Dear friends,
It is Labor Day Weekend, which means the church office is closed Monday, and will re-open on Tuesday. While this is a time for rest, hopeful relaxation, and a nice cookout, it is important to remember how we got here. Labor Day wasn’t a federal holiday until 1894, when President Grover Cleveland signed it into law. While we now recognize this weekend as a time where summer ends, and school begins, it is something so much more. It is a time we remember the blood that was shed by union leaders to bring about fair working conditions, and to remove power from the few to the workers. From the Haymarket Affair in 1886 and the Pullman Strike in 1894, to our own autoworkers in Toledo and the Libby Glass strike that started this past week, standing up for the rights of workers remains a justice issue.
In the words of Dorothy Day, the infamous Catholic Worker leader, I offer up a prayer she wrote while praying at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, “
I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and with anguish, that some way would open up for me to use those talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.”
May it be so for all of us my friends.
Grace and peace,
George M. Benson
