"Human beings are born; they grow up; they have their joys and sorrows and their fortunes. They strive and struggle and develop, and all this happens in God. He has created them and given them their various powers. 'In Him we live and move and have our being.' When we rejoice, the living God is present in our rejoicing. And when we suffer, he suffers in our suffering. He has created us, and we are not a matter of indifference to him.
When we work, it is he who commissions us. It is not a matter of indifference to him how the carpenter makes the table, how the mother runs her home, and how the doctor serves his patients. There is an inferior kind of piety that seeks to enhance the things of God by disparaging the things of the world. It is the vengeance taken by a frustrated desire for the things of this world.
But the things of the world are not unimportant, nor are they a matter of indifference, least of all to God, since he created the world 'that it might be' and he saw that 'it was good'. He wants it to remain good, and it grieved his heart when sin invaded the goodness of the world. He took that invasion so seriously that he 'gave his Only Begotten Son'. God has put his work into people's hands for them to maintain and continue, and he wants them to complete it for his joy and to give meaning to their own lives. God is with us when we do our work, whatever it may be. We are to do it for him and with him."
- Fr. Romano Guardini, from Magnificat, September 2014
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