Workers are seen at a highway construction site in Stony Brook, N.Y., Aug. 30, 2022. Labor Day, observed Sept. 2, 2024, is an annual U.S. holiday that celebrates and recognizes the contributions and achievements of American workers. CNS PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ
Labor Day: The Sunday-Monday connection
BY FR. ANTHONY SHONIS, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
Over two thousand years ago the prophet Amos told Israel that if one wants to stand before God on the Sabbath, then that person must do justice the rest of the week. For Christians this means that the same God we worship on Sunday is the same God we meet at work on Monday.
For me this realization began 25 years ago when I left the university as a teacher and began to work in a parish – and I started visiting parishioners at their workplace. I would ask them two simple questions: “What do you do?” And: “How do you feel about what you do?” Later I would invite them to small group discussions on the relationship between faith and work.
When I met with small groups of workers that I had visited, I told them upfront that a spirituality at work is:
- Doing a competent job – “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.”
- Being a good team member (the modern face of work is that we often work in teams).
- Affirming coworkers for good work.
If there is one thing I have learned from our discussions, it’s that workers resent a “slacker” who does not pull their own weight at work, so that others must compensate for them. If you are a good worker and a good team or crew member, people will notice you – as they notice everything about you at work. And eventually they will wonder about what makes you tick and then (and only then) you can talk your Christian faith.
When I would preach on the Labor Day weekend, as I often did, I would point out to people that the most important sign in the church is the exit sign. After they have been renewed and energized by their worship, they need to march out of there and make the world more the way God wants it to be.
Fr. Anthony Shonis is a retired priest of the Diocese of Owensboro and resides in Henderson.
Originally printed in the September 2024 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
