The Australian Jesuit winemaker Br John May SJ used to hear the words ‘work of human hands’ in the Mass and look humbly upon his own. The fruit of the vine, poured into the cup and offered at the altar was indeed the work of his hands.
Br John, for decades the winemaker at Sevenhill Cellars in the Clare Valley, South Australia, produced many crates of sacramental wine over many years. He was a personal, tangible reminder that what comes to the table of the Lord and is transformed is indeed the work of human hands.
PRAISEWORTHY
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which guides the celebration of Eucharistic liturgy, says of the offering of the gifts: ‘It is praiseworthy for the bread and wine to be presented by the faithful.’ This is an important moment of the worshipping assembly’s participation in the Mass. It is what we bring together as a community of faith that is transformed. Our age of mass production can distance us from these processes and so from the word and symbol that suggest that in the Mass we bring our work, with all we are, to the table of the Lord.
There is an obvious link to the collection taken up, but this very often seems perfunctory at best. Being a Jesuit, usually attending Masses in churches in the care of the Jesuits, I often don’t partake in what would be a money-go-round and so don’t make an offering of cash. In between wondering what others who don’t know me might make of this, I appreciate the reminder to ponder what I bring to the Mass.
What do I bring from my day or my week to this particular celebration, at this time and place? What contribution have I made to the community that I offer with the offerings of everyone else?
SHARE IN THE MISSION
One of the realities that the final document of the Synod on Synodality points to is that all the baptised share in the mission of the Church. That does not mean we are all engaged in ‘intra-Church’ work. Indeed, the document suggests that ‘the first task of lay women and men is to permeate and transform earthly realities with the spirit of the Gospel’. That is a big, ambitious undertaking. John Paul II described the Church as ‘the seed, sign and instrument’ of the Kingdom of God. This is just as true for Christians living as a witness in their marriages, in their work, and in the care of children and parents as it is in formal church structures.
Lumen Gentium, that great document from the Second Vatican Council, beautifully describes the laity as ‘leaven’ in all the many places where they live and work. They work from ‘within’ the structures of human community, seeking to draw all things to God by making Christ known in their way of life.
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, as it is formally known, says, ‘the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven.’
For the baptised there is not work done inside and outside the Church. There is not an on/off switch we press. Instead, all our work can be, ought to be, directed as sign, seed and instrument of God’s reign, and so it can all be the work of the Church.
GLORY OF GOD
That does not mean we have to be especially pious all the time, let alone preachy. In a deeper way our lives and the work we do can be directed towards the greater glory of God.
By building human community, empowering others to live out their human dignity, and so often by the simple means of human interaction at work, with friends, and in all sorts of ordinary ways we express ourselves as the Church.
I find making a morning offering helps with this orientation; as does the odd quick prayer during the day; and especially the Ignatian examen at the end of the day.
In whatever way I have been working, I can draw connections with the way I notice God is working. I can be aware of the harmony and dissonance in my own work with what I best understand God’s work to be. Whatever the work of my hands might be, the next day I can try to have that work build up the reign of God by gently making my sense of God’s presence real for others.
