Opening Reflection
If you like to use music in prayer, listen to Sarah Hart’s In the House that Love is Building, which gives voice to the active role that God has in our lives, and the call each of us has to be proactive in cultivating the Reign of God on earth.
Opening Prayer
Loving God, there is not one invitation You extend to your people that You haven’t first modeled We thank you for the invitation to be co-workers with you, for the singular honor that it is amidst all of creation. Be with us as we view the work we have to do as a holy calling, and inspire us to see the many who labor as inherently valuable for who they are, not only what they do.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen
Video overview (if you’re joining us this week)
We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development, and personal fulfillment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work.
Laudato Si’ (“Praise Be”) Pope Francis, 2015 #128.
Catholic Social Teaching, Origin
A reminder that Pope Leo penned the first of the social teaching encyclicals in 1891, entitled: Rerum Novarum, which means, ‘On the Condition of Labor.’ Although the European industrial revolution had reached its hilt, the United States was having its production boom at the expense of workers, including children. Upton Sinclair’s famous work, The Jungle, was written around the same time (1904) as an expose’ on the inhumanity of Chicago’s meat-packing plants.
To put it lightly, the role of work and the dignity of the workers themselves are foundational to the concepts that the Church holds dear in its teachings.
The following duties . . . concern rich men and employers: Workers are not to be treated as slaves; justice demands that the dignity of human personality be respected in them, … gainful occupations are not a mark of shame to man, but rather of respect, as they provide him with an honorable means of supporting life.
It is shameful and inhuman, however, to use men as things for gain and to put no more value on them than what they are worth in muscle and energy. (Rerum Novarum, #31)
You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.
-Venerable Fulton Sheen
Some important themes each of the documents enforce:
-Workers have a right to be treated with human dignity, the right to earn a just wage that allows them to feed themselves/their family, in safe conditions.
-Each of us is called to be co-creators with God–regardless of our vocation. For some that might mean art. For farmers, it means collaborating in the bringing forth of the harvest. For parents, it means the welcoming and raising of children. For medical professionals, it means fostering the well-being of another like the Great Physician. Single. Married. With or without children. Ministry or otherwise, we each have an innate call to see the work we do as collaborative with God who first created.
-Those who perform the work (labor/healthcare/technology/agricultural/maintenance/etc) in our society, provide vital services and embody a deeper sense of esteem because of the contributions they make not only to their family but to the larger society.
-Workers have a responsibility to provide the agreed-upon services they were hired to do with honesty and integrity.
-When unjust/unsafe working conditions exist, the Church supports the rights of workers to organize and advocate for more suitable working conditions.
-Always, always the Church will stress the importance of seeing the workers for the good they are, rather than as a means to an end.
“What use is it telling me that so and so is a good son of mine—a good Christian—but a bad shoemaker? If he doesn’t try to learn his trade well or doesn’t give his full attention to it, he won’t be able to sanctify it or offer it to Our Lord. The sanctification of ordinary work is, as it were, the hinge of true spirituality for people who, like us, have decided to come close to God while being at the same time fully involved in temporal affairs.”
– Saint Josemaria Escriva, Friends of God
Practice integrity in your work
Those who become rich by abusing their workers have sinned against God.
‘Jobs not jails’
This is why the mission of organizations like Homeboy Industries is so essential: Jobs not jails. Giving men and women the opportunity to exercise their God-given gifts will always be more effective as a means of investment in rehabilitation and reformation than punishment for its own sake. For so many, attaining and holding a job is the first experience of trust and responsibility, the first time someone has taken a chance on them; where they, their family and their employer each benefit from the work they perform.
Reflection Questions:
- What similarities and dichotomies do you notice between the dignity of work and the rights of workers?
- How does your call/vocation inform your sense of purpose? Has it/how has it changed over time?
- Have you considered the importance of work as a means of restorative justice? Why/why not?
- Does either the dignity of work or the rights of workers challenge your personal view of work as a gift or the dignity of work? If so, how so? If not, why not?
Closing prayer
Creating God, from the beginning You have demonstrated our innate call to cultivate the world around us. Through the beauty of the created world, to the hands of Jesus the carpenter, the work of our hands has always been an invitation to be nearer to the heart of who You are, who You intended us to be. Our very necessary work in the world is itself Your gift to us, and we thank you for the opportunity to co-create with you. Animate the work of our hands, and make visible the worth of all who contribute the efforts of their labor. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.