List of points

Many people begin, but few finish. And we, who are trying to behave as God's children, have to be among those few. Remember that only work that is well done and lovingly completed deserves the praise of the Lord which is to be found in Holy Scripture: 'better is the end of a task than its beginning'.

You may already have heard me tell this story on other occasions; but even so, I would like to bring it up again because it contains a very striking lesson. I was once looking through the Roman Ritual in search of the prayers for blessing the last stone of a building, obviously the most important stone, since it symbolically represents the hard and enterprising work of many people, who have persevered in the task throughout the long years of construction. To my surprise, I found that no such prayers existed, and I had to be satisfied with a benedictio ad omnia, that is, an all-purpose blessing. I must say that at first I just couldn't believe that there was such an omission in the Ritual, and I spent quite a while going over the index without finding what I wanted.

Many Christians are no longer convinced that the fullness of Life that God rightly expects from his children means that they have to have a careful concern for the quality of their everyday work, because it is this work, even in its most minor aspects, which they have to sanctify.

It is no good offering to God something that is less perfect than our poor human limitations permit. The work that we offer must be without blemish and it must be done as carefully as possible, even in its smallest details, for God will not accept shoddy workmanship. 'Thou shalt not offer anything that is faulty,' Holy Scripture warns us, 'because it would not be worthy of him.' For that reason, the work of each one of us, the activities that take up our time and energy, must be an offering worthy of our Creator. It must be operatio Dei, a work of God that is done for God: in short, a task that is complete and faultless.

From the beginning of creation man has had to work. This is not something that I have invented. It is enough to turn to the opening pages of the Bible. There you can read that, before sin entered the world, and in its wake death, punishment and misery, God made Adam from the clay of the earth, and created for him and his descendants this beautiful world we live in, ut operaretur et custodiret illum, so that we might cultivate it and look after it.

We must be convinced therefore that work is a magnificent reality, and that it has been imposed on us as an inexorable law which, one way or another, binds everyone, even though some may try to seek exemption from it. Make no mistake about it. Man's duty to work is not a consequence of original sin, nor is it just a discovery of modern times. It is an indispensable means which God has entrusted to us here on this earth. It is meant to fill out our days and make us sharers in God's creative power. It enables us to earn our living and, at the same time, to reap 'the fruits of eternal life', for 'man is born to work as the birds are born to fly'.

To this you might reply that many centuries have gone by and very few people think along these lines; that most people, when they work, do so for very different reasons: some for money, some to support their families, others to get on in society, to develop their capabilities, or perhaps to give free play to their disordered desires, or to contribute to social progress. In other words, most people regard their work as something that has to be done and cannot be avoided.

This is a stunted, selfish and earthbound outlook, which neither you nor I can accept. For we have to remember and remind people around us that we are children of God, who have received the same invitation from our Father as the two brothers in the parable: 'Son, go and work in my vineyard.' I give you my word that if we make a daily effort to see our personal duties in this light, that is, as a divine summons, we will learn to carry them through to completion with the greatest human and supernatural perfection of which we are capable. Occasionally we may rebel, like the elder of the two sons, who replied to his father, 'I will not,' but we will learn how to turn back repentant and will redouble our efforts to do our duty.

Forgive this digression and, though we haven't really gone off the track, let us return to the central idea. Be convinced that our professional vocation is an essential and inseparable part of our condition as Christians. Our Lord wants you to be holy in the place where you are, in the job you have chosen for whatever reason. To me, every job that is not opposed to the divine law is good and noble, and capable of being raised to the supernatural plane, that is, inserted into the constant flow of Love which defines the life of a child of God.

I cannot avoid getting a little uneasy when someone, in speaking about his job, plays the role of a victim. He talks about how his work takes up so many hours each day, when the truth is that he isn't doing half as much as many of his professional colleagues are and they quite likely are only driven by selfish or, at best, by merely human motives. All of us who are here engaged in a personal dialogue with Jesus have very definite occupations: doctors, lawyers, economists… Think a moment about those of your colleagues who are outstanding for their professional prestige, their integrity or their spirit of service and self-sacrifice. Isn't it true that they devote many hours of the day, and even of the night, to their jobs? Isn't there anything we can learn from them?

While I speak, I too am examining the way I have behaved and I confess that, in putting the question to myself, I feel a little ashamed and wish immediately to ask God's forgiveness, thinking how weak my response has been and how far short it has fallen of the mission that God has given us to carry out in the world. One of the Fathers of the Church writes: 'Christ has appointed us to be like lamps, so as to be teachers to others; to act as leaven; to live like angels among men, like adults among children, like spiritual beings among the merely rational; to be seed and to yield fruit. There would be no need of speaking if our lives shone in this way. Words would be superfluous if we had deeds to show for them. There would not be a single pagan left if we were truly Christian.'

You must fight against the tendency to be too lenient with yourselves. Everyone has this difficulty. Be demanding with yourselves! Sometimes we worry too much about our health, or about getting enough rest. Certainly it is necessary to rest, because we have to tackle our work each day with renewed vigour. But, as I wrote many years ago, 'to rest is not to do nothing. It is to turn our attention to other activities that require less effort.'

At other times, relying on flimsy excuses, we become too easygoing and forget about the marvellous responsibility that rests upon our shoulders. We are content with doing just enough to get by. We let ourselves get carried away by false rationalisations and waste our time, whereas Satan and his allies never take a holiday. Listen carefully to St Paul and reflect on what he said to those Christians who were slaves. He urged them to obey their masters, 'not serving to the eye as pleasers of men, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart, giving your service with good will as to the Lord and not to men'. What good advice for you and me to follow!

Let us ask Our Lord Jesus for light, and beg him to help us discover, at every moment, the divine meaning which transforms our professional work into the hinge on which our calling to sanctity rests and turns. In the Gospel you will find that Jesus was known as faber, filius Mariae, the workman, the son of Mary. Well, we too, with a holy pride, have to prove with deeds that we are workers, men and women who really work!

Since we should behave at all times as God's envoys, we must be very much aware that we are not serving him loyally if we leave a job unfinished; if we don't put as much effort and self-sacrifice as others do into the fulfilment of professional commitments; if we can be called careless, unreliable, frivolous, disorganised, lazy or useless… Because people who neglect obligations that seem less important will hardly succeed in other obligations that pertain to the spiritual life and are undoubtedly harder to fulfil. 'He who is faithful in very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in very little is dishonest also in much.'