Continued from yesterday...
Chapter 8. The Principal Duties of the Day
III. Working
Most men work seven, eight, ten hours a day, and some even more. This goes on for fifty, sixty or even seventy years. All these countless hours are, for many, completely lost! Also, work for some is irksome, especially when it does not bring in the desired profits. Others enjoy their work but never think of doing it for God, and they too lose the immense merits of all these long hours.
Every one should bear in mind that work was expressly imposed on us by God as a penance for sin. "You shall eat your bread with the sweat of your brow." [Gen. 3:19]
If we work in this spirit, every moment of labor is a meritorious penance. And when our work is not successful, we have the great consolation of knowing that it brings us a still greater reward because of the mortification resulting from our failure.
In our morning offering we should be careful to emphasize the words, "I offer all the work, all the actions of this day for the intentions of the Sacred Heart."
Few Christians feel inclined to practice penance for their many sins. Consequently, their pains in Purgatory will be long and severe. If, however, we offer our life's work, the work of every day, its weariness, worries and disappointments, we are doing excellent penance, the holiest we can perform, because it has been imposed by God Himself and we are doing it every day of our lives.
Moreover, our work, our every action, if done for God, will receive abundant rewards because they are acts of love.
All these innumerable graces are utterly lost if we fail to do our work with the proper dispositions, viz., a) as acts of penance, b) as acts of love.
By making our Morning Offering with full deliberation, the countless acts of each day become acts of merit...
[Continued tomorrow]
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From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
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