Participating in the Work of God

I spent the day in the same activity with which I spend at least two days a week: housecleaning. These days I have to be especially careful about these tasks, as I have some houseguests, who will be staying here in the parish house over the holiday. In the universe of housecleaning there is, of course a whole universe of tasks, all of which have their time and season. Today, I worked to tackle one after another of them, and by the end of the day, I found that I had met most of my goals to my satisfaction. First off, the entire house had to be dusted, then the floors had to be dry mopped to remove the cat hair that had accumulated over the past few days, then the floors had to be wet mopped to remove stains and dirt that had been tracked into the house. The bathrooms had to be cleaned, of course, and the kitchen cabinets had to be washed.

It was my mother, who taught me many years ago that cleaning is not be despised, because it is a share in what God does. It is making order out of chaos. It mirrors Creation in this respect, but it also mirrors the Redemption in Christ, because Christ has made a new harmonious order of our lives by His life-giving death and Resurrection. It is a great honour to participate in what God does, even though it may seem menial and burdensome sometimes. I have found that focusing on the honour that this kind of work is helps immeasurably to ennoble it in my own mind, and calm me during the work, so that I am not hurrying to finish it, or wishing that I could just finish so that I can do something else.

I think that it is one of the primary problems of us human beings that we have the false expectation that life should be easy (or, at least, easier), but I know now from experience that when I am wed to the idea that my life should be easy it robs me of something that is absolutely essential to my life and existence: JOY. Life is not easy, but it is in the very difficulties that we find joy. Clinging to the idea that life should be easy leads us only to resentment (because it is not what it ought to be), anger, envy (because we perceive that, perhaps, other people's lives are easy), and every other spiritual malady leading up to sadness, depression and bitterness. As a priest I have worked a lot in nursing homes over the years. There you meet a lot of bitterness, depression and sadness most often because life turned out to be different from what was expected.

So, we are called to participate in God's work of bringing order out of chaos. It's not glorious. The heavens don't open; angels do not descend, accompanied by the music of heavenly choirs. There are no thunderclaps, hailstones or flashes of fire. There are just us—holding our toilet brushes. Yet, the significance of the things we do is much greater than this world. We participate in God's Creation and His work of Redemption.