The need to work

Hard work is the yeast that raises the dough

The most wonderful medicine, the capsule which is least expensive, the solution for most of our illness is the commonplace thing we know - work. When our mind and body are involved in creative activity, they positively gift us with good health, mental strength, higher productivity and inner peace; they free us from tension, worry, anxiety, negativity and depression. Creation is the work of God. The spirituality of work has its basis in the creative work of God. All work, whether manual or intellectual is inevitably valuable and  equally  good in the sight of God. What is more important is not the kind of work we do, but the love and commitment with which we do the work. God gives us wheat, but we must bake the bread. He gives us cotton, but we must convert it into clothing. He gives us trees, but we must build our homes. He provides the raw materials and expects us to  make the finished products with them.

Labour ,even  the most humble and the most obscure, if is well done, tends to  beautify or embellish the world. St. Benedict  wanted  his monks to  apply themselves to  manual labour. He divided the day between prayer, study and labour and giving four hours to  labour. He wrote  in  his Rule: “They will be true monks if they live by the labour of their own hands”. If you tend to  be a clock-watcher who never works beyond quitting time no matter what, then you  need to  change your habits. Make your work a game. Nothing feeds tenacity like our natural competitive nature. Try  to  harness  that by making your work a game.

Once a cart man was going with a cart loaded with goods. On the way his cart wheel plunged in wet mud. He started beating the bullocks to  get them to  pull the cart out of the slush, but the bullocks could not budge as the cart was rather heavily loaded. So he knelt down and started praying to  God  for strength. On seeing this, God was angry. He appeared in front of the cart man and said, ”Hey, get up you lazy man:  It is not my job to  pull out a cart- wheel from slush. You just get up and push. It will come out. And you ask me for strength to do your work, don’t ever ask me to  do your work”.

Sr (Dr) Lilly Thokkanattu SJL