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Luna_Lovecraft
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There is a world of difference between leaving the Church and feeling like you’re unwelcome there because you don’t fit into some idealized version of your sex.
Luna
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L_piperatus
Guest
Working is also about serving others… whether you work as a medical doctor or as a janitor… you make friendships, you heal sick people, you keep working people’s offices clean, maybe you clean their windows so that they can enjoy looking out for a moment and admiring the flowers blooming outside, between two patients…
I think Luna has a legitimate point, calling working people drones does not serve a good purpose. While a SAHM serves her family, a working woman (or man) also serves people through her work. Every job includes serving people, and has inherent dignity. This is even a part of the CC’s teaching, the Catechism talks about this.
Edit: I just remembered two canonized saints and mystics from the 20th c. who talk about the dignity of work and serving others, St. Faustina Kowalska and St. Therese Neumann. They both served other people through ordinary jobs such as cooking, doing laundry, agricultural work.
I think Luna has a legitimate point, calling working people drones does not serve a good purpose. While a SAHM serves her family, a working woman (or man) also serves people through her work. Every job includes serving people, and has inherent dignity. This is even a part of the CC’s teaching, the Catechism talks about this.
Edit: I just remembered two canonized saints and mystics from the 20th c. who talk about the dignity of work and serving others, St. Faustina Kowalska and St. Therese Neumann. They both served other people through ordinary jobs such as cooking, doing laundry, agricultural work.
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Luna_Lovecraft
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I keep this prayer taped to my computer and my lesson plan book and reflect on it several times a day. I’ve bolded the bits I think relevant to this discussion.
Prayer to St. Joseph the Workman
Composed by Pope St. Pius X
O Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with gratitude and joy, in a spirit of penance for the remission of my sins,*** considering it an honor to employ and develop by means of labor the gifts received from God***, to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties, to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thine example, O Patriarch, St. Joseph. Such shall be my watch-word in life and in death.
Amen
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MaryHelene
Guest
I agree. I refuse to believe that a desire to do work outside the home, and to limit family size so that this is possible, is somehow less holy/fulfilling/meaningful/important than staying home and having lots of babies.
I find it funny that a man who doesn’t work to support his family is widely considered to be a bum - and apparently now, a man who does work is a “drone.” Or are only women who work outside the home “drones?” Or are we just using reverse psychology on women to keep them at home?
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Luna_Lovecraft
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For untold millions of men and women, remunerated employment is more than simply a desire, it’s a I-need-to-feed-my-family necessity. Taking the long view of history, the number of families who could afford to have one adult not bring in money is small compared to the numbers who needed every man, woman, and child doing some kind of paid work to help the family survive, if not thrive. The women and girls who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire weren’t working to pay for fancy trips. Kids working in the ship breaking industry in Chittagong aren’t there because they’re saving up for a new set of rims for their tricked-out cars.
In this sense I’m privileged - not to mention lucky - that I was afforded the education and opportunities unavailable to my fore bearers that allowed me to develop my talents and work in a profession I find meaningful and fulfilling. Yes, I could have stayed at home full-time, but again it would have been a privilege for me to do so. I live at a time and in a society where this is possible. For most people, this isn’t and hasn’t been so. My grandmother, who had to quit school when she was nine, understood this more than anyone else I’ve known. I can still remember her telling me I had to learn, I had to get as much education as I could, I had to know I could support myself before I took on the responsibilities of a husband and children. She didn’t need feminists or the mass media to tell her this; she knew because she was an uneducated refugee who had to make heart rendering choices that she didn’t want her daughter and granddaughter to contend with.
My husband can speak to this much better than I can. Shortly after we married he became unemployed and remained without a paying job for 3.5 years. During that time it was my income and health insurance that stood between us and bankruptcy and foreclosure. Although to my knowledge no one called him a bum, it was a hit to his sense of masculinity and I know he sometimes thought of himself as a bum. I think if we asked him he’d much rather be called a tax-paying drone than a bum.
Luna
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manualman
Guest
Hmm, I sense a little disingenuity going on here. Read it again. Nowhere does he denigrate people (men or women) for earning incomes.
He decries the new cultural norm by which people (men and women) center their lives on their career to the detriment of their families. The focus on women isn’t that it’s extra bad when women do it, but that it’s sad that we’ve “progressed” from a culture where men suffered this disease to one in which women do too.
He decries the new cultural norm by which people (men and women) center their lives on their career to the detriment of their families. The focus on women isn’t that it’s extra bad when women do it, but that it’s sad that we’ve “progressed” from a culture where men suffered this disease to one in which women do too.
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dans0622
Guest
Hello Luna,
Sure, we can “define…meaningful parts of” life. We might not always be right. It seems to me that this priest is pointing out what is, as a matter of fact, most meaningful because of the way we are created: relationships with God and other people.
As far as the “drone” term… The work that a person does is important not because of itself but only because of who is doing it. If you do not approach your work in a manner similar to that of a drone, then don’t take his comment or the term personally. I’ve spent many days (years) cleaning barns. Could that work be seen as no better than a drone taking care of the queen bee (or cow)? Sure. I never thought of it that way and never let the apparent meaning/meaninglessness of my job define who I am. If you do the same, great: you have not assumed the role of a drone in the materialist/consumerist hive we live in today.
Unfortunately, I think the priest is right to use such a term since many people end up in a similar state as a drone because they become subservient to their tasks, expecting to be valued because of what they do–and what they have–instead of who they are. That is totally wrong (see John Paul II’s Laborem exercens, especially # 6). And, again, who we are is defined by Who (and who) we are related to (or should it be “Whom”?).
