We celebrate this weekend the national holiday of Labor Day. What a great blessing work is for us all. Nowadays, perhaps more poignantly due to recent struggles, we recognize what a gift it is to have a purpose in laboring - for our own desires, for the needs of those we care about, for the success of our fellow man.
In his encyclical letter Rerum Noverum, Pope Leo XIII reminded us that labor was made for man - not the other way around! Rather than anyone being regarded simply as a means to achieve goals, power or property, we are valued by the intrinsic worth that is bestowed on us by virtue of our birth. It's not what we do, but who we are, that matters.
Nonetheless, labor is an important work - perhaps all the more because we don't have to labor. Ultimately, we choose what we will do by giving the work our attention, we dignify it by our carrying it out. To choose to labor is to choose to promote, to send the message that this work is worthy of our time and effort.
Ultimately, all labor has its source and in the work of Christ, may we join our work with his, and all we do!