Tell me: if being
Mom, or Dad, or Husband or Wife, were your job,
would you be able to get it done in forty hours a week?
I know the answer to
that question, but it comes to my mind anyway with Labor Day, our national
holiday to celebrate work and workers, oddly timed as vacations end. All the way back to Pope Leo XIII, and more
recently including Pope Saint John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, the Church has taught
the value of human labor as the fruit and expression of human dignity. We resemble God Himself, who labored in
Creation, then rested. And it was
good! This helps us to remember that the
goodness of human labor is pre-political, whatever the political origins,
explanation, or exploitation of the holiday we celebrate.
This week was great; everybody
was back from vacation. The preceding
weeks, one or more of the parish staff took time away. Dao and Delfina each took two weeks; Jackie
one week, and Corky a smidge more. You
are reminded how much somebody does when he is away!
Any other time of the
year, if someone is away, the rest of the office takes up the slack as best
they can. But with more than one person
gone, we could not fake it. We had to
tell folks to try again when they returned.
For two days there, with everybody
gone, we had to close up shop! Of course
Father Gallaugher and I were here, and Norma too, but we were doing our own things. It would have filled our days three times over
simply to field the calls for the rest of the staff.
There is no surplus
in our staff, and no overlap. We
cooperate a lot, and everybody will leap to help out or cover for someone
else. But it just gets to the point
where you have to acknowledge, the one
and only person who takes care of that is away this week and you’ll need to
come back when she is here!
Last evening, after
my late afternoon appointment was over and I was once again in my office, I
heard that distinctive sound across the hall that indicates Delfina is still
hard at it. When I asked her if she was
ever going to go home, she said of course she was, as soon as she finished the
bundle of checks she was going to leave for me to sign. It is hardly uncommon to be here past her
quitting time.
Even when everybody
is here, there is just more than can be accomplished in the limits of a
workday. The work they do, and the
questions they answer, the situations they address are so varied and personal,
there is simply no way to respond except for one human person to spend time,
effort, and attention, right there in the moment. And then the mundane work, the processes and
forms, the straightforward but necessary stuff – that very often gets done
after hours, or even at home.
So, our parish
staff’s motto may as well be the Italian maxim: Siamo pochi ma bravi, which comes off more or less as: We are few but mighty.
Encourage one another
with these words when you face a task that work alone will not accomplish, nor
time. Whether you are mom and dad,
husband and wife, or parish staff, it’s a labor of love, and it’s never truly
done: not in forty hours, not ever.
Happy Labor Day!
Monsignor
Smith
