Gospel: Mt. 2: 13-15, 19-23
13 When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph
in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother,
flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.
Work’s driving force
By Bishop Precioso D. Cantillas, SDB, DD
The experience of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph who were forced to flee to Egypt could give consolation to migrant workers and lessons for any worker. The thought that even God Himself experienced what it is to be a migrant could comfort the workers suffering the pains of loneliness, separation from loved ones, discrimination by the host societies, or those others who may be unjustly exploited by employers or may be physically or psychologically maltreated by others. While reflecting deeper on why the Holy Family had to migrate, one could understand what should be the most important driving force for one to work anywhere, here or abroad.
While there were human situations that compelled Joseph to bring his family to a safe place, it was clear that he migrated with his family in obedience to the “angel of the Lord” who told him so. Joseph therefore consciously surrendered his fate to God, and accepted whatever happened in his life and that of his family while in a foreign land as an act of faith in the Almighty. Faith and obedience to the Divine Will was the motivating power for Joseph to live and work in Egypt.
In the same way, any worker, migrant or local, even though he is driven to work by human factors—such as, satisfaction of the basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, education for the children, etc., and other needs which having money could satisfy—should also consider the divine element of work. A worker, who works because he needs to, could do better by believing that he should work because God wills him to. Thus, doing his work in obedience to the Almighty would bring him to a safer place—a more meaningful and satisfying work on earth and a happy life hereafter.
Saving the Savior
By Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS
At seminars on “Creativity at the Workplace” which we give to mostly managers in the corporate world, dreams are shown to be excellent problem solvers at times. Not a few participants have testified and expressed wonder that they have had extremely difficult problems solved unexpectedly in or by dreams. And they occur mostly when they are at the end of their wits trying to find solutions to tight situations.
What seems perplexing is, dream-solutions can not be predicted or programmed. You can not always say to yourself, “Ah, I will not bother about this problem; I’ll just wait to dream of its solution” and then wake up with the problem gone. It may or may not work. But no matter how marvelous dreaming may prove to be, they are in no way a substitute for rational thinking. In fact, what seems effective for most people is to first scour the mind for all possible answers, exploring the problem or situation from all possible angles, and then employing reason and the analytical mind to formulate the needed solution out of whatever verifiable data are on hand.
From the disclosures of the participants who have experienced this phenomenon, it would seem that problems are a spur that compel the mind to exhaust all its known resources in order to discover heretofore untapped ones. What they seem to have in common, though, is the sense of helplessness or powerlessness that grips them at the point of resignation. At this precise point, when reason or analysis is already ineffective, they begin to ask for help. Whether they are conscious of this or not, whether they call this prayer or not, whether they admit this or not, deep inside they begin to cry for help. We now recall Joseph’s experience and realize it’s a dream that saved the Savior.
