Freewheeling

Latin employs two words for work:

Opus and Labor.

The first indicates the kind of work that God does.

Opus connotes a freewheeling type of work, gratuitous and without compulsion or necessity. Think of the great works of Mozart, Beethoven or Bach. When performed they have that feel about them.

Labor denotes the toil-some nature of work, which is our experience.

The Gospel, again, is about the Eucharist and speaks about ‘working for God.’ Notice that the crowd speaks about works (plural), while Jesus speaks about work (singular):

This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent (John 6).

We should remember:

Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11).

Day by day, minute by minute, we experience the toil of human existence. This is the lot of every human being.

But with faith, we slowly, but surely, begin to experience our work as a participation in God’s work – his Opus.

This is especially so if we unite our work with the offering of bread and wine at Mass:

Those basic elements become – without a doubt – the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Likewise, our toil becomes opus through the Eucharist.

Amen.