Course XLVII - Teaching 28: Concepts about Our Life as Workers (December 22nd, 1956)

Humanity is living a very important moment because it is not divided into classes, but into two sectors prepared to wage war and to destroy each other: one man produces and other man exploits this productivity.
The Sons of Cafh that shall act for the human salvation should know this problem in depth. Once, a man that worked was only a worker, and there was some dependence between owner and worker; there was a culture, and an understanding and direction between the two.
Things are changed for the sake of culture and writing: a worker ceased to be an ignoramus or an illiterate. Now the great collision is in preparation, because nothing gave the solution. During two thousand years, Christendom fought for peace and brotherhood, but failed. Why? Because they preached an entire renunciation to material possessions, and this is not possible for an ordinary man. It is an ideal renunciation, which yielded the wonderful fruit of charity: closing the eyes of dying persons, assisting the sick, or giving one’s possession to the poor. But Christendom failed.
Now a worker improved his level, since he learned how to read and to be skilled. Sometimes a worker hears words uttered by Saint Francis of Assisi, by Saint Vincent of Paul, or by Dom Bosco, and priests tell him that those saints founded hospitals or old people’s homes; then this worker is angry and does not wish his money or help because he says that all this means to give him what already is of him, that is, to give him what belongs to him, and this is not charity, it is an insult, and to give him as charity what they have stolen of him.
But the Church cannot give other thing, because is united with the state powers of the world and unable to come back. The Church can do only one thing: to be compliant and to impede a worker to be further dispossessed. No worker is with the Church today.
Pope Leo XIII said, “We have lost the working class”, and present Pope Pius XII might say, “Today we have the worker against us”
This would be the first point: The Catholic position as a solution is left side.
Second point: The materialistic Communism notion: to renounce and give all to enrich the State; instead of working for an owner, the worker works for the State. This means that a worker can study and eat, but deprived of enjoying himself what he has created.
In Cafh we became workers in order to prove that a worker can achieve his highest potentials only by a gradual participation. Capitalism, state Capitalism and charity distribution made by Ministers of the Church only have made one thing: to stimulate the struggle for a salary, super-production and monopoly.
The problem is this: a worker is paid for his work, but his pay is ever lower that the real value of what a person can produce.
The soul of a worker is exactly the same as that of the wealthiest man of the world; a worker is self-centered and individual.
The only possible participation is participation practiced by Cafh. Total renunciation to all material things cannot exist, because we should disappear as human beings.
A human being does not possess, but participates through renunciation: he does not possess, but has what belongs to him.
Harmony cannot exist in the world while there is a salary. An owner is a boss, but he can be a participating owner, not an absolute one.
For instance: we build our college, and all of us take part in it; this work is of none, but the work is of all. A worker has to be like that: he has not a salary, but he has his own. Neither a boss nor a worker exists, but each takes his own place.
A wage increase does not solve anything, because the owner increases his own production.
Our life is the true life. We are neither politicians nor priests to preach our idea; what we do is to “live” our idea.
So, we prove in the world that happiness lies on simple life, not on abundant possessions.
We cannot live in the world, but we do in the Community as non-wage-earning workers, but as participating workers, and this is a soul super-possession in our own realization.
The worker has lost his love to the work because all is for other person, nothing belongs to him. So, he spends more than what his soul possibilities can give.
We can understand this by being aware of the Stability Area –magnetism of the place. We give strength and receive goods. Work does not remove energy but gives strength. A worker gets tired earlier because he never is in the same place, and then he has no roots. When a being works, he spends energies, but he brings about an electric battery and these forces come back to him through this battery. Every time we are changed, we should build a new generator.
The true possession consists in staying in one place, and of loving thus place. So our muscles grow stronger and we live entirely.
A second participation consists of possessing magnetism of the Stability Area: to be aware of the location of things, and not to waste time by looking for them. This is so because we give happiness not only with our possessions, but also remaining in the Stability Area.
We permeate the place with our skill, and this place gives us back power of earth, and the super-possession is not only of the human being, but also it goes beyond.
A worldly worker is not aware of the cost of things: ten pesos are for us like one hundred pesos for other person.
As a worker has to work for other person, he does not duly produce, gets tired and, since his production is not enough, everything increases and the world is ruined.
A worker is not aware of the resistance power: to get a wage-increase, a worker comes out to strike, and there is fight between workers and owners, but meanwhile the worker does not collect his salary. The worker is the victim. Then worker do not get anything, because if the is a wage-increase, the cost of living increases. The worker must impede that the cost of living increases; but needs a super-strength for it: a passive resistance (practiced by Gandhi), and not to use or acquire what became more expensive. If the street-car is more expensive, then we walk. This is spirit of sacrifice, but the Humanity shall understand this after a long period of time. The English abandoned India because India was not a business for them any more. This is the third stage that a worker should know: his return to the simple life.
A worker should stop thinking that happiness is like being an owner or having a workshop. We know that the one that was able to have a workshop became one of the greatest exploiters. No, the greatest possession is magnetism, and also, the duty of a worker that works is to help the needy. He must increase his sacrifice, endurance and control of his own nature. The latter is an Ordained worker. We have left the world to be a living expression of life. The coming world shall be of the man that works, because he shall understand that his work is united with mental understanding.