The Work That Will Outlast You
Updated: Sep 3
“For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.”John 4:37–38
You tighten the final screw knowing that someone else will one day loosen it, or replace the whole piece, or simply live with what you have left behind.
The work is not yours forever. It enters a longer story.
Jesus spoke of a house built on rock. He spoke of seed that grows while the sower sleeps. He told his friends that they would harvest what other people had planted. The labour is real. The harvest often belongs to someone else.
Some of the best work is done with that quiet knowledge. The joint will still hold when the hands that made it are gone. The repaired hinge will open for people not yet born. A parish, a table, a door, a habit of care: these can last longer than the one who first tended them.
You do not have to sign your name on everything. You do not have to control how long it lasts.
The Mass is older than we are. We receive words we did not write. We receive a gift we cannot keep as private property. Then we take our place for a while, and we step back. Christ remains. The work of the Church continues in other hands. That is not an insult to our labour. It is the way grace moves through time.
It is enough to have worked carefully, and then to step back.
The work continues without you.
That is both loss and gift.