Father Paul told the story of a man who wanted to be a monk. He was admitted to the monastery for a trial as a postulant. On his first day he was assigned a job of sweeping the floors in one wing of the abbey. Sometime later they found the man gone and the broom standing against a wall with a note attached. It read: “I came here to learn how to pray, not to be a janitor.”

The would-be monk didn’t understand the motto of Benedictine monks: Pray and Work. From very early on monks have maintained that work is an essential spiritual activity along with prayer. You can’t have just one without serious problems.

Labor Day next week reminds us of the value of work. My mother labored mightily to maintain a home as well as sometimes working as an office clerk. Dad was a machinist, his father a tailor, my mother’s father a janitor. I doubt that any of them saw their jobs as a spiritual activity, but they were. Without work, nothing gets done. Even Adam before the fall had to tend the garden of Eden.

Many of us who are retired faced a crisis–who are we once we stop going off to work each day? I fortunately went to a workshop before I retired that warned me I would have to find useful interests beyond a job that paid me cash or I would have an unhappy time in retirement. Good advice.

Use what you are given to glorify God. It’s a great job.

Read 2 Thessalonians 3:10 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne