Labor Day

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another

that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide

us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but

for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for 

our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of

other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out

of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We remember the 9.5% jobless rate, and the 15 million real people in this country who are without jobs this day. "...arouse our concern for those who are out of work..." We pray for them and their families as they deal with discouragement, stress, frustration, anger, hopelessness. What is it that motivates the politicians of the United States, mostly male, and mostly well-to-do, to continually turn a blind eye to the plight of those in the lower income brackets.  It was so heartening to see an episode on Undercover Boss (I stumbled onto it last evening), where the president and CEO of Churchill Downs, Bill Carstanjen, spent a week undercover working and being supervised by some of his employees in different areas of the racing operation, listening to them, their concerns, their struggles, their creative ideas, their sorrows, then later revealing himself to them and announcing the profound impact it has had on how he plans to run the operation now, and actually making some immediate changes which made life easier for those whom he worked with on the episode. "...make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers..."

And if only we could recover a national sense of the common good, a realization that we're all in this life together, seeking basically the same things, and that if everyone pitches in, all will benefit from such mutuality: "...that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good..." 

I think I'll always remember some wise words spoken by our spiritual director, Fr. Francis Beuke, in minor seminary: "Work is something we all hate to do, but something we cannot do without."