EVERYTHING HE DID GOOD – Jesus, our Model, realized his work in Nazareth with human perfection. - laboriousness, professional competence. – to finish with perfection the work. The small things in the professional occupation. Often the Gospels gather the feelings and the words of admiration that the Lord provoked in his years here in the land: the peoples were astonished, they all were admired by the prodigies that he was doing... And "among many praises that said of Jesus those who contemplated his life, there is one who in certain way understands all. I say to that exclamation filled with accents of amazement and of enthusiasm, that spontaneously he was repeating the multitude on having attended amazed his miracles: (Mc 7, 37)”everything has done it admirably well”: The big prodigies, and the tiny, daily things, which dazzled nobody, but that Christ realized with the fullness of the one who, is perfect God and perfect man" (Friends of God, 56). The Gospel invites us to think that those who were following the Lord cannot stop exclaiming: Everything has done it well. Christ appears us as Model for our current life, and can serve us to examine if of us it might say that we try to do well all the things, the big ones and those who seem without importance, because we want to imitate Christ. Most of Jesus' human existence was a current life of work in a village till then unknown. And there, in Nazareth, also the Lord made it every completely, with human perfection. In Nazareth it would be said of Jesus that he was a good carpenter, better that they had known. A good part of the life of every man and of every woman is formed by the reality of the work, and difficultly we will find a responsible person who - for own will - is without occupation or employment. Many people feel moved to work for human noble purposes: to support the family, a better future to be worked ...; also are those who devote themselves to a task for the zeal to put into practice and to develop a particular skill or interest, or for paying to the good of the society, because they feel the responsibility of doing something for the others. Others work for less noble ends: wealth ambition, power, to affirm the own value, to obtain the necessary thing to give satisfaction to his passions. We know competent peoples, who work many hours to conscience for exclusively human purposes. The Lord wants that those who follow him in the middle of the world are persons who are employed well, with prestige, competent at his profession or at his office, without botched jobs; very different peoples, who move for human noble purposes and because the work is the one that is - it is the way where we must exercise the human virtues and the supernatural ones ..., since " we know that, with the oblation of his work to God, the men associate to the own redeeming work of Jesus Christ, who is Christ, who gave to the work a dignity sobreeminente working with his own hands in Nazareth " (Gaudium et spes, 67). We say to the Lord that we want to realize exemplary our housekeeping - in a particular way our work - because we wish vividly
to be a daily offering that comes up to Him, and because we are determined to imitate him in those years of secret life in Nazareth.. When Jesus looks for those who have to follow him, he makes it man-to-man used to the work. Teacher, the whole night we have been working .., say to him those that would be his first disciples. The whole night, in one I work hard, because it is necessary to live, because they are fishermen. San Paul has left his own example us and of those who were accompanying him: we labour with our own hands (Cor 4, 12.-). And, he writes to the first Christians of Thessalonika: We did not even eat the bread of bucket at the cost of other one, but with work and fatigue, working in the night and day, not to be burdensome to any of you (1 Tes 3, 8.). St Paul was not devoting himself to the work for simple playtime and distraction – “comments On S.Juan Crisóstomo”, but he realized a such effort that could subcome to his needs and of others. A man who was reigning to the demons, which he was a teacher of the whole universe, whom there entrusted the inhabitants of villages, nations and cities, of whom he was taking care with all request; this man was working day and night. We -he is still the saint-, that we do not have a minimal part of his worries, what excuses will we have? (S J. CRISÓSTOMO.- Priscila and Aquila). We do not have excuses not to work with intensity, with perfection, without botched jobs. To work well, first it is necessary to work with laboriousness, being useful well the hours, since it is difficult, probably impossibly, that the one who is not useful well the time could get used to the sacrifice and that he keeps awake his spirit, which could live through the most elementary human virtues. A life without work corrompes, and often corrompes what exists around. "The iron that lies idle, consumed for the rust, becomes soft and useless; but if it is used in the work, it is much more useful and beautiful and you upset if it goes in rear to the same silver. The land that is made uncultivated does not produce anything healthy, but bad herbs, thistles and thorns and fruitless plants; but the one that is cultivated, fills with soft fruits. And, to say it in a word, every being corrompes for the idleness and improves for the activity that iy is own" (ibidem). And it serves equally for the family mother who must dedicate many hours to her home and to the education of her children, for the one that is self-employed, or for the student, the chief of the company and the worker who occupies the last place in a production line. The Lord asks for one us human well realized work, in which he puts on intensity, order, science, competence, zeal of perfection; a task that does not have corners without ending Without disqualification or mistakes. Serious work, which not only seems to be good, but it is really. It is not important if it is manual or intellectual, of execution or of organization, which it there attend other persons of more responsibility or none. The Christian adds something new to the work: besides the previous thing, he does it for God, to whom every day it presents as an offering that it will remain in the eternity; but the way -responsible, competent, intense ...-is the
normal one of all honest work. A task realized hereby dignifies the one that realizes and gives glory to his Creator; they make produce the natural gifts and one turns into a continuous praise God. Because we want to follow closely Christ and try to imitate him, we have to add to our housekeeping a major perfection, because at all time we bear in mind the Teacher, that everything did it well. Let's examine today in the prayer the human quality of our tasks, of the study, and let's see together with the Lord those facets in those that they can improve: intensity, punctuality, to end well what we begin with illusion, order taken care of the instruments of work... The Christian discovers in the work new wealths, "since all the ways of the land can be an occasion of a meeting with Christ " (S.Josemaria Letter 24-III-1930), since was in the habit of saying in many different manners S Josemaria, who preached all his life that "the holiness is not a thing of favoured". He was recalling a fact of experience that had served him to teach in a graphical way to whom they were bringing over to his apostolate how it has to be the work done with a view to God: "I Remember also the season of my stay in Burgos (...). Sometimes, our treks were coming to the monastery of “Las Huelgas”, and in other occasions we were escaping to the Cathedral. "I liked to rise to a tower, in order that they were contemplating closely the “crestería”, an authentic lace of stone, fruit of a patient, costly labour. In these chats he was making them notice that that marvel was not seen from below. And, to materialize what with repeated frequency had explained to them, he was commenting on them: this is the God's work, the God's work!: to end the personal task with perfection, with beauty, with the beauty of delicate blond these of stone. They were understanding, before this reality that was entering the eyes, that all that was prayer, a beautiful dialog with the Lord. Those who spent(consumed) their energies in this task, they knew perfectly that from the streets of the city nobody would estimate their effort: it was only for God. Do you understand now how it can bring the professional vocation over to the Lord? Make the same thing you that those stone-cutters, and your work will be also work of God, a labour humanize with entrails and divine profiles " (Friends of God 65), though nobody sees it, though any person values it. God yes sees it and estimates it; this is sufficient to put determination in ending the tasks with perfection, with love.