Jim Spillane, SJ - University of St. Thomas

empty corner of life in modern society. "Being busy" has even become a status symbol
and most people keep encouraging each other to keep their bodies and minds in
constant motion. For example, a hospitality professional often feels that he or she has
to talk all the time to his or her customer and entertain them with things to do and
places to visit. But by filling up every empty corner and occupying every empty time
this hospitality becomes more oppressing than revealing.
The challenge of the spirituality of work in the hospitality industry is to help
professionals who work there to find genuine meaningfulness in that work so that they
experience the peace and joy that God has prepared for them. As Pope John Paul II
reminds us in his encyclical entitled Laborem Exercens, " work is a good thing for man -
a good thing for his humanity - because through work man not only transforms nature,
adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and
indeed in a sense becomes 'more a human being'" [9]. This is certainly true in the
hospitality industry.