Saint Josemaria
Quotations from Saint Josemaria

Work in the home

Tags: Charity, Family and work, Service
Housework is something of primary importance. Besides, all work can have the same supernatural quality. There are no great or mean tasks. All are great if they are done with love. Those which are considered great become small when the Christian meaning of life is lost sight of.
Conversations, 109

Personality growth
Even on the personal level one cannot flatly affirm that a woman has to achieve her perfection only outside the home, as if time spent on her family were time stolen from the development of her personality. The home — whatever its characteristics, because a single woman should also have a home — is a particularly suitable place for the growth of her personality. The attention she gives to her family will always be a woman’s greatest dignity. In the care she takes of her husband and children or, to put it in more general terms, in her work of creating a warm and formative atmosphere around her, a woman fulfils the most indispensable part of her mission. And so it follows that she can achieve her personal perfection there.
Conversations, 87

Dimensions of social work
Now just a moment! What is social work, if not giving oneself to others, with a sense of dedication and service and contributing effectively to the good of all? The job of a woman in her house is a social contribution in itself and can easily be the most effective of all.
Conversations, 89

Professional approach
Certainly there will always be many women whose only task is to run their home. This is a wonderful job which is very worthwhile. Through this profession — because it is a profession, in a true and noble sense — they are an influence for good, not only in their family, but also among their many friends and acquaintances, among people with whom they come in contact, in one way or another. Sometimes their impact is much greater than that of other professional people, to say nothing of when they put their experience and knowledge at the service of hundreds of people in centres devoted to the formation and education of women, like those which my daughters in Opus Dei direct all over the world. Then they teach others to run a home, and become educators who are more effective, I would say, than many university professors.
Conversations, 88

Greatness
Before God, no occupation is in itself great or small. Everything gains the value of the Love with which it is done.
Furrow, 487

Here is a mission for ordinary Christians which is heroic and will always be relevant to the present day: to carry out in a holy way all different kinds of occupations, even those that might seem least promising.
Furrow, 496

You are writing to me in the kitchen, by the stove. It is early afternoon. It is cold. By your side, your younger sister — the last one to discover the divine folly of living her Christian vocation to the full — is peeling potatoes. To all appearances — you think — her work is the same as before. And yet, what a difference there is!
It is true: before she only peeled potatoes, now, she is sanctifying herself peeling potatoes.
Furrow, 498

New every day
Let me stress this point: it is in the simplicity of your ordinary work, in the monotonous details of each day, that you have to find the secret, which is hidden from so many, of something great and new: Love.
Furrow, 498

Turning prose into poetry
When you started your ordinary work again, something like a groan of complaint escaped you: “It’s always the same!”
And I told you: “Yes, it’s always the same. But that ordinary job — which is the same one your fellow workers do — has to be a constant prayer for you. It has the same loveable words, but a different tune each day.”
It is very much our mission to turn the prose of this life into poetry, into heroic verse.
Furrow, 500