work

how we can better turn work into prayer, which is not just a matter of including some small acts of piety while we work. Our Father has explained it to us in so many ways. Let us re-read his words: “So go about your work in the knowledge that God is watching: laborem manuum mearum respexit Deus (Gen 31:42), God saw the labour 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.”^[22]

In our work we often experience our limitations and defects. But if, in spite of everything, we strive to work “in the knowledge that God is watching,” we will be able to hear Saint Paul’s words as addressed to us: in the Lord your labour is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58); as our Father summed it up: “nothing is ever lost.”