I’ve been taught for the past decade that the work we do has both human and supernatural character because of its origin and purpose. Man was created, ut operaretur eum, so that he should work. It’s in our very own DNA, in our creational and vocational purpose to work. It’s difficult to understand that work is one way or another a vocation because we’ve only identified a few kinds of people who have as such, something I do not agree with. All the more it is difficult now since many are shifting to work from home arrangements, while others run the risk of getting infected in offices, and eventually suspending work because a colleague or two just got confirmed that he or she has the virus. For those at home, it’s also difficult because the fine line between work and family life has been lost — at one point we’ll have to attend more on one thing than the other.
This is a common struggle of man, and I plead all those who are in authority to see and empathize not only with the situation of a few but of man. We all know we were not ready for this, but “we know with whatever comes, the future is safe in His hands.” Perhaps it was meant to be, that we should also learn to befriend our work from home, or wherever we go. Getting too comfortable with the same workplace can be a growing detraction from being virtuous in our work and studies. It’s a lifetime task to be formed, not just informed or educated — formation makes sure that we, who are molded like clay, accomplish whatever we are supposed to put into practice and never get used to things, or else, we will fall into lacking love and start acting heartless with our work.
I have been struggling with the academic requirements because all my life I’ve been used to going to school where a teacher would teach me what I needed to learn, which doesn’t mean I’m not open to the possibility of this home-school version of what people call distance or blended learning. I pity those who have unstable internet connection or those who cannot afford even the right materials for online learning. If everyone’s stuck to their homes now, can’t our learning wait — the first kind of learning begins at home, and that is from our parents and the way we live our love for our family. Considering this pandemic as some sort of retreat can help us put things into perspective, for example, the way I’ve been forming part of my family — how can I give myself better for the needs of my family? How can I reach out more to the friends I’ve been distant with through technological means?
Then when things are more stable, continue learning. I believe that everyone has their own pace despite the academic pressure of the semesters, trimesters and quarters of a school year, and all the more now, when we have to respect the situation of each one when everyone is dying to go out and do what they have to do to support their own family. The kind of learning we need now is learning how to love, to befriend our work, recognizing that work “was given life” and has become a reality we need to control so that it may never forsake the greater good, and that is, the love we are called to live. When we feel and think about all the reasons not to attend to our work, there is only one perspective and virtue we need to develop — diligence which comes from the Latin diligare: we have to love our work.
Offer it up because it is a sacrifice we offer for others, so include those intentions so that it may be worthily accomplished. It is not difficult to do but getting used to doing it without “becoming used to it” will be the hardest but greatest part. When we learn to love others by offering our sacrifices for them, then, we’ve developed and learned our way of love in the many little different things of everyday life. This is what it means to sanctify our work, forgetting one’s self and doing it for the sake of another — to sanctify itself means to love (from the Latin sanctus which means something sacred, good and happy).
