how to achieve this beautiful and noble goal. We can break this down into several simple actions that anyone can do at any job and in any vocation. It all begins with how we start the day. As the old adage goes 'well begun is half done'. We need to develop the habit of starting each workday by offering our work day as a loving sacrifice to God. There are many forms of offering, but it can be as simple as
"Lord I offer all my work to you today as a sacrifice of my love, in union with the sacrifice of Jesus. I invite you into my work that I may do everything through with and in you."
If we make our work an offering to God and invite him into our day, we begin to turn our work into a labor of love. Regardless of how we immediately feel from doing this, when our work becomes an act of love, God is able to do things through and in our work that we cannot do on our own. When we give the Creator the permission to work through us, we are able to tap into creative graces that can make even the simplest, most unassuming tasks into acts of heroic verse. These are not just flowery words, they are actual facts of spiritual reality. Sadly, very few of us are accustom to thinking about the integration of spiritual realities in our work. But the good news is that we can all begin anew and we can all begin today.
In order to develop this practice it needs to be planned. As the success mantra says 'what gets planned gets done'. If you use a written planner, make it the first entry every day. If you use a digital planner or calendar set a daily reminder at the start of each day. If you don't use any planning methods, this is a great reason to start.
While well begun is half done, we also need to follow up our morning offering with moments of prayer throughout the day to reconnect to that offering and ensure the "other half done" is also heroic verse. St. Benedict's "ora et labora" does not end with a morning offering. It emphasizes integrating prayer throughout the work day, as the work is being done. Based on our fallen human nature, if we only make a morning offering, our heart and mind are going to find ways to drowned out the heroic verse and return to ordinary prose.
We must reconnect with God throughout the day. It is as real and as practical as turning on a faucet to get a drink. We must stop, multiple times day and reconnect with God. Even if we only pause for 5 or 10 seconds and reconnect with God, this will make a major difference in our ability to stay connected to God in our work. The fruits of this will not just be spiritual.
The reality is that since we are created with mind, body and soul, we cannot possibly be the best we can be in our work, if we are not fully integrating all parts of our being. This is particularly true with the soul, since it is the very source of our life, and the most important part of our being. If we are spending 40, 50, 60 hours or more per week at work and we are never connecting to God we are not remotely accessing our full potential. No wonder work has become drudgery and so many of us are living lives of quiet desperation. It is like running an 8 cylinder engine operating on 4 cylinders, while pulling a trailer full of stone.
The only way we can access all 8 cylinders is by connecting our spiritual and our work lives together. How do we do this? This is actually a topic for a whole book and one that I am actually writing now and plan to release in 2025. But for now, we can start with some very practical actions that anyone can do regardless of the work you do.
First, since we all likely have access to a phone or a computer. Set a couple alarms during the work day to remind you to pause for prayer. When you do this, stop what you are doing and give your full mind and heart to God, even if only for a couple seconds, and ask him to help you stay connected to Him.
The moment you encounter anything that is starting to frustrate you or cause you any discomfort, pray a short prayer out loud if you can, but if not at least pray in your mind. Find something that you are can say easily and you connect to personally.
"Father I offer this to you"
"Jesus I trust in you"
"Lord help me"
"Mother Mary help me"
"St. Joseph help me to work like you"
The Church teaches us that the Holy Eucharist is the actual source of our life as Christians and also the summit of what we can become. What if we could actually connect to the Eucharist in the middle of our work day or in the foxhole on the field of battle? What if we could "plug in" to the very source of grace on a moments notice. The saints tell us that we can and we should. There is a simple yet profound prayer practice known as a "spiritual communion". When we engage in this prayer we are able to receive the Eucharist spiritually. Please know this is not a substitute for going to mass, but a compliment to it. It is a way to extend the graces of a sacramental communion into our daily lives. The beauty of a spiritual communion is that it may be done at any time and as often as you want. There are many forms of spiritual communion, but here is one that I recommend. Copy and paste this to the note section of your phone or write this on post it and keep it on your desk.
Oh most Holy Trinity I adore thee
my God, my God, I love thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Come spiritually into my heart and make it thine own forever.
Now that you have received the Lord in this spiritual communion, place your hand over your heart and mentally recognize God within you. Then make a short renewal of your daily offering or prayer to help you overcome something that is challenging you.
As we develop the habit of offering our day to God and doing our routine tasks with great love, there are other very real benefits that will turn our days from drudgery and desperation to true joy and fulfilment. Being connected to God throughout our day allows us to receive graces that God will not give us if we have not opened our heart and mind to Him. Simply put, there is nothing we can do on our own that is better than we could with God helping us. In fact, if we are habitually open to God in our work day, we will share a verse that is not only heroic, but that is above and beyond our own ability. We will achieve things that we would not think possible and with much greater ease than laboring on our own. Doors will be open and walls will come down that never happened when we worked under our own power. St. Josemaria tells us in other writings that allowing God to work through us can also result in actual miracles.
Finally, as if turning our work day from drudgery to heroic verse wasn't good enough, God will also bless us in this process to grow in Sanctity or holiness. As the saints witness and the Church teaches us, growth in holiness, is not made up of only martyrdom or major heroic acts. No, for most saints, the path to holiness is made up of small acts done with great love. Part of turning our every day small acts of prose into heroic verse, is also seeking to use our gifts and charisms to the fullness of our ability. When we fully utilize the gifts and charisms that God has given us, even if it is in the simplest and seemingly inconsequential tasks, we access God's presence and love in us. This can turn the simplest most tedious act of service into a source of unexpected joy as we hear the heroic verse being read out. Overtime our heroic verse grows into heroic holiness. Our small moments of joy will grow into true and abiding contentment, because we are remaining connected to the only source of true joy, God himself.
As we start and continue our day in prayer, let us ask the Lord to bless His work in our hands and to fully utilize all the gifts and charisms that He has given us to turn all our work into heroic verse!
Good St. Josemaria and St. Benedict, please pray for us to develop the habit of Ora et Labora, so we may turn our ordinary work into heroic verse, all for the honor and glory of God and the good of our neighbor! Amen!
Please check out the other blog posts to hear more about how we can integrate what is best in business and faith into our work lives, to become the fullness of who God created us to be.
Commentaires