When it comes to work, we have the helpful example of many holy Christians throughout the ages, whose lives embody and illuminate how faith and work come together.
St. Benedict is famous for his approach: ora et labora, pray and work.
This monastic approach can be applied to many areas of the lay vocation.
For example, it can serv as an expression of how prayer can be interspersed throughout the workday, without at the same time displacing the work itself and its integrity.
But it can also be helpful to consider how the faith informs the life of an ordinary layman.
Here, Thomas More (1478–1535) is instructive for us.
Thomas More, Lord Chancellor to the king of England, gave his life as a martyr because he refused to take an oath that would violate his conscience and the faith that informed it.
Though clearly heroic in martyrdom, we might wonder what relevance Thomas More has for the world of work.
Is it something to do with the toil of work and sacrificing ourselves in small ways in a kind of daily martyrdom?
Certainly, this application ought to be drawn.
But highlighting More’s martyrdom, that tremendous end of his life, can have the effect of obscuring much of what preceded it.
The truth of the matter is that More was prepared for a martyr’s end by the daily life that he lived in the world of family and in the world of work.
Put otherwise, because he was faithful in the small and ordinary things, he was able to be faithful in the great and extraordinary moments (see Luke 16:10).
The small, ordinary things for Thomas More were his family, his work, and his prayer.
He loved his family tremendously, investing himself not only in the usual family activities but also in a very hands-on approach to his daughters’ education.
He took his prayer seriously, too.
After spending some years in a Carthusian monastery, More was indelibly formed in the life and rhythm of prayer, and he brought this rhythm into his own personal and family life as well by attending and serving at daily Mass, setting aside Fridays for penance and prayer, and cultivating a regular and profound interior life.
But More was also a hard and diligent worker, discharging his duties with focus, excellence, and grace.
Drawing on the monastic sense of dividing the hours of the day, he was a careful steward of his time, apportioning it so that none of his obligations or opportunities went neglected or were deprived of his best efforts.
He was well-known for his intelligence, his wit, his sense of justice, and the excellence he brought to each task he undertook.
No doubt he experienced the weight and toil of the numerous cases he was called upon to adjudicate, but he also persevered and worked with an efficiency that impressed others and brought him peace at the end of the struggle, a peace reflected in the joy he brought home to his family and friends at the end of a day.
In his timeless example, More lived out so many of the lessons on work we have come to see over the last several days, and these paved the way for his final, heroic sacrifice.
Ask the Lord to prepare you for the extraordinary things he has in store for you by giving you the grace to be faithful and diligent in the most ordinary of daily tasks.
