When we work, when we set our hands to these material things that God has created, we return praise and honor to God, and we cause creatures to render this homage to the Creator, in their own secret and wonderful language. Work makes us sharers in the divine action, and, consequently, in the holiness and grace that emanates from God the Father and that communicates itself not only through the ordinary means of the Redemption, but by the special channel of work – by contact with material things that are for our use. With us, work is a thing of awe, of blessedness. By work, we cooperate with God and with the Word. Work with our hands is our way of honoring God the Father.
In that it comes from God, all work is excellent. By steeping ourselves in this doctrine, it will come to pass that our work of each day, whatever it may be – whether manual or intellectual – will take on a character so elevated, so complete in its union with God that we will treat all things as holy and sacred and as requiring our attention, our care, and our devotion. And in their turn, these things will bring us grace, the grace of God the Father.
--Fr. Louis Brisson, O.S.F.S.,
The Nineteenth Century Salesian Pentecost
Image source: Ford Madox Brown, Work (1865), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28painting%29
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