The young girls of the Community learned to work just like the little girls here are learning, by watching and helping out as best as they can. We buy small brooms for the little ones, who sweep in circles, but they are learning the value and joy of work at a very early age.
All of the work we do in Community is approached from the standpoint that we are doing it directly for the Queen of Heaven. Our work is offered as a prayer. Our Lady said from the Bedroom on November 20, 1988:
Our work is to bring us toward Our Lady, toward Her “way” that leads to God.
In a direct way in our mission we desire to bring others to Her way, but also in all our tasks, from cleaning St. Joseph’s Shop II, which is our carpentry shop named in honor of St. Joseph, Our Lady’s spouse, to milking our cows, we do it for Our Lady and for future conversions. We consecrate all of our temporal goods and our work to Her so it can be used for Her plans.
Our Lady said on January 25, 1998:
Pray, play, and work! We pray for the fruit of the conversion of the world through our labor. The children pray through their play and produce fruit. We pray as the saints teach us – not just pray, but pray and work.
With all the different aspects of our work here, it’s easy to get distracted from your goal. But we try to keep our focus for Our Lady. We also try to create and maintain a peaceful working environment that is conducive to prayer.
The following about our work is taken from “A Way” in a New Time, written by our founder.
“We have a village, a factory per se which includes: the mission with shipping and cargo docks; a farm operation; logging operation; sawmill operation; pottery operation; construction, and other minor operations and all the noise that goes with it, and none of it with the loss of, but rather with the protection of peace. Everything is nestled or tucked into the woods or the surrounding terrain, operating quietly in the midst of God’s creation. Our Lady wants of us to witness to modern man of how to proceed and progress without the loss of God, keeping Him as Creator, with man collaborating with Him in all his endeavors.”
The fruit of the Earth, the fruit of labor, the fruit of prayer. Clearing land for a hayfield and harvesting valuable lumber for our sawmill in the process.
The founder of Caritas has often taken the price a contractor would require for particular services and compared it the cost to purchase equipment, new or used, and perform the work ourselves. Rather than pay a contractor for the services, he buys the equipment utilizing his years of experience in business. We often get the products and perform the work at the same price, or even lower, than what it would cost to have someone else do the work, and we get to keep the equipment to boot. The next time we need to perform that particular job, the equpipment is absolutely free, involving only our time! This drastic reduction in costs makes the Community very sustainable and the mission very solid and more capable of spreading Our Lady’s messages.
We also must collaborate with each other. Due to the great variety of operations at the mission, we are often working in groups, going from project to project to complete the necessary work and then moving on to the next task. In this way, instead of everyone doing their own little thing, though of course we do all have different responsibilities, as a group we can accomplish more than what seems possible, but only with the help of God’s grace and Our Lady.
In general, our work is more strictly focused on the mission on Monday through Friday. Saturdays have become what we call our “Saturday workdays,” for in our community life we are blessed to work five days for God and one day for ourselves. There are chores each day for community work, but most of these duties are handled by the youth, which teaches them good work ethics and responsibility. On Saturday workdays typically the whole Community will work together on one or two outdoor projects in the same area, like building a new fence or cutting lumber on the sawmill for a future building. These days are very joyful because everyone is together working as a unit, and so much visible progress can be made when 50 or more people concentrate on the same job. This is a big joy for the kids as well because they get to spend a lot of time working alongside their fathers and mothers and other Community members, all the while being formed and molded in a hard-working mentality.
The Community is the work force for the mission of Caritas. Fruit from Caritas' press depends not upon us, or its manufacturer, but upon Our Lady’s blessing upon our work. Otherwise our work is in vain. Conversion requires grace, without which there would be no conversion. It is why Our Lady's statue overlooks each sheet that goes through the press.
Though we are very busy we always take time for prayer and to help each other when someone needs a hand. We also take time to teach the children, often letting them do tasks or drive machinery to teach them. Though the job may take a little longer with their “help,” their future contribution through this proper formation will more than make up for any loss in current production. They are the future consecrated work force for Our Lady!
Our Lady said on August 25, 2000:
“Dear children! I desire to share my joy with you…I desire the thank you and to inspire you to work even more for God and His kingdom…”
We find great fulfillment, peace and joy in our work by offering it all to Our Lady for the kingdom of God. Our life has purpose, and our life is meaningful. It is therefore filled with many joys even amidst thorns. This can all be explained in the writing, “To Be Happy,” by a Friend of Medjugorje. Click here to read “To Be Happy.”
"Banging Rocks." Banging is a term used by all the Caritas kids when referring to the action of pounding a rock with a larger rock until it is completely ground into the finest sand. The game was originally created at Rosary time, using stones gathered around the foot of Our Lady's statue in the Field where She first appeared in 1988. A priest, seeing the children so diligently at work, was so taken as to comment that now he undertsands how one could move a mountain, with just simple faith. The children learn you can move a mountain one stone at a time.
The main work of the Community is in the Tabernacle of Our Lady’s Messages. The mother house for Caritas of Birmingham. Praying over the daily mail is a daily event that often, because he comes at the same time, has the mail man standing by reverently until we are finished.