List of points

Many people begin, but few finish. And we, who are trying to behave as God's children, have to be among those few. Remember that only work that is well done and lovingly completed deserves the praise of the Lord which is to be found in Holy Scripture: 'better is the end of a task than its beginning'.

You may already have heard me tell this story on other occasions; but even so, I would like to bring it up again because it contains a very striking lesson. I was once looking through the Roman Ritual in search of the prayers for blessing the last stone of a building, obviously the most important stone, since it symbolically represents the hard and enterprising work of many people, who have persevered in the task throughout the long years of construction. To my surprise, I found that no such prayers existed, and I had to be satisfied with a benedictio ad omnia, that is, an all-purpose blessing. I must say that at first I just couldn't believe that there was such an omission in the Ritual, and I spent quite a while going over the index without finding what I wanted.

Many Christians are no longer convinced that the fullness of Life that God rightly expects from his children means that they have to have a careful concern for the quality of their everyday work, because it is this work, even in its most minor aspects, which they have to sanctify.

It is no good offering to God something that is less perfect than our poor human limitations permit. The work that we offer must be without blemish and it must be done as carefully as possible, even in its smallest details, for God will not accept shoddy workmanship. 'Thou shalt not offer anything that is faulty,' Holy Scripture warns us, 'because it would not be worthy of him.' For that reason, the work of each one of us, the activities that take up our time and energy, must be an offering worthy of our Creator. It must be operatio Dei, a work of God that is done for God: in short, a task that is complete and faultless.

I am not speaking of imaginary ideals. I confine myself to a very definite reality which is of paramount importance, and which is capable of transforming an environment that is utterly pagan and hostile to God's designs, as indeed happened at the beginning of the era of our salvation. Savour these words of an anonymous author of those times, who sums up the grandeur of our vocation as follows: Christians, he writes, 'are to the world what the soul is to the body. They live in the world but are not worldly, as the soul is in the body but is not corporeal. They live in every town and city, as the soul is in every part of the body. They work from within and pass unnoticed, as the soul does of its essence… They live as pilgrims among perishable things with their eyes set on the immortality of heaven, as the immortal soul now dwells in a perishable house. Their numbers increase daily amid persecutions, as the soul is made beautiful through mortifications… And Christians have no right to abandon their mission in the world, in the same way that the soul may not voluntarily separate itself from the body.'

We would therefore be on the wrong path if we were to disregard temporal affairs, for Our Lord awaits us there as well. You can be sure that it is through the circumstances of ordinary life, ordained or permitted by the infinite wisdom of divine Providence, that we come close to God. But we shall not attain our goal if we do not strive to finish our work well; if we do not sustain the effort we put in when we began our work with human and supernatural zeal; if we do not carry out our work as well as the best do and, if possible, even better than the best. And I think that if you and I really want to, we will work better than the best, because we will use all the honest human means as well as the supernatural ones which are required in order to offer Our Lord a perfect job of work, finished like filigree and pleasing in every way.

I also remember my stay in Burgos around that time. A lot of young men on leave, as well as many who were stationed in the city, came to spend a few days with me. The living quarters that I shared with a few of my sons consisted of a single room in a dilapidated hotel and, though we lacked even the most basic amenities, we organised things in such a way that the men who came — there were hundreds of them — had whatever they needed to rest and recover their strength.

We used to go for walks along the banks of the River Arlanzon. There we would talk and, while they opened their hearts, I tried to guide them with suitable advice to confirm their decisions or open up new horizons in their interior lives. And always, with God's help, I would do all I could to encourage them and stir up in their hearts the desire to live genuinely Christian lives. Our walks would sometimes take us as far as the monastery of Las Huelgas. On other occasions we would find our way to the cathedral.

I used to enjoy climbing up the cathedral towers to get a close view of the ornamentation at the top, a veritable lacework of stone that must have been the result of very patient and laborious craftsmanship. As I chatted with the young men who accompanied me I used to point out that none of the beauty of this work could be seen from below. To give them a material lesson in what I had been previously explaining to them, I would say: 'This is God's work, this is working for God! To finish your personal work perfectly, with all the beauty and exquisite refinement of this tracery stonework.' Seeing it, my companions would understand that all the work we had seen was a prayer, a loving dialogue with God. The men who spent their energies there were quite aware that no one at street level could appreciate their efforts. Their work was for God alone. Now do you see how our professional work can bring us close to Our Lord? Do your job as those medieval stonemasons did theirs, and your work too will be operatio Dei, a human work with a divine substance and finish.

'Since we are convinced that God is to be found everywhere, we plough our fields praising the Lord, we sail the seas and ply all our other trades singing his mercies.' Doing things this way we are united to God at every moment. Even when you find yourselves isolated and away from your normal surroundings, like those boys in the trenches, you will be living in Our Lord by means of your continual hard work, which you will have learned to turn into prayer, because you will have started it and finished it in the presence of God the Father, of God the Son and of God the Holy Spirit.

But don't forget that you are also in the presence of men, and that they expect from you, from you personally, a Christian witness. Thus, as regards the human aspect of our job, we must work in such a way that we will not feel ashamed when those who know us and love us see us at our work, nor give them cause to feel embarrassed. If you work in the spirit that I am trying to teach you, you will not embarrass those who rely on you, nor will you have any cause to blush. You will not be like the man in the parable who set out to build a tower: 'When he had laid the foundations and was unable to finish, all who beheld him began to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish.'

Believe me. If you don't lose your supernatural outlook, you will crown your work. You will finish your cathedral to the very last stone.