6th Sunday of Easter

Dear Parish Family,

This past week on May 1, we celebrated the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. This is the secondary feast day for the earthly/foster father of Jesus. The primary feast is on March 19 (Joseph, Husband of Mary); but in the mid 1950s, Pope Pius the XII added the feast to honor Joseph as a man who worked, showing the dignity of labor that makes good use of the things of creation to enrich human life. The date of the feast coincides with “May Day,” a day set aside by Communist regimes for celebration of work. It must be made clear that the feast was established not to support Communist understandings of work, but to counter it. In the Communist ideal, a culture of total work is essentially lauded. Work becomes merely a support of the state. Work becomes what defines a person and their value, rather than work being an extension of the dignity of the person to cooperate with God in the cultivation of creation. We do not live to work; we work to live.

I would like to recommend a book by Josef Pieper, a great Catholic philosopher of the 20th Century. Really, I would like to recommend any and all of his books, but in particular Leisure, the Basis of Culture. In it he argues that, “Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture.” He continues by saying “In our bourgeois Western world total labor has vanquished leisure. Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture – and ourselves.”

I think this is a good examination point for us. Repeating from above, the question we may need to ask ourselves is, “Am I living to work, or am I working to live?” Our final destiny is one of contemplating the glory of God, beholding him face-to-face for all eternity. If that’s the case, perhaps we should try to start doing that now! From this flows beauty, truth, and goodness, and those activities and pursuits that support these transcendentals in our world. As Pieper said, we must find the time for silence, even for “wasting time” with God. It’s evident that many of us find ourselves sucked into hectic lifestyles. What is it doing for us? Perhaps we could have more peace if we cultivated interior and exterior peace in our hearts and homes.

Check out the book! St Joseph, pray for us!

-Fr. Kennell

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