Labor Day
Today’s readings: Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:1-3; Psalm 90; Matthew 25:14-30
“Well done, good and faithful servant. Come share in your Master’s joy.” These are the words that we all want to hear one day, on that great day, the judgment day, when God gathers us all in to bring us to the reward for which he created us. This parable is Biblical evidence that just accepting the faith and having a relationship with Jesus aren’t enough for salvation. We have to work with God, using the talents he has given us, to help God create that “kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace” (Mass for Christ the King).
And so, like the man who received one talent, we cannot go hiding our talents away hoping that our Lord will ignore our fear and poor self-image. We have to be willing to invest our talents in the work of creation, doubling what we have been given, and bringing it back to the Lord.
So many people say, when they are asked to do some special project or take a place on a ministry “Oh, I could never do that. That’s for people with way more talent than I have.” I have two things to say about that. First, they might be right. Maybe they don’t have the ability, all by themselves, to do what God is calling them to do. But God never said they had to do it by themselves, did he? God can provide infinitely what we lack. Second, this kind of false humility isn’t praiseworthy. It is almost like spitting your talent out of your mouth, back at God, and saying, “God, what you have created is nothing.” God forbid that we should ever say that to the one who made us!
And so, on this Labor Day, we are asked to pause in the busy-ness of life and look at what God has created, and the talents he has given us. The Church teaches that our work is to be an active participation in God’s ongoing work of creation. Our work must build up the world in beauty and splendor, carefully using but protecting the rich gifts of the earth, caring for and loving the poor as God himself loves them, and making the world a better place than we found it. That is the nature of the talents with which we have been entrusted, and we must busy ourselves making good use of them, because we don’t know when our Lord will return in glory to gather everything and everyone back to himself.
Today we are commanded to “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” We take up that call anew on this Labor Day, praising God for the goodness of creation and the blessing of our talents, and resolving to use all of that for his greater honor and glory. The Prayer after Communion sums up what we ask for on this day: “By doing the work you have entrusted to us, may we sustain our life on earth and build up your kingdom in faith.” Amen!
Sphere: Related ContentFr. Pat’s Iced Coffee
Coffee Concentrate
1/2 pound Just Coffee Ice Coffee Blend, medium ground (buy it after Mass, first Sundays!)
5 cups water
Mix in a bowl, and let steep at room temperature, 12 hours. Pour through a coffee filter and store in refrigerator, up to 2 weeks.
Fr. Pat's Iced Coffee
1 cup coffee concentrate, recipe above
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 cup milk (whatever kind you like)
1/2 cup French Vanilla coffee creamer (or whatever flavor you like)
Mix together in a pitcher, pour over ice. Relax and enjoy, knowing that you are also helping small coffee grower cooperatives in developing nations to have a just standard of living. Offer a prayer of thanks for their loving efforts to produce superior coffee that is organic and sustainable.
More information about fair trade products and Catholic social teaching.
Sphere: Related ContentSt. Joseph the Worker
In his encyclical, Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II said, echoing the sentiments of the Second Vatican Council, “The word of God's revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator and that, within the limits of his own human capabilities, man in a sense continues to develop that activity, and perfects it as he advances further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation.” (25)
The Christian idea of work is that through the toil of work, the Christian joins him or herself to the cross of Christ, and through the effects of work, the Christian participates in the creative activity of our Creator God. Today we celebrate the feast day for all Christian workers, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. This feast recalls that Jesus himself was a worker, schooled in the drudgeries and the joys of the vocation of carpentry by his father, St. Joseph.
In today’s first reading, St. Paul is no stranger to work either. He stays with Priscilla and Aquila, practicing the trade of tentmaking. In other places, St. Paul elevates human labor to a virtue, demanding that those who do not work should not eat, and decrying the activity of those who are idle, and busybodies. If work is a share in the activity of the creator and a share in the cross of Christ, who would ever think to turn away from it?
Sometimes, it is true, our work is far from blessed. I’ve been there. There is, of course, a responsibility of the employer to provide a workplace that upholds human dignity. But often work seems less than redemptive. To that, Pope John Paul said, “Sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves the present condition of the human race, present the Christian and everyone who is called to follow Christ with the possibility of sharing lovingly in the work that Christ came to do. This work of salvation came about through suffering and death on a Cross. By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. He shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called upon to perform.” (Laborem Exercens, 27)
And so we all forge ahead in our daily work, whether that be as a carpenter, a tentmaker, a homemaker, a mother or father, a laborer, a white collar worker, or whatever it may be. We forge ahead with the joy of bringing all the world to redemption through creation, through the cross and Resurrection of Christ, and through our daily work. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
maker of heaven and earth,
we praise you for your glory.
Bless + us as we continue to do our work,
and bless all that we do for you.
Help us to carry out all our activities
for your honor and glory
and for the salvation of your people.
Guide us in all we do,
and help us build your kingdom
and come to our reward.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Sphere: Related ContentTwenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Respect Life Sunday
How wonderful are the words we hear in today’s Gospel! “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” This raises important questions for us: how deep is our faith? What have we accomplished by faith? What has our witness to the faith looked like? On this Respect Life Sunday, we are particularly confronted with the issues of life and how we have given witness to the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.
