Offer the day's work in the morning by name — this task, this shift, these people — rather than in general terms; the Morning Offering exists for this. Then do the work well, because sanctifying work begins with competence: punctuality, order, finishing what has been begun, and honesty about what you have not done. Work done badly cannot be offered. Fix one small discipline inside the working day — rising at the hour set without negotiating with yourself, or a single task done first because it is the one you would avoid. Build a rule of prayer that survives a working day rather than one that only works on holiday: a fixed short period of mental prayer at the same hour, the Angelus at noon, a decade of the Rosary on the commute, a brief visit to a church when you pass one. Treat the people you work with as the first field of charity, and, when the moment is genuinely right, of apostolate. Close the day by handing the unfinished work back to God rather than carrying it home. St Josemaría Escrivá taught that ordinary work, done well and offered, is itself the way to holiness for lay people; the Second Vatican Council teaches the same when it describes the secular character proper to the lay vocation.

Laborem Exercens sets out the elements of a spirituality of work, in which human labour shares in the work of the Creator and is united to the Cross of Christ. Lumen Gentium and Christifideles Laici describe the secular character of the lay vocation, and St Josemaría Escrivá (canonized 2002) made the sanctification of ordinary work the centre of the message of Opus Dei.

Work

Lay spirituality; Opus Dei

Every working day

work