LIFE AT NAZARETH
2. The Virtue.
Labor is above all a virtue:
a) Because work is a veritable penance; appointed and imposed by God Himself it is a very holy and beautiful one. Moreover, it is a penance for each and every moment, for each and every one, without exception. Even the sick man, in some way or other, works.
b) While laziness is the mother of all vises, work is the mother of all virtues. It is evident that the idler is more tempted, and more successfully so, by the devil. Work, the harder the better, is a fine preservative against temptation. It weakens our passions, it suppresses the occasions of sin. Before a busy soul the devil feels bewildered.
c) Labor, lastly, is a virtue of expiation and atonement. Atonement for sin, the amassing of merits, preservation from falls, these are the great fruits of labor.
Thank God for having made of such a necessary thing as work a very profitable virtue. He has put in it so many advantages to entice us, while at the same time sweetening the punishment inflicted on us. How can we call work a punishment when it is so profitable? Who will not longingly embrace labor since it is such a source of graces, such a treasury of merits?
[Excerpted from 'MARIAN MEDITATIONS' Book by Rev. Dr. Ildefonso R. Villar, Salesian Philippine Province, Nihil Obstat; Imprimatur]
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