Today's feast invites us to consider prayerfully about work. Work is not a curse, nor the result of sin. The reading from Genesis says that there was plenty of work in paradise itself.

God did not create a ready-made world in which everything was complete and perfect as a finished product. He has provided us with a world-in-creation and has invited us to take responsibility to bring His creation to perfection. God has created us in His image and we are co-creators with Him. Here lies the dignity and the necessity of work. Work is an essential vocation of every man and woman. It is only in and through work that each one of us can grow into the image of God and become complete persons - be it intellectual work or manual work.

Running away from work will be an insult to God. We are not called to work alone, but together with God and our fellowmen. In this sense work is not a private affair. It has a communitarian purpose where each one contributes to the greater common good according to the gift bestowed on him or her.

Let us pray for all the day-labourers and child-labourers whose human dignity has been violated through the deprivation of their rights in their places of work.