Tags
dignity of labor, grateful, honest labor, necessary services, social justice, St. Joseph the Worker, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, workers
Yesterday when I wrote about attitudes toward work I wasn’t thinking that it would be a segue to a reflection on St. Joseph the Worker. We celebrate the feast of St. Joseph as husband of Mary and human father of Jesus on March 19th but in 1955 another feast honoring Joseph, tekton (woodworker or carpenter), was proclaimed on this date by Pope Pius XII to inspire devotion among Catholics and as response to the Communist “May Day” celebration for workers.
In our day, the social justice teaching of the Church emphasizes the dignity of labor in any environment and calls for recognition of workers who provide necessary services to the community by assuring just wages and working conditions for all. Today, then, let us pray in thanksgiving for all workers: those who stand on assembly lines in factories and those in shops who repair all manner of tools and clocks and cars. Let us be grateful for bakers and bank tellers and those who bring food to our tables. (Add your own list here.) Let us always be grateful and rejoice in those who teach us the blessings of honest labor.
I would guess that people in Los Angeles who made the trip to Griffith Observatory this morning to see (exactly one hour ago – 3:48AM Pacific time) the moment of total eclipse of the moon are beginning to make their way home by now. Why would someone make that trek in the middle of the night just to see the moon? Well, maybe because it wasn’t just the full moon but rather a “Super Blue Blood Moon!” What does that mean? A blue moon is a rather frequent experience: the second full moon in the same month of the year. What makes it “super” is the fact that it reaches its closest position to earth, thus making it appear larger and brighter in the sky than normal. The “blood” designation comes from the fact that there is a red tinted shadow across the face of the moon due to the rays of sunlight passing through earth’s atmosphere as the moon falls into earth’s shadow. To add to all those necessary conditions for this phenomenon is the weather. Chances were good for a clear night in Alaska, Hawaii and California. I’m sure the resulting pictures will be glorious – and bountiful, especially since this is the first time this phenomenon was visible in North America since 1866!
This morning I have a stream of gratitude moving through my consciousness, flowing like a mountain stream, bubbling up with images of people, places and events that have created the collage of my life in the past year. At the same time, it’s as if there is a camera clicking in me to set those experiences in place on the canvas of 2017. Because I’m writing about it, the whole experience has become like a freeze-frame of a film and won’t start moving again until I turn back from this explanation to the experience inside me. At that point I suspect what will happen is akin to the result of a bucket of water thrown onto the canvas – or perhaps the “fade” button on a movie camera being pressed – so everything melds together into a heartfelt sensation of grateful love.
Although we are moving through the season of harvest here in our country now, the gospel for today reminds us of the necessity of sowing seeds on good ground. (LK 8:4-15) The disciples of Jesus didn’t understand the parable in which his message was “hidden” so he did something that rarely appears in these gospel texts. He explained the meaning! As he spoke of the different kinds of “soil” in which the word of God might be sown, they heard the pitfalls of life in how the yield of what was sown might be more or less. In the end, we find that as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance. (vs.15)
I remember my sister saying once long ago during a visit to our motherhouse that you could tell you were in a convent because there were no mirrors anywhere! I suppose that, if often true, that had two purposes: 1. to keep the Sisters from the vanity of wasting time gazing at themselves, and 2. since there was no hair or make-up to be concerned about because our habits covered almost every inch of the body and getting dressed was a quick, rote exercise. Now, because we do not have the “luxury” of such a simple and universal couture, mirrors are a part of household furnishing in most religious houses.
In an alternate translation of Psalm 138, the psalmist speaks to me this morning with a powerful message of God’s presence in the universe and in my life. By it I am reminded that we are all invited to share the experience of God and to encourage one another in that sharing. Listen and see if you are similarly drawn in by the mandate in this song of praise and challenge.
I’m feeling like the weather today: gray and rainy, not much air moving…I was grateful when my doctor told me last Friday that what she found was not serious, just “a little virus” that would, unfortunately, probably hang on for awhile. My scratchy throat is gone and now distress is virtually “all in my head” but it amazes me how debilitating such a little thing can be. I think of my good friend and my sister-in-law, both suffering from pneumonia this month, and of all the people who are chronically ill, who daily have to struggle not to give in to the lassitude that has been my constant companion now for almost a week. I remember in my early days of teaching school when, during a class observation by the principal (my first), my eyes were running so fiercely from a head cold that I could hardly see and my fear was that Father Owens would think I was nervous. There was no luxury of staying home then; work was work, after all.
