Labor Day

I hope everyone is able to enjoy a day off, or a light working day.

Today Kevin and I went to Mass at the Abbey and got to enjoy a really great homily about labor and God's words on the subject.

The priest explained that our labor and work is a privilege that we are given to be able to share in the creative process that God asks of us in Genesis when He told us to go into the garden and be fruitful and multiply, and cultivate the land. So in a way we are copying what God did when he created everything, by imitating to the best of our ability taking care to work what we have and to keep well what we have. It was an interesting thought. I'm sure I didn't do as good a job explaining as the priest did. But maybe you still get the gist of it?

After Mass I picked up a copy of Catholic Digest and was surprised to see Maria Shriver on the cover. Our governors wife? On the cover of Catholic Digest? Oh geez, I thought. But I was pleasantly surprised reading through the article that she shares some of the same struggles that every mom does. Especially moms who go from the work force to being home with the kids. We're just the housewife. But there is a lot of dignity in this work that we are called to as mothers and wives in the home. Our labors go unrewarded for many. And yet it is a special calling that is talked about quite a bit in the bible. We're called to be our husbands help-mate, the nurturer to our children, a laborer in the home. Perhaps it's because the many things we do seem too menial to may outside the home that we are called even more so to be in love with our vocation as the mother and wife. We are raising the future, and supporting the now (our husband in his work). These are important things, and we shouldn't think little of them. It's taken me time to accept that this is my vocation right now-- to do these menial tasks with love and happiness, and to show joy to my family while I serve them.

I can't recall where I read it but a nun was talking about how many view being a nun as a simple, easy, forever joy filled life. But the reality is that nuns and others experience the same struggles as everyone else, just in a different way. It's not the vocation we are called to so it seems 'dreamy'. But for those who are called to that life, it may be very difficult at times to go on joyfully. They experience loneliness, boredom, frustration, difference of opinion just as we wives and mothers do. It's just in a different setting. A different set of vows. But they labor none the less.

Here's to being able to experience our labors as we are called to do! With God's help!