Reflecting on work:
Can help bring us closer to God

	Guest commentary  Fr. Don Lange

Labor Day offers us graced opportunities to briefly reflect upon the spiritual value of work. In this article I hope to share a few of a number of ways that our work can help to bring us closer to God.

Co-creators with God

First, from the point of view of Catholic spirituality, workers are co-creators with God. We co-create when we help to transform God's creation in ways that benefit humanity and reflect kingdom values.

For example, the worker who makes a crutch, a crucifix, or writes about poverty can feel good if his or her work benefits someone in need. The person who prepares dinner, grows crops, or services a car can be proud when their quality work nourishes and helps a fellow human person. The ways that we can come closer to God through our work multiplies like the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

In paragraph nine of the encyclical Laborem Exercens, it is stated that through work, we not only transform the world, but we ourselves are transformed, "becoming more fully a human being."

For example when religion teachers teach others about Jesus week after week, year after year, their work may slowly help them to grow more fully in the image of Jesus. Other kinds of work multiply examples of this grace.

Finding meaning

However, sometimes our work may not seem to have much meaning. For example, after I completed four years of service in the Navy, I worked in a meat packing plant. I washed hog stomachs and then I graduated to the more difficult job of pulling lard.

After ripping three to four foot strips of lard all day from the insides of hogs shackled to a moving line, my hands often throbbed with pain, which woke me at night. Then I would go downstairs and run hot water over my hands to ease their pain and try to sleep.

At the physically prime age of 23, I wanted to work at this difficult job because of its challenge. However, its difficulty, a co-worker, and the GI Bill shouted at me that now was the time to pursue the impossible dream of college. I listened!

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2427, it is stated that workers show themselves to be the disciples of Christ by carrying their cross daily in the work that they are called to accomplish. Some workers heroically persevere at jobs that are a cross for the sake of their spouse or children. They remind us that we can offer our work to God when we pray, participate in Mass, and while we work. We are called to do this whether we throb with pain or dance with joy!

Caring for gifts

Conscientious, honest employers reflect Christian justice when they pay just wages and provide decent working conditions. On our part we workers should strive to give an honest day's work of quality, as did Jesus and Joseph at the carpenter shop at Nazareth.

These responsibilities flow from our baptism. As baptized stewards we are called to tend and to care for our personal gifts and the gifts of the good earth so that we can pass them on to others. At the resurrection Christ will ask us to give an accounting of our stewardship.

Cooperating with others

Second, studies indicate that our success at work often depends upon our ability to get along with fellow workers and to work with them. Such cooperation fosters longevity, helps to produce long term quality work, and can bring us closer to God.

Most workers help to produce products that serve others. Others serve people more directly in their work. For example, a girl who works at a checkout counter said that she tries to make each person she serves feel "special."

Despite the distance and lack of physical presence, recently I have been moved by the courtesy and patience shown by persons with whom I have conducted business or been coached on computer problems over the phone or by e-mail.

Collaboration offers one of the most important challenges and blessings of the modern world. It is very much needed in our workplaces. And the future of our planet may depend upon nations working together rather than warring against each other.

Recently, I watched the movie Cinderella Man based upon a boxer and his family during the Depression. This movie echoes the frequent words of my dad, "Son, you have no idea how tough life was during the Depression!" As I watched the Calvary of the Depression in the movie, I began to count my blessings that I take for granted or don't even see.

May Labor Day and the Catholic spirituality of work inspire us to praise, thank, and come closer to God through our work. Amen!

Fr. Donald Lange is a retired priest of the Diocese of Madison.