My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 

On this Labor Day weekend, it would be good for us to reflect on “Work and the Meaning of Life.” That was the title of the closing keynote address given by David Bahnsen at the Napa Institute’s summer conference this past July. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices nationwide. Prior to launching The Bahnsen Group, he spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS.  He is consistently named one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times.

In his new book, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, Bahnsen aims to achieve “a dramatic reframing of the role work plays in our lives,” and most importantly to “argue that work is the meaning of life.” Our western culture tends to view work as a necessary evil, something to be tolerated or endured for utilitarian purposes. We work to make money to buy things, to pay for housing, food, clothing, etc. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Parents work to provide for their children. They do this as a matter of love. 

But work is so much more than coping with the drudgery in order to pay the bills. We do not just work during the week so that we can live on the weekends or work for years so that we can enjoy life when we retire. There is intrinsic value in work itself. Finding that intrinsic value in work may be easier to see in some occupations that help people, such as health care and teaching, or that produce something beautiful, such as music, art, and architecture. But even menial jobs have meaning in that they contribute to the well-being of society. Ultimately, all work finds its true meaning as a participation in God’s ongoing work of creation.

What does the Catholic Church have to say about work?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about work: “In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits” (n. 2402). “Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: ‘If anyone will not work, let him not eat.’ Work honors the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him” (n. 2427). “In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community” (n. 2428).

In his 1981 Encyclical on Human Work, Laborem exercens, Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth.”

Pope Benedict XVI said this in his homily for the Eucharistic Celebration for All Workers on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 2006: “Work is of fundamental importance to the fulfilment of the human being and to the development of society. Thus, it must always be organized and carried out with full respect for human dignity and must always serve the common good.”

Pope Francis wrote this in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si‘: “Jesus worked with his hands, in daily contact with the matter created by God, to which he gave form by his craftsmanship. It is striking that most of his life was dedicated to this task in a simple life which awakened no admiration at all: ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’” (Mark 6:3) (n. 98).

St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, wrote about the sanctification of work in these words: “We have to be contemplative souls in the middle of the world, who try to convert their work into prayer” (Furrow 497).

As a person who has run many marathons and runs almost every day, I draw inspiration from one of my running heroes, the late Steve Prefontaine, known by his nickname simply as “Pre.” He was born the year before I was. His style, charisma, and confidence greatly promoted the American “running boom” of the 1970s. At his untimely death in an auto accident in 1975 at the age of 24, Prefontaine held every American record in races between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. 

I have a couple of quotes from “Pre” taped next to my bathroom mirror to inspire me at the beginning of the day. One says, “A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts. … To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” The other quote says, “Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run.”

Whatever we do in life, we can make something beautiful when we do it, and we should give it the best we can so as not to sacrifice the gifts that God has given to us.  

May God give us this grace. Amen.