Labor Day Reflections

A Digest of Pope Saint John Paul II on Human Work

Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

Learn about "Servant of God" Dorothy Day:  https://catholicworker.org/dorothy-day/

Learn about the Catholic Worker Movement:   https://catholicworker.org/

In work, humans participate in the Creator’s activity.  Jesus proclaimed "the gospel of work” as a craftsman.  And yet, he opposed anxiety about work.  

The Bible refers to many human professions: doctors, pharmacists, craftsmen, artists, blacksmiths, farmers, scholars, sailors, builders, musicians, and fishermen. St. Paul was a tentmaker.  He teaches that people should “do their work in quietness and to earn their own living" (1 Thessalonians 4:11-14).  He lamented idleness. “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-13).  

The Second Vatican Council said, “Just as human activity proceeds from man, so it is ordered towards man.  When people work, they not only alter things and society; they develop themselves as well… They go outside themselves and beyond themselves.  [This is] of greater value than any external riches earned ... Hence [human work] should harmonize with the genuine good of humanity and allow people… to pursue their total vocation and fulfill it.”

Work’s spirituality reveals the meaning of progress: “A person is more precious for what he is than for what he has. Similarly, all that people do to obtain greater justice, wider brotherhood, and a more humane ordering of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances. [Technical] advances supply the material for human progress, but alone they can never actually bring it about.” 

Work, manual and intellectual, involves toil.  In Genesis, work’s blessings elevate humans to God’s image.  But sin made toil brutal: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17).  This brutal toil announces death: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken” (Genesis 3:19).  “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).   

Salvation came through suffering and death.  In toil, man joind Jesus in humanity’s redemption.  Christ’s disciples carry crosses every day in their work.  Christ purifies and strengthens work to make life more human.  Work builds a new human family, the New Age and the Kingdom of God.