WORK > JOBS:

Almost three full weeks have passed since my father received a work call. Every morning he would wake up and do the activities he routinely carried out prior to heading out for work: eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, and smoking an early cigarette in our backyard garden. Once lunchtime rolled around, he would step out of the house in his plain work clothes, with his tools in hand, and stay out until it was time for dinner. It was obvious that no work was required of him but yet he flawlessly conducted himself in this detailed manner every day. I asked myself: why does he maintain this daily habit? Why pretend to work if no work is to be done?

For many individuals, work is merely a means to obtain the necessary funds to pay the mortgage, buy the groceries, and allow one's kids to receive a decent education. Some will find that their earthly vocations give an indescribable sense of purpose and meaning that no leisurely activity could provide. The blood that gushes forth from one's hands by aggressively working a tool, the sweat that seeps from one's body by the intense labor and the outdoor heat, or the salty tears flowing down one's cheek from the pain of the arduous work bring a satisfaction to the human soul unique to our own. In light of my father's habits, I began to question the relationship between man and his labor: does man simply work to provide the means to live for his household or does he engage in work for its own sake?

Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, wrote, "To labor is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self-preservation." He explains that man, as an active agent of the economy, works first and foremost to provide food for his family, a roof over the house, and earn the wages that he is owed to essentially survive as this is "a law of nature, which it is wrong to disobey."

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