Why We Work

The Stone Breaker, Gustave Courbet, 1849

Today Americans celebrate Labor Day—a federal holiday that pays tribute to the achievements of American workers by giving them an extra day to rest.

Many of us live for these breaks from the normal work schedule. Many of us will have a hard time waking up tomorrow, knowing that there are four more days until the weekend. And many of us can’t stop thinking about the next job we’re working towards or the day we retire.

Even if you love your career, chances are that you’ve thought one of these things before. We are human, and these feelings are natural—especially the desire for rest. But God also made us for work, and He made us to work.

Saint John Paul II explored this idea in his 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens. In his introduction, he reminds the faithful that, in being made in the image and likeness of God, we are made to work:

THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.

Work is our mark. It is what we are made to do, and it’s what distinguishes us from all other creatures.

Why We Work

The first day of May has much significance in our world and especially in our Church. It is May Day, the day of the worker, and for Christians it is also a day to remember the foster father of our Lord, St. Joseph the Worker.

Blessed John Paul II was beatified on this day two years ago. Early in his pontificate, he reflected on the meaning of human work, something that he thought much about as he performed forced labor in his youth and as he grew resisting a Communist regime’s materialistic understanding of man and his vocation.

In his 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens, he noted that the human person works for three main reasons.

First, there is a deeply personal dimension to work. Work is a good thing for man, and through it he realizes himself:

Work is a good thing for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes “more a human being.”

Work also makes family life and providing for one’s family possible. Blessed John Paul II writes that, “the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person.”

Why We Work

Today Americans celebrate Labor Day—a federal holiday that pays tribute to the achievements of American workers by giving them an extra day to rest.

Many of us live for these breaks from the normal work schedule. Many of us will have a hard time waking up Tuesday, knowing that there are four more days until the weekend. And many of us can’t stop thinking about the next job we’re working towards or the day we retire.

Even if you love your career, chances are that you’ve thought one of these things before. We are human, and these feelings are natural—especially the desire for rest. But God also made us for work, and He made us to work.

Blessed John Paul II explored this idea in his 1981 encyclical, Laborem Exercens. In his introduction, he reminds the faithful that, in being made in the image and likeness of God, we are made to work:

THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.

Reclaiming the Sabbath

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the importance of making Sunday a day of rest. Today the family is “threatened by a sort of ‘dictatorship’ of work commitments,” he said. And we must liberate ourselves from this, because:

Sunday is the day of the Lord and of men and women, a day in which everyone must be able to be free, free for the family and free for God. In defending Sunday we defend human freedom!

Earlier this week we reflected on Blessed John Paul II’s Laborem exercens and how, in working, we collaborate “with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity.” So work is vital to our salvation, yes, but so is the Sabbath. John Paul II reminds us of this in his 1998 Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini:

It is Easter which returns week by week, celebrating Christ's victory over sin and death, the fulfillment in him of the first creation and the dawn of "the new creation" (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). It is the day which recalls in grateful adoration the world's first day and looks forward in active hope to "the last day", when Christ will come in glory (cf. Acts 1:11; 1 Th 4:13-17) and all things will be made new (cf. Rev 21:5).

Sunday is for Christ, and on this day we gratefully adore Him and His creation by receiving the Eucharist.

We are also called to rest, the late Pontiff writes. Not just out of reverence, but out of respect for the Creator who rested on the seventh day. And out of respect for our tired bodies, which cry out for this time to be at peace:

Toiling for the Kingdom of God

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.

…Let the Christian who listens to the word of the living God, uniting work with prayer, know the place that his work has not only in earthly progress but also in the development of the Kingdom of God, to which we are all called through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the word of the Gospel.

-Blessed John Paul II, Laborem exercens (1981)

Pope Benedict XVI asks the Church to pray for work security this month—“that everyone may have work in safe and secure conditions.” Let us join him in that prayer today, while also offering up the work that we do for the Kingdom of God.