Labor Day as a Holy Day of Obligation?
August 31st, 2007 by Joe
OK, the title for today’s post is just to get your attention. I don’t want to propose that Labor Day become a holy day of obligation. I like to sleep in once and a while. However, I would like to make the point that work is what we spend the majority of our time doing and, if the Church wanted to help people “find God” in their everyday lives, it would do well to help people focus on the spirituality of work.
As catechists, we can help those we teach to begin to develop a spirituality of work by talking about how we strive to live Gospel values and serve the Kingdom of God through our daily work. We should talk about our jobs…the challenges and the joys…and help our learners to see that we do not separate faith from our daily living.
I recommend Greg Pierce’s book Spirituality at Work as a good Labor Day weekend read. Likewise, Living the Mass, which I co-authored with Fr. Dom Grassi, shows how the Mass connects with daily living which, for most of us, involves going to work.
I wish you all a great Labor Day weekend and God’s blessings to all of you catechists who begin classes next week! (I start Sept. 10). I’m taking the weekend off from blogging and I’ll meet you back here on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
Here is a Labor Day prayer from the Archdiocese of Detroit Web Site: