I hate to think that summer is over. Labor Day for just about all of us means back to the grindstone. School begins its new year, religious education classes start up once more.
These musings got me thinking about Labor Day itself and the whole concept of work. For many, work means drudgery, something that has to be done, and the sooner done, the better. But, work was not meant to be such.
God Himself worked. Genesis tells us after the fifth day of creation: So it was; and
God saw all that he had made,
and it was very good….Thus
heaven and earth were completed
with all their mighty
throng. On the sixth day God
completed all the work he had
been doing, and on the seventh
day he ceased from all his
work. God blessed the seventh
day and made it holy, because
on that day he ceased from all
the work he had set himself to
do.
(Gen. 1:30 – 2:1-3)
If God took delight in his work, he intended man and woman to find joy in their work too. Before the Fall, while still in Eden, we read: The Lord God took the man
and put him in the garden of
Eden to till it and care for it.
(
Gen. 2:15) Thus, work was part of the joy of paradise and never intended to be a drudgery, and through it women and men were to find happiness and fulfillment.
But it didn’t work out like that. After Adam and Eve’s fell, what was designed for their happiness became their punishment, when God said to Adam: Because you have …
eaten from the tree which I forbade
you, accursed shall be the
aground on your account. With
labor you shall win your food
from it all the days of your life.
… You shall gain your bread
by the sweat of your brow until
you return to the ground
(Gen. 3:17-19).
And that’s how it turned out for a huge part of the human race—even children. We read: The big change, however,
came after the war when
the 1819 Factory Act banned
parents from hiring out their
children under age nine and
limited the time worked in
cotton mills by children aged
nine from 16 to 12 hours a day.
(The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830 by Paul Johnson p. 721)
We still hear stories of similar brutality to children going on in parts of the world. But in most parts conditions have improved. But many benefits we enjoy today were dearly bought, and they only came through the sweat and tears of workers when they combined into unions. It is hard to believe that the 40 hour week and the minimum wage that we take for granted today are very recent in the American experience.
The Fair Labor Standards
Act
was designed to put “a ceiling over hours and a floor under wages” and only became law in the United States in 1938. President Roosevelt considered this Act the most
far-reaching, far-sighted program
for the benefit of workers
ever adopted in this or any
other country.
Interestingly, the minimum wage in this Act was set at 40 cents an hour.
And this has to be the work of churches that work becomes, as God intended it, a source of joy and fulfillment. On this Labor Day we salute the people who formed the unions that helped so many of these benefits come to those who were in the labor force.
Each month a member of the
Cook County Ministerium will
offer Spiritual Reflections. For
September, our contributor
is Father Seamus Walsh of
St. John’s Catholic Church in
Grand Marais.
Leave a Reply