Labor Day 2024: Remembering Our Human Dignity

A blessed Labor Day to all!

The Labor Day holiday, either on the calendar or in our lives, seems to mark an end and a beginning. For me as a child, it marked the real end of summer and the beginning of a new year of school. Summer sports, the county and state fairs and, when possible, the family vacation had passed. The fall routines and classroom bells began again. The fall sports season is under way. Soon the leaves and seasons will start to change.

Perhaps you will spend Labor Day weekend or Labor Day itself working on that final family picnic time together for the summer, a camping adventure, the yard work you have put off, or simply taking it all in while relaxing.

Remember, Labor Day for us all ought to be more than just a date on a calendar and a long holiday weekend. The first Labor Day was honored on September 5, 1882. This was thought to be the date of the first Labor Day parade. In the morning hours, a crowd of spectators filled the sidewalks of lower Manhattan near city hall and along Broadway to mark the many labor movements underway and the forming of labor unions in our country, as well as to make some noise about the difficult and extremely unsafe working conditions of the time. At the time, 12-hour workdays were the norm. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland marked our nation’s federal holiday calendar for the first Monday in September to honored and celebrated.

Labor Day gives pause to the American laborer’s “sweat equity” before mandatory breaks throughout the workday and OSHA was on the scene to monitor difficult and extremely unsafe working conditions. Take time to pause and reflect on the meaning of work, the dignity of the worker, and the impacts workers have made in honor of the Red, White, and Blue as it affects the importance of the economy and our nation. Also, let us remember and pray for the under-employed, whose human dignity is not valued or recognized, and the unemployed.

Be safe, have fun and, most importantly, give thanks!

Father Anthony, OSB

Father Anthony M. Vinson, OSB
Pastor

• Mass schedule for Labor Day, Monday, September 2, is 4:15 p.m. at the Historic Church in Fulda.