Merci Suleik l 6 May 2022 l The Manila Times
THE first of May is significant for two reasons: it is both a secular and a religious holiday. The secular observation is the annual celebration of Labor Day, which is celebrated in many countries of the world. The religious significance is that it is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
As a secular holiday, it was the result of the labor union movement to celebrate the economic and social significance of workers. Most countries celebrate Labor Day on May 1, and it is sometimes known as May Day and also as International Workers’ Day. Some countries, however, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, celebrate it on the first Monday of September. The celebration of Labor Day originated with the eight-hour work day movement.
In the Philippines, the first celebration of Labor Day was held on May 1, 1903, under the Union Obrera Democratica de Filipinas. On April 8, 1908, the Philippine Assembly passed a bill making the first day of May a national holiday. On May 1, 1974, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, signed Presidential Decree 442 known as the Labor Code of the Philippines.
Catholic social teaching on work actually provides the deeper foundation for such a celebration for labor. Work is considered to have a spiritual as well as an economic significance. Work has been given the dignity of man’s sharing in the creative activity of God, man’s maker, and significantly, by the example of God the Son, made man, who spent 30 years of his life on earth working with his hands, as a carpenter, for a living. In the Book of Genesis, the creation activity itself is presented as work done by God in six days.
Unfortunately, the materialism of the Industrial Revolution since the 18th century, saw the worker merely as a factor of production rather than as a person. The workers reacted through the formation of trade unions, and society eventually saw the necessity of social legislation as necessary to curb the work excesses of cruel employers. Indeed, Marx saw the excesses of liberal capitalism as justification for, and indeed, considered the class war, and the destruction of the state as inevitable en route to a “worker’s paradise” in which there would be no private ownership of productive goods.
Catholic social teaching, however, rejects this idea, on the grounds that it is only through private initiative that the increase in wealth, which would satisfy the needs of man, could be created. The Church also rejects that labor and capital are opposed, and that on the contrary, should cooperate. The employer and the employed should be recognized as being on the same workbench, with different functions, but united by their common purpose of efficient production to meet the needs of their fellow citizens. Catholic social teaching on the dignity of work is contained in several encyclicals that have been written by several of the popes.
Pope John Paul 2nd said that the Church has always proclaimed what we find expressed in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council: “Just as human activity proceeds from man, so it is ordered toward man. For when a man works, he not only alters things and society, he develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he goes outside himself and beyond himself. Rightly understood, this kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be garnered… hence, the norm of human activity is this: that in accord with the divine plan and will, it should harmonize with the genuine good of the human race and allow people as individuals and as members of society to pursue their total vocation and fulfill it.”
Further, “A person is more precious for what he is than for what he has. Similarly, all that people do to obtain greater justice, wider brotherhood, and a more humane ordering of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances. For these advances can supply the material for human progress, but of themselves alone they can never actually bring it about.”
And so, the significance of Labor Day is in tandem with the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, a feast that has been celebrated liturgically since 1955. On this day, the Church inspired by the example of St. Joseph, who taught Jesus his craft, and under his patronage, commemorates in a special way the human and supernatural value of work. All work — both manual and all other honest human occupations — it is stressed, is a collaboration in God’s own work of creation. All work must be well done and done with love, and through Jesus Christ, can become true prayer.
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