SHORT FEATURE – HOLY HOLY HOLY

Okay, so I’m still a couple of weeks away from getting my life back and being able to get the blog up and running on a regular basis again. You know, the Catechism tells us that a person “shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.” So in a certain sense, work can help us become more holy. And if that’s the case, then let me tell you, I must be swimming in holiness.

Ah, if only it were that simple. But the problem is, I’ve been working like a dog for weeks and yet nobody has showed up on my doorstep to ask me to pose for my holy card. What’s the deal with that? I guess simply doing work must not be enough to achieve holiness. Well, Pope Paul VI noted that there has to be an added ingredient for the whole sanctifying thing to pan out. “In Nazareth, the home of a craftsman’s son, we learn about work and the discipline it entails.” the Pope said, “I would especially like to recognize its value – demanding yet redeeming – and to give it proper respect. I would remind everyone that work has its own dignity. On the other hand, it is not an end in itself. Its value and free character, however, derive not only from its place in the economic system, as they say, but rather from the purpose it serves.” And just what would that purpose be? Well, Colossians 2:23-24 lets us know that “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.”

Now that makes a little more sense. As the nice folks at the Catholic Organization for Life and Family put it in their publication Work+Love=Holiness, “Nothing complicated is required to sanctify one’s work and, at the same, to sanctify oneself. Just a few ingredients are needed: to accomplish one’s work  as  perfectly  as  possible  with  professional competence,  with  a  love  for  the  will  of  God, and  to  serve  others. Even  a  repetitive  and  boring  task  can  thus  become  an  adventure  of  love if  it  is  united  with  Christ  and  offered  to  God.” And that’s good to know, because I’m neck deep in repetitive and boring right now and really missing blogging about the silly things I do around here. So it’s nice to think something sanctifying might come out of all of this. After all, you can never really get enough holiness…