The basis for the movement to respect life, brothers and sisters, is the fifth commandment: You shall not kill (Ex 20:13). The Catechism is very specific: “Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: ‘Do not slay the innocent and the righteous.’ The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.” (CCC 2261) And that would seem simple enough, don’t you think? God said not to kill another human being, and so refraining from doing so reverences his gift of life and obeys his commandment.
But life isn’t that simple. Life is a complex issue involving a right to life, a quality of life, a reverence for life, and sanctity of life. Jesus himself stirs up the waters of complexity with his own take on the commandment. In Matthew’s Gospel, he tells us: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, “You shall not kill: and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.” (Mt 5:21-22)
Our Savior’s instruction on life calls us to make an examination of conscience. We may proclaim ourselves as exemplary witnesses to the sanctity of life because we have never murdered anyone nor participated in an abortion. And those are good starts. But if we let it stop there, then the words of Jesus that I just quoted are our condemnation. The church teaches that true respect for life revolves around faithfulness to the spirit of the fifth commandment. The Catechism tells us, “Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God.” (CCC 2319)
And so we must all ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ, are there lives that we have not treated as sacred? Have we harbored anger in our hearts against our brothers and sisters? What have we done to fight poverty, hunger and homelessness? Have we insisted that those who govern us treat war as morally repugnant, only to be used in the most severe cases and as a last resort? Have we engaged in stereotypes or harbored thoughts based on racism and prejudice? Have we insisted that legislators ban the production of human fetuses to be used as biological material? Have we been horrified that a nation with our resources still regularly executes its citizens in a futile effort to stop the spread of crime? Have we done everything in our power to be certain that no young woman should ever have to think of abortion as her only choice when facing hard times? Have we given adequate care to elder members of our family and our society so that they would not face their final days in loneliness, nor come to an early death for the sake of convenience? Have we avoided scandal so as to prevent others from being led to evil? Have we earnestly petitioned our legislators to make adequate health care available for all people?
Because every one of these issues is a life issue, brothers and sisters, and we who would be known to be respecters of life are on for every single one of them, bar none. The Church’s teaching on the right to life is not something that we can approach like we’re in a cafeteria. We must accept and reverence and live the whole of the teaching, or be held liable for every breach of it. If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. On this day of prayer for the sanctity of life, our prayer must perhaps be first for ourselves that we might live the Church’s teaching with absolute integrity in every moment of our lives.
Our God has known us and formed us from our mother’s womb, from that very first moment of conception. Our God will be with us and will sustain us until our dying breath. In life and in death, we belong to the Lord … Every part of our lives belongs to the Lord. Our call is a clear one. We must constantly and consistently bear witness to the sanctity of life at every stage. We must be people who lead the world to a whole new reality, in the presence of the One who has made all things new. We have heard the Lord’s teaching and the teaching of the Church in union with the Holy Spirit. Now we must respond as our Psalmist urges us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
Sphere: Related ContentLabor Day
Today’s readings: Genesis 1:25-2:3, Psalm 90, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, Matthew 25:14-30
The US Catholic Bishop’s Labor Day Statement reminds us that “Labor Day is a holiday with an important, but sometimes forgotten purpose. It was established in New York in 1882 as a day to honor work and workers and also a time to celebrate the contributions of the American Labor Movement. For too many, Labor Day has become just another day off or a time to buy school supplies, rather than a day to honor the hard work of school teachers, janitors, cafeteria workers, and others. Unfortunately, it often takes a horrible mining disaster or a terrible attack like 9/11 to remind us of the everyday heroism and hard work of people who still labor under the earth, who go into burning buildings, or who contribute to the common good by their everyday work and enterprise.”
Today we celebrate the grace of human labor. Labor has always been central to the Church’s teaching on the meaning of life. We were created to be workers, sent forth to “be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” God never envisioned his creatures to be passive and just soak up the atmosphere. We were created for a purpose, and it is the great project of our lives to figure out that purpose and embrace it.
Created by God, we have also been gifted by God, given talents of many varieties. Those talents and gifts are never given to us just for ourselves. We cannot bury them in a hole, but must instead reinvest them in the kingdom of God to bring honor and glory to God’s name. All of our work is intended this way, so that our own labors are a participation in the ongoing creation of the world, a participation in the mission that God has entrusted to his creatures.
It is this divine origin of human labor that has led the Church to teach tirelessly about the dignity and rights of workers. Among the many teaching of the Church on this topic, we are reminded that:
- The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
- A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring.
- All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g. food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
- All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefit, to decent working conditions, as well as to organize and join union or other associations.
So we don’t have permission to write off human labor as some kind of necessary evil or a commodity to be bought and sold. We must instead venerate all labor, that of our own efforts and of others. We must also vigorously defend the rights and dignity of workers, particularly of the poor and marginalized. And we must always offer all of this back to our God who created us to be creators with him. May we pray with the Psalmist this day and every day, “Lord give success to the work of our hands!”
