From
Adam in the garden to the foreman at the factory –
everyone has
something to say about WORK:
its challenges, its difficulties, its hardships, its rewards.
St. Francis and St. Clare had something to say about WORK, too.
In their Gospel vision of life, WORK was a grace,
a means of sanctification and a
way of animating earthly realities
with the spirit of Christ.
Catechism
#2427
Francis, in his Testament, declared: And I worked with my hands. Clare in her Rule directed her Sisters to labor devotedly after the hour of Terce. Both recognized that in taking up the daily cross of WORK, they could enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings. They could then become fully God’s fellow workers and co-workers for His Kingdom. Catechism #307
Working in this spirit, the Seraphic parents taught their followers to
glory in their humble but so efficacious imitation of the Son of God who
during the
greater part of His (earthly) life shared the condition of the vast
majority of human beings: a daily life spent without evident greatness,
a life of manual labor.
Catechism
#531
Thus, sweeping and sewing, cleaning and cooking, work in the field or in the factory, at a desk or on the road become times to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life. Catechism #533
And
the wages of this Spirit-filled labor are fulfillment and peace.