New Staff Member Starting at St. Mary

by Father Joe

New Staff Member Starting at St. Mary

Good news as we prepare for our busier fall schedule: we hired Michael Roche as our new Buildings & Grounds Keeper at St. Mary Parish, and he will begin working this week. Mike and his wife Donna have been members of St. Martha Parish for decades, and more recently you might see them occasionally attending the 9:30 Mass at St. Mary church; Mike has also been an altar server at daily Masses in both parishes over the years, so you can see he is very familiar with our collaborative parishes! We are very grateful to Armand Pepin (Assistant B&G Keeper), Bill O’Toole (Temporary B&G Keeper), Anne Lesnik (Rectory Housekeeper) and several volunteers for all they have done to keep St. Mary church, grounds, and offices/rectory clean and in good working order for this two-month interim period.

For today, I’d like to share the following reflection for Labor Day from a few years ago in Catholic Digest. Together let us thank God for those who labor in any way, and especially for all our volunteers and staff who labor to make our parishes stronger!

Fr. Joe

What Does the Catechism Say about Labor?
by Derek Petinelli for Catholic Digest

With summer coming to its unofficial close, we celebrate the importance of work on Labor Day, a national holiday in the United States and Canada. As Christians, we know that even Jesus himself worked. Pope Francis wrote this in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si‘: “Jesus worked with his hands, in daily contact with the matter created by God, to which he gave form by his craftsmanship. It is striking that most of his life was dedicated to this task in a simple life which awakened no admiration at all: ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’ (Mark 6:3).” (98)

In that spirit, here are five excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church about work.
In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men (2402).

Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: “If any one will not work, let him not eat.” Work honors the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him (2427).

In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community (2428).

Everyone has the right of economic initiative; everyone should make legitimate use of his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit all and to harvest the just fruits of his labor. He should seek to observe regulations issued by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good (2429).

A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. “Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good.” Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages (2434).