Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 30, 2025 Column Father De Celles
Another Joyful Parish Picnic . The week before last Sunday’s picnic everyone seemed to think I would cancel it because of the ominous weather forecast. “O ye of little faith.” For at least the 16th straight year Jesus gave us a beautiful day for us enjoy ourselves together.
I had a great time, although there was moment that wasn’t so fun for me. Every year the kids love to ride the ponies, but the horse-folks also bring a least one full-sized horse for me to ride. I am not a horseman at all, but, maybe because I’m a Texan, I have always loved horses enjoyed riding in my very unskilled way. But this year I had very hard time hoisting myself up into the saddle. , So embarrassing. I’d like to think it was the clumsiness caused by my cassock, but probably not… O well. I got a few minutes in the saddle and a reminder of holy humility.
Thanks to everyone who did so much to make it such a success. Special thanks to Anthony Hansen who volunteered to coordinate everything—he did an exhaustive job. Thanks also to all our other volunteers, especially the Knights of Columbus. Finally thanks to our parish staff, especially Mike Thompson and Mary Butler, for their hard work and dedication.
And thanks be to God, and St. Raymond, for all he does for our parish!
LABOR DAY. I hope you all enjoy your last summer holiday tomorrow. But as you take a break from work (and school) remember Church’s teaching on the dignity of human work, especially found in the writings of the great Pope St. John Paul II. Here are some of the important passages of two of his most important encyclicals on the subject.
Centesimus Annus, 1991, nn. 42-43:“Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?
“The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.
“The Marxist solution has failed, but the realities of marginalization and exploitation remain in the world, especially the Third World, as does the reality of human alienation, especially in the more advanced countries. Against these phenomena the Church strongly raises her voice. Vast multitudes are still living in conditions of great material and moral poverty…
“The Church has no models to present; models that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political and cultural aspects, as these interact with one another.For such a task the Church offers her social teaching as an indispensable and ideal orientation, a teaching which, as already mentioned, recognizes the positive value of the market and of enterprise, but which at the same time points out that these need to be oriented towards the common good. This teaching also recognizes the legitimacy of workers’ efforts to obtain full respect for their dignity…
“The obligation to earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace. Just as the person fully realizes himself in the free gift of self, so too ownership morally justifies itself in the creation, at the proper time and in the proper way, of opportunities for work and human growth for all.”
Laborem Exercens, 1981, nn. 4, 10: “4. …“The Church finds in the very first pages of the Book of Genesis the source of her conviction that work is a fundamental dimension of human existence on earth. An analysis of these texts makes us aware that they express…the fundamental truths about man, in the context of the mystery of creation itself. These truths are decisive for man from the very beginning, and at the same time they trace out the main lines of his earthly existence, both in the state of original justice and also after the breaking, caused by sin, of the Creator’s original covenant with creation in man. When man, who had been created “in the image of God…. male and female”, hears the words: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,” even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to work, beyond any doubt they indirectly indicate it as an activity for man to carry out in the world. Indeed, they show its very deepest essence. Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe.
“…It is clear that the term “the earth” of which the biblical text speaks is to be understood in the first place as that fragment of the visible universe that man inhabits. …The expression “subdue the earth” has an immense range. It means all the resources that the earth (and indirectly the visible world) contains and which, through the conscious activity of man, can be discovered and used for his ends. And so these words, placed at the beginning of the Bible, never cease to be relevant. They embrace equally the past ages of civilization and economy, as also the whole of modern reality and future phases of development…
“…As man, through his work, becomes more and more the master of the earth, and as he confirms his dominion over the visible world, again through his work, he nevertheless remains in every case and at every phase of this process within the Creator’s original ordering…”
“10. …Work constitutes a foundation for the formation of family life, which is a natural right and something that man is called to. These two spheres of values–one linked to work and the other consequent on the family nature of human life–must be properly united and must properly permeate each other….”
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles