Working for God: A Podcast Mini-Series

Are you striving to approach work with a supernatural outlook, seeking to give divine meaning to your ordinary, everyday actions?

St. Josemaria Escriva believed that: “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… 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” (Friends of God, no. 55).

Working for God: A Podcast Mini-Series is a collection of four meditations on St. Josemaria’s profound teachings on the meaning and sanctification of work in our daily life as Christians. These spiritual insights help us better understand what it means to turn our work into prayer, and how work that is worthy of God leads us to grow in virtue, happiness and holiness.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• • Working for God | A Homily by St. Josemaria Escriva
  • Working for Love | A Reflection by Bishop Javier Echevarria
  • The Sanctification of Work | A Publication by Jose Luis Illanes
  • Novena for Work through the Intercession of St. Josemaria Escriva
  • Novena for Seeking Employment | St. Josemaria Institute

POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION

• • “Each and every event of this life, without exception, must be steps which take you to God, which move you to know him and love him, to give him thanks, and to strive to make everyone else know and love him” (The Forge, no. 680).
  • “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” (Friends of God, no. 55).
  • “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” (Friends of God, no. 57).
  • “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” (Friends of God, no. 62).
  • “Go about your work in the knowledge that God is watching: laborem manuum mearum respexit Deus (Gen 31:42), God saw the labor of my hands. Our work therefore has to be holy and worthy of him: not only finished down to the last detail, but carried out with moral rectitude, unselfishness, loyalty and justice. In this way our professional work will not only be upright and holy, but will be, on that account, prayer as well” (Letter 15 October, 1948, 26).