The 40 days and 40 nights of Lent are, of course, not incidental. Noah endured 40 days and 40 nights of rain in the Ark. Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights up on Mount Sinai. Goliath tormented the Israelites for 40 days and 40 nights.
In fact, Bible scholars note that the number 40 is referenced over 150 times in Scripture. Biblical references to the desert (or wilderness) are almost as numerous. In the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied of “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” Of course, the New Testament tells us that John the Baptist later appeared in the desert to prepare the way of the Lord.
Passages referencing both the number 40 and the desert are particularly striking.
After being freed from Egypt, the Israelites spent 40 years wandering the desert.
Following His baptism, Jesus spent 40 days praying and fasting in the desert.
In Hebrew, “midbar” is the word for desert. It refers to uncultivated land; a chaotic, disordered, often dangerous place where anything can happen. Interestingly, another Hebrew word which is quite similar is “medaber” which means to speak. And, so, it is probably not coincidental that the Israelites were sent to the desert and Jesus went to the desert to listen to God speak. Nor is it strange that we are often told to think of our own Lenten journey as a 40-day experience in the desert.
But is our time in the wilderness really just 40 days?
As I tell my students, the time between college graduation and retirement is roughly 40 years. And when one considers the landscape of today’s professional world, our time spent in most office environments is very much a journey in the wilderness. Just as when Adam was sent out of the Garden of Eden and sentenced to a life of labor, we leave the garden of our homes and families to work in a marketplace where, like the desert, snares await, chaos abounds and temptations lurk around every corner.
But God speaks to us. And like the Israelites and then Jesus, we will need to bring something with us to the wilderness to hear Him. The Israelites had the ark of the covenant with the Ten Commandments, the manna, and Aaron’s rod. Jesus, who came from Mary (who is the ark of the new covenant), had everything He needed. But still both fought very hard on their journeys to resist Satan’s lure. The Israelites realized great triumphs but also regularly failed. Jesus succeeded.
And, so, what can we bring with us on our professional treks through the wilderness?
Fortunately, our faith is not short on resources. We, of course, have the saints. And though we sometimes forget these amazing stories, the saints’ lives offer great inspiration for our professional journeys. And there truly is someone for everyone. Many know that St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers. Fewer probably know that St. Homobonus is that for business people. Perhaps the success of “The Chosen” has reminded us that St. Matthew was an accountant and remains the patron saint of that profession. Even advertising execs have St. Bernardino of Siena to call on. Tech professionals can turn to St. Isidore of Seville (and, given things happening in that space these days, they most definitely should!). Salespeople have St. Lucy. Our nation’s bankers, grocers and policemen are blessed to have St. Michael the Archangel as their patron saint. I’m none of those three, but I call on him a lot. My family has two separate statues of him in our home—one on the first floor and one on the second—they are a good reminder for each of us that he is always in the fight with us.
As we navigate our professional landscape, let’s not forget to unleash the power of our Blessed Mother. Pope John Paul II’s motto, “Totus Tuus,” encourages us to lean very hard on the Rosary and allow Mary to serve as mediatrix and our gateway to the Holy Spirit. A few years ago, I bought a print of a painting by 18th-century artist Piotr Stachiewicz for my wife who, in addition to being a wonderful and devoted mom, is also an accounting Ph.D. “Polish Madonna” depicts Mary as a young mother, hanging laundry while her infant boy (depicted as around a year old in the painting) sits by her side, playing. The setting for the scene is a garden of some sort—the artist beautifully shows a wild flowering plant springing up in the space just beyond where the child’s clothes hang, directly above his head (its placement quite purposeful, I’m sure, as the rest of the vegetation in the surrounding landscape is green but not blooming). In the picture, while Mary completes this all-too-familiar, seemingly mundane, routine task, her gaze is completely fixed on Jesus. Stachiewicz’s beautiful piece reminds us to find the divine in all that we do, whether it be housework or even—when we leave the garden for the desert—trying to balance debits and credits.
Of course, we bring our talents with us to the wilderness. And though we are each gifted with different talents (Rom 12:6), we are encouraged to use whatever gifts we have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace (1 Pet 4:10). Properly using these talents – and avoiding misuse of them—calls upon diligent practice of virtue. Habitual incorporation of the cardinal and theological virtues enables us to discern good from evil and courageously pursue the former. As Catholics, again our cup runneth over. Gifted with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in baptism and renewed in the sacrament of confirmation, our practice of virtue becomes supercharged, focused and more powerful. These gifts, namely wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, are first identified in Isaiah:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. (Isa 11:1-3)
St. Thomas Aquinas famously elaborates on these gifts in his Summa Theologiae and each can be profoundly important as we navigate workplace terrain. Wisdom helps us to know and judge “divine things” and direct what is human toward divine truth. Understanding enables us to see God and counsel directs us toward God and salvation. Fortitude is a firmness of mind, to do good and avoid evil, whereas knowledge is the correct judgment on matters involving the faith and right action. Piety helps us revere and observe our duty to God while a filial Fear of the Lord makes us long to be close to Him and never separate ourselves from Him.
Forty years is a long time. The wilderness is chaotic. The devil’s wickedness and snares need rebuking. God is speaking. Pray we listen carefully and bring with us all we’ve been given.
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Jelinek, a man with a well ordered vision for life enriched with scripture and intellectual knowledge.
40 a number that’s found throughout the salvation narrative of emancipation from Egypt to the Holy Land. Again a wonder for Jelinek from college grad to retirement age approx 40 years. The amazing life of Moses finds its fulfillment in the 40 years in the desert. Moses the great mediator who refuses greater glory as patriarch of a new people, instead intervenes, pleads with God to instead forgive the calf worshiping Jews. Moses who fasts 40 days and nights on Sinai and repeats it.
I would have favored a married life as Jelinek describes his, although at the time marriage was considered I had no such commitment to Christ. Perhaps Jelinek and those like him are the mediators of our modern world of strife, when priests the calibre of a Moses are wanting.
Leave it to a PhD, or most media writers, to assume work means an office environment….the planes, trains, trucks, cars, sewers, trash collection, roads, electrical, gas and water systems, warehouses, retail, grocery and restaurant, medical and all the others are obviously self-sustaining systems, with only human work being in offices with computers and all automated else only to support them.
I took it as a convenient shorthand, even a metaphor — better than listing all the different working environments possible. Including offices, manufacturing (mostly being inside with other workers nearby), medical, retail, I suspect a majority of US workers could loosely be labelled “office workers.”
HOW to navigate and, ourselves, to speak in an “…uncultivated land; a chaotic, disordered, often dangerous place where anything can happen.” A maxim that applies to both private employment and even public agencies is, “…how to commit truth, and get away with it.”
BEHOLD, this maxim is so universal that in today’s world it even applies to the Church! Thinking here of those exiled, while sycophants congregate around corporate, and agency, and ecclesial front offices.
As HENRY VIII said to Thomas More (in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons”): “…There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown, and there are those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I am their lion, and there is a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves…” (forward, ever forward!).
Adding to Dr. Jelinek’s appreciated litany of saints who accompany truly, we note here the last and first stronghold, and the solid jumping off place for engagement in the world—Holy Hours and EUCHARISTIC ADORATION. Even if this must be in post-Vatican II building with a flat ceiling and flat music, and without a railing or kneelers, and (therefore!) with a regular Mass attendance of only seventeen percent.