He is like any other Businessman or woman in San Francisco and Bay Area. He loves his job, he dreams of many projects, he wants to make a lot of money, he thinks to give a lot of services.

He gets up in the morning like any businessman or woman full of energy for a new day. Sometimes he feels tired but it is O.K. "Work is work" he says, "I have to do it". He leaves his home sometimes without kissing his wife and children, because is has meetings, without taking a breakfast some other times. In his car he listens to the news or the traffic or sometimes to some music. He arrives at his office and say a quick hi to everybody and starts his work, meetings, looks at his emails, messages, respond to his emails, phones to some people, give orders here and there and receives from others…The first part of the day starts as everyday with these common things.

Between midday and 1.00 p.m. he takes is business brunch, or lunch with others and continue discussions about many things, tries to read the available newspapers, returns back to his office until afternoon.

On his return back home, he calls his wife and ask her if everything is under control…if she needs that he brings something for the house…he sometimes forgets to ask her about the children… he remembers that he needs to talk to them, prefers to speak to them on the phone and say hi dad, I love you…he arrives home tired, wanting to look at the news on the TV, he hugs quickly his children, make some promises to them for the future…go to bed for another day….

Dear Friends, this is what mainly how a lot of us live their days. You spend most of your time at your work, you spent the large deal of thinking during the day on things related to your job, you speak mainly about your work, your dreams, hopes. Your future is a mixture of your job and your family, but more of for your job than of your family. Out of seven days one or two days is for your family and five or six days for your work.

If business is essential for you and for society so as to function If business is essential for the future of our world, If business is the way of life that 95% of the people deal with.

I can tell you that a rightful business, spent with God could be the real future of yours, of the society and the world. I believe with many others that a life spent in business could be a real spiritual life that will help you, your family and the society.

Please, try to see what I mean. I am not trying here to make a speech about spirituality, I am trying to help you relax for some moments so as to improve as CBN-SF your business.

St. Paul says that we are called to holiness.

In fact:

God did not create us to live one near one another. God did not create us to live one dealing with one another God did not create us that one works with another He said love each other as I have loved you. He wants us to live one for another.

When really we do see on our business as an apostolate, a mission then we can understand that the time we spend at work is an important time for God, a time where I participate with God to create a better world.

In fact Man created to the image of God must cooperate and put his share with the Creator in the perfecting of creation and communicate to the earth the spiritual imprint he himself (the man) have received from God. This is why work is a mission. This is why you should work. You use the hand of God when you deal with your hands, the mind and conscience of God when you deal with your intelligence, you speak to God's creators and let them feel that they are also images of your God as you do business with them.

Listen, Dear Friends, we are living in a society where a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries many times no corresponding social obligations.

Work in this condition became a source of contrary effects, for it promises money, pleasure, and power, it invites some to selfishness, others to revolt, it many times dehumanize us by making from us slaves and servants of our job. A lot of us live only because they work, take out their work they die. A lot of us they live to work, if they stop they feel depressed…work became a second ourselves…if we do not stop for a moment and think…work will never stop us to find other ways to do more and more…we do not feel that we became servants and sometimes slaves, and we have lost what human in us and our dignity to be God's image.

This is why a CBN is a need. You will be thinking with people like you, to make from your business a way to improve what human and divine in you and in this way you will build a better future for yourself, your children, your family and the society. CBN becomes a neccessity. And you can work it your way, it is yours.

Let me tell you what also I think, it is important as a start for CBN-SF.

We do all agree that man's life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity, but at the same time we all know that work contains the unceasing measures of human happiness and suffering and also brings harm to some and joy to others, justice and injustice. Work penetrates all our social, familial, spiritual lives. If I do not control work. "WORK WILL CONTROL ME".

This is why, again, I think that the Catholic Business Network was created