Sphere: Related ContentFifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
At first glance, it all seems so simple, doesn't it? "Go and do likewise." Not a problem. But when a command like "go and do likewise" comes at the end of one of Jesus' parables, we know we have to dig a little deeper and search inside ourselves to see what we really need to be hearing.
So let's take a step back and look at today's first reading to get some background for what's happening in today's Gospel. Moses is exhorting the people to keep the commandments of God. But which ones? The Ten Commandments? Perhaps. But the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus give the fullness of the Jewish law. There you can read over six hundred laws pertaining to everything from hospitality to the treatment of slaves. I'm sure the people were overwhelmed when they thought about that many laws. They may even have been fearful that they would have accidentally broken one of those laws in the course of daily life. But Moses is telling them that they don't have to be reaching to find the laws they need to follow. Those laws aren't remote or mysterious. They don't have to cross the sea or search the sky. Because the law they need to follow is very near to them: on their lips and in their heart. They have only to carry it out.
If the message of that first reading sounds familiar to you, it should. Because it's almost exactly the same thing Jesus is saying in the Gospel today. The scholar of the law who approaches Jesus today isn't really seeking further knowledge. Rather, he is showing off and testing Jesus to see what he would say. He wants to know what it takes to inherit eternal life. Which is the right question, but for the wrong reason. In other words, he does not ask how he can earn salvation - nobody can earn salvation. We definitely inherit eternal life from the one who is Life itself. But that's not the scholar's interest. Again, he is trying to trap Jesus and make him look foolish. But that's not going to happen!
Jesus answers the question with a question: "What is written in the law?" The scholar feels on good, solid, comfortable ground with that question, and responds beautifully. Love God with everything that you are, and love your neighbor. Loving God and neighbor is the crux of the Law and the Prophets. So Jesus commends him, and says that if he does this he will live. But the man wants to justify himself a little more - it's all about him. "Who is my neighbor?" he asks. And this is the million-dollar question of the day.
There are three Greek words used to translate "neighbor." Two of them deal with what you might think: friends, family, and those living near to a person. For most people, a neighbor meant people living in close proximity. For the Jews, it went a little further, meaning all fellow Jews. But the word that is used in this Gospel reading is very particularly something else, something a little higher. The word for "neighbor" here is almost a verb. It's not just someone nearby, but instead the dynamic of coming near to another, of approaching and drawing close.
I think we all have an idea in mind when we hear the word "neighbor." I remember the neighborhood where I grew up, the neighborhood in which my mother continues to live. I had friends who went to school with me, and even to our Church. When we were growing up, we would spend hot summer nights together outside, playing "kick the can" and other kids' games. Later, we attended our youth group together. Our parents kept an eye not just on their own kids, but on all the kids in the neighborhood. When my sister was little, she used to like to climb trees, and as soon as she did, the neighbor would call to let my mother know so she wouldn't fall out of the tree and break her neck (she never did, thank God!). When someone had a death in the family, there would be food brought to the house. If there was work to be done, someone would always lend a hand. We were neighbors to each other.
But again, as nice as this picture of "neighbor" is, Jesus is calling us to a deeper reality. He is asking us to step outside ourselves, and to see a person in need and respond, no matter where that person is, no matter his or her race, color or creed. The person in need is always our neighbor. Listen to that statement again, because it's crucial to what we're hearing today and I don't want you to leave this holy place without coming to understand it: the person in need is always, always, always our neighbor.
Before we come down too hard on the priest and the Levite in the story, let's give them a bit of a break. Jesus says the Samaritan had been left half-dead. They may have thought that he was completely dead, or at least close enough that they would defile themselves by stopping to touch him. If they would touch a dead person, they would be defiled and would be unable to worship until they were purified. But again, Jesus is calling them to a deeper reality than the mere observance of law: they are getting so caught up in the intricacies of the six-hundred-plus Jewish laws that they are missing the whole point of the law. Jesus says to them that they cannot be so concerned about the minutiae of the law that they miss responding to the needs of a neighbor among them.
And we have to hear that too. Because we too can get so caught up in the minutiae of our laws that we end up as self-righteous as that scholar of the law. We may claim to respect life if we have never been involved in an abortion. But respecting life also demands that we care for the poor and needy, that we take a stand for adequate health care for every person, that we honor our elderly brothers and sisters, and that we repent of our racism and refuse to honor stereotypes that are an affront to human dignity. We may claim to honor the sixth commandment if we have never committed adultery. But honoring that commandment also means that we live pure lives and strive always to purify our hearts. It means we never take part in off-color jokes and that we refrain from watching television or movies that lead us down the wrong path. We may claim to be thankful for our daily bread when we say grace before meals. But being thankful for our blessings means also that we share them with those who are hungry. Because Jesus is leading us to a deeper reality today, we can no longer get caught up in the self-righteousness that the scholar of the law brings to his encounter with Jesus.
The person in need is always our neighbor. We don't need to search far and wide to figure out what to do for that person. We have only to see the generous and self-giving response of the Samaritan in today's Gospel and, as Jesus commands us, to "go and do likewise." The Law and the Prophets are as near to us as that.
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