Thanks for your time.
Dan
P.S. It’s clear that he is so much more critical of himself than anyone else that this aspect of his posts, while important, is somewhat beside the main point. (At least as far as I can tell).
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Luna_Lovecraft
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I would argue that in the not-too-distant past people worked longer hours and under more arduous conditions to support their families than many of us do today. Coal miners who worked 6.5 days a week, factory workers (men, women, and children) who threaded machines 14 hours a day, men who left their wives and families and moved to other parts of the country or even to other countries to support their families. In some parts of the world, this kind of working life is still, sadly, the norm. How is this less detrimental to families than people with careers putting in long hours?
Luna
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TheRealJuliane
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But you said this:
This Lent I’ve been asking myself some pretty hard questions about my faith and if there’s a place for me at the Catholic table. And I feel as if Fr. Simon just pointed me towards the exit.
You do see why I asked about leaving Jesus?
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TheRealJuliane
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Also, the aspect of women being more interested in career than mothering is not the ONLY issue raised in Father’s essay.
Doesn’t anyone else find it shocking that priests in seminary back then OPENLY MOCKED the Pope???
Doesn’t anyone else find it shocking that priests in seminary back then OPENLY MOCKED the Pope???
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Luna_Lovecraft
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Fr. Simon pointing me towards the exit as in, “I’ve got no room for your kind in my Church.”
Again, I never said I was leaving Jesus.
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TheRealJuliane
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Excuse me, Luna, but your first statement is ridiculous. How in the Wide World of Sports did you get to THAT statement from what Fr. Simon wrote???
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triumphguy
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Luna - if I knew you, and we trusted each other and were friends this is what I’d say: : you are giving one article written by someone you don’t know, and who doesn’t know you, or your situation, an awful lot of power in your life. That, or you’re just looking for an excuse to through your teddy out of the play pen.
However, I don’t know you, so I won’t
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L_piperatus
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Yes, it’s shocking. It explains, at least partly, why some priests do not teach from the pulpit that contraception is sinful.Doesn’t anyone else find it shocking that priests in seminary back then OPENLY MOCKED the Pope???
For me, what I erroneously perceived to be the Church’s hypocrisy regarding contraception was a major stumbling block several years ago. A colleague of mine explained to me that “notwithstanding its official stance, the Church in reality is allowing people to use contraception” and I was like,
this is not really better than other hypocrites like comrade Lenin who starved millions of people to death while “officially” he was talking about a prosperous, peaceful and just new Marxist/socialist/communist society! :bigyikes: So, I was like, why is the Church teaching one thing and then making exemptions for those “in the know”, those who know better than the rest of us uninformed and sheepishly obedient suckers? 
Once I learned that the Church has to be measured by its Magisterium, that the Magisterium of the Church has always been and still is crystal-clear about the sinfulness of contraception, I started feeling a lot better. Finally I understood that the Church is not a hypocrite, it just has saboteurs and traitors inside, but even Judas betrayed Jesus, thus the presence of a few wolves in sheep’s clothing in no way de-legitimizes the Church, and basically everything is cool and I have a wonderful Church that gives me clear guidance on moral issues!
Also, Pope Paul VI who published Humanae Vitae in 1968 is a hero!
He was ridiculed not only by the secular world, but even by some of the disobedient Catholic Bishops and Priests for it, yet he did the right thing, reminding everybody that the Church has always taught that contraception was sinful, and that the Church will continue to uphold its moral teaching because the Divine Law remains unchanged!
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TheRealJuliane
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Leaving the Church IS leaving Jesus, at the altar, in the form of the Eucharist.
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SummerSmiles
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Yes, I think a few people here have misunderstood this point in the article.
He is not saying that anyone who works is a drone. He’s saying that anyone–male or female–who defines themselves by their work has become a drone. As a society, we are no longer defined by the relationships we have with one another. We’re no longer parents, spouses, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who work to provide for our families. We are lawyers, doctors, bankers, and electricians first–and, by the way, have two kids and a spouse at home.
He’s not saying that women shouldn’t have careers or be away from the home. He’s saying that they should not let their job become who they are. Of course people have to work in order to provide for their families. There is nothing wrong with a SAHM who finds that she has to go to work in order to earn what her family needs. There is a difference between that and a woman who sees her kids as troublesome while her day job is her “real job.”
It’s wonderful that women are becoming more and more respected for their talents in the workplace. It’s not so great that women are seeing their job as who they are; that women are seeing their job as determining their worth as a person. The world doesn’t need someone for their profession. If I choose not to become a doctor, there are countless others who can take on that role, and the world doesn’t care who steps up to take that job. But if I choose not to be a wife to my husband or a parent to my children, there is no one who can replace me in that role.
In a few decades, people won’t care about our professions; what will matter is the lives that we touched while we were here. Those people will remember us and pass on the things they’ve learned from us.
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Havard
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I gotta agree with Juliane, I didn’t get pick up that sentiment at all from what Father said.Excuse me, Luna, but your first statement is ridiculous. How in the Wide World of Sports did you get to THAT statement from what Fr. Simon wrote???
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Tommy72
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Magnificent letter by Fr.!!!
3 and a polite golf clap!
3
and a polite golf clap!
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buffalo
Guest
Exactly - most conversations go like this - my child is a _________ and makes a lot of money and live in this big house in this exclusive neighborhood. We define ourselves by our work.
Here is a great question that stops them short - Tell me about your child’s character, charities and good works. Dead silence…
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