Working for Our Lady involves so many things throughout the day, the week, the year. She is full of surprises. We see every day how She takes care of us, and shows us her Motherly care - reminding us that She is always with us.
Dr. Josef Pieper articulates a vision of the Catholic work ethic. Pieper juxtaposes otium (the contemplative life) and negotium (the active life) and famously defends leisure and the contemplative life. Many people — and this includes Catholics — overvalue the sphere of work. Pieper believes that work must be seen as a means to an end. The proper end of human work ought to be the attainment of leisure. Leisure, of course, does not imply idleness or sloth; Pieper would never advocate laziness. For the philosopher, leisure means “intellectual work,” the type of thinking and reflecting proper to humans and the type of mental cognition that makes us most fully human. This type of leisure is required, ironically enough, to produce great art, theology, philosophy, poetry and various other forms of learning and beauty: “Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude — it is not simply the result of external factors. It is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation. It is, in the first place, an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul and as such utterly contrary to the ideal of ‘work’ as activity, as toil, as a social function.”
This type of Leisure allows us to contemplate the Lord, to come close to Him, to commune with Him, to praise Him - under the mantle of Our Holy Mother Mary.