Everything about what it is to be a human being should be touched and shaped by the grace of God. Our identity and purpose comes through Christ. When we lose sight of this, a kind of disorder and imbalance enters into the way that we work, the kind of work that we take up, and the time that we spend engaged in it.

This evening we were given one story after another about the nature of the work the desert monks did. Their focus was on manual labor that allowed them to be attentive to God while engaged in it. They also worked enough to provide for themselves modestly but always with an eye towards the needs of others. We do not work for ourselves. Nor do we work and labor to the extent that it reveals we want to reach a point where we will no longer have to bear that burden. Work prevents us from falling into idleness, but also allows us to provide for others in their needs.

When Christ is absent from this part of our life, then “our toil shall be great, our path unsteady, our grief inconsolable, and our lives care-worn.” The one who is focused upon Christ and seeks him first will labor temperately and freely. In the absence of Christ, however, one is driven by agitation and fear.

 

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Text of chat during the group:

 

00:21:26 Amale Obeid: How do hermits balance the solitude with the duty to serve others?

 

00:28:13 Anthony: We Americans have the farce of the Puritan work ethic, though. We are people, not human resources.  That is a point of resistance for me.

 

00:37:50 Rebecca Thérèse: A siev is a strainer

 

00:38:02 Rebecca Thérèse: sieve

 

00:39:25 Anthony: As a matter of historical note, in the middle ages, cloth was the first commodity, and a source of wealth.  Weavers were treated poorly, like the way treat robots.  The heresy of Waldensianism spread among weavers, perhaps during to their social condition.

 

00:42:07 Lilly: Saint Francis of Assisi, comes to mind. He left his dad's linen business to live a monastic life :)

 

00:43:19 Anthony: Reacted to Saint Francis of Ass... with "👍"

 

00:59:29 Amale Obeid: How much work is “enough” to not be slothful or idle? Secular life does not let you step down or slow down. It feels more and more like it’s an all or nothing choice

 

01:09:33 Anthony: On the neglect of the most important things when work is too long or too heavy: St John Bosco & St Frances Cabrini looked after children whose families were forced to work to the neglect of children....and the boys themselves who worked so much but neglected their souls.

 

01:10:54 Vanessa: Reacted to "On the neglect of th..." with 👍

 

01:11:17 Anthony: Thank God Pope Francis preaches on the evil of usury /

debt culture.

 

01:15:53 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You  Father David

 

01:15:56 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂

 

01:16:37 Andrew Adams: Thank you Father!

 

01:16:43 Rachel: Thank you

 

01:16:47 Nick Bodmer: Thanks!