Labor Day and Our Faith

Labor Day weekend is customarily seen as the end of the summer season, with an extra day off to enjoy swimming, barbecues, and family time. Everything ramps up after Labor Day, with our family faith, youth programs, Bible studies, and more kicking off.

Of course, Labor Day means more than that. In the late 1800s, many states started giving workers a day off to honor their hard work throughout the year. On June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

Although Labor Day is a government holiday, our Catholic faith has a lot to say about the dignity of work and of workers. In fact, our new Holy Father pointed out that he chose the name Leo XIV “because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum [1891] addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.”

There is great dignity in the work that we do, each and every one of us. Our work contributes to God’s creative activity. In an encyclical on the 90th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, St. John Paul II wrote: “Let the Christian who listens to the word of the living God, uniting work with prayer, know the place that his work has not only in earthly progress but also in the development of the Kingdom of God, to which we are all called through the power of the Holy
Spirit and through the word of the Gospel.”

As the beloved of God, who created all things, our work supports ourselves and our families but also builds up His kingdom. We are called to live and work in justice and love, following the way of Jesus of Nazareth.

We are also called to rest from the labor of our hands. As we rest on this Labor Day – or for those who must work – let us take time to reflect on how work sanctifies our lives and our world. Let us also recognize and pray for those looking for work, that they know that they, too, are the beloved of God.