During the Easter season in which we find ourselves, many people attend religious celebrations on the occasion of some sacrament, whether they are regular faithful or specially summoned for these meetings. One of the liturgical details that varies in confirmations and baptisms is the proclamation of the Creed in the form of questions and answers, instead of the continuous recitation of the fundamentals of our faith.
This catechetical reason taken from the origins of sacramental celebrations separates two moments: the awareness of what we need to leave behind and the adherence to what we want to live. What we “give up” and what we “believe” in. These are two exercises that mark the following of Jesus. He No and the Yeah They go hand in hand to mark the path that pleases God. The temptation, as so often, will be to try to get our way, combining what is in itself contradictory, as happened to that rich young man who wanted to follow Jesus without abandoning what prevented him, according to the famous passage of the Gospel. Renunciation and adhesion are the two sides of the life of faith. We can verify this rhythm in our own body and it can be perfectly extrapolated to different activities in human life. It would not be bad to review our intentions and recognize to what extent we decided to clarify both tendencies, so that they do not prevent or slow down convenient goals for our lives.
Among the different activities that we could select, as an example of what we have been discussing, we can look at the workplace, on the occasion of International Labor Day, which we commemorate on May 1st. The figure of Saint Joseph, whose life is the implementation of the two aforementioned exercises, illuminates this day.
In the latest Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled “Dignitas infinite”, on human dignity, the fundamental principles that support it and the various injustices that are committed against it are shown. These include the world of work. Citing the Second Vatican Council, this document exposes “degrading working conditions, which reduce the worker to the rank of mere instrument of profit, without respect for the freedom and responsibility of the human person.” In this task of raising awareness and denouncing deplorable working conditions is the initiative of Church for Decent Work (ITD), which also operates in La Rioja, and remembers, in the words of Pope Francis, that “any injustice committed against the worker is an attack on human dignity.”
Business and labor practices that act responsibly in their daily practice are to be appreciated, for the benefit of the common good, which is a hopeful example of how the legitimate interests of everyone can be served when fair relationships are established between the parties. Each of them could apply the renunciation-accession scheme to improve a system that has so many repercussions for everyone.
The liturgy, once again, educates us for life. Far from thinking that our celebrations are exhausted in themselves, isolated from everything else, as if it were a private event without any repercussion on its participants and on society.
