The image of the collapsing towers in lower Manhattan continues to haunt our history and our psyche. The anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our country falls this year a week after we celebrate work and workers on Labor Day. If we move beyond the image of collapsing buildings, we realize that 9/11 is a story of workers. If we begin with people, as we always should, we meet again and remember prayerfully those who went to work that day in those office buildings: the executives and secretaries, the accountants and analysts, the building cleaners and repairmen. We remember even more vividly those whose work brought them into collapsing buildings: firefighters, police, medical personnel, priests.
The church tells us that human work is a way of participating in God’s creation. Work is holy also because it makes us participants, sharers, in the work of Christ. On the cross on Calvary hung a carpenter who had worked with his hands and who finished the work his Father had given him: our salvation. Hard work can be a joy, when we recognize its full dimensions.
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