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We celebrated the World Day of Work [last week] in homage to St. Joseph the Worker, remembering that all work is dignified and all people have a right to it. Work is a souce of sustenance for life and makes the worker become more human and realized as a person. We can say that professional activity brings the living condition and constructs peace.

Jesus cites a phrase very important as a motivator of peace: “I give you peace, my peace I give you.” (John 14:27) Peace is the fruit of community, and not of putting heavy burdens on others Peace is of living the new law of love, taught by the Lord. Peace is the fruit also of the capacity of overcoming differences in the center of a community.

We are in a time of the project: “a new Heaven and a new Earth”, of the construction of a different world, but also conscious of what is possible. We cannot be intimidated by the constant wave of what is bad, of  destruction and of disrepect of life, impeding the concretization of peace. Many people live in an constant interior war.

Work and peace should solidify the hope of the people. without them, the future remains obscure and discourages the fight for a happy life. Society has the need of feeding itself from the potentiality with human principles, have as goal the victory of life or the full realization of interior peace and community. .

Despite all technological development in the diverse fields of actuality, it appears that the principle and most urgent reality – the value of the human person – has not progressed. There is not true preoccupation with peace, because it is not being truly constructed by those who have in their hands the power to do it. ,

Archbishop Paulo Mendes Peixoto

Archbishop de Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil

translated from Portuguese and edited for an English Speaking world wide Catholic Audience, (not an official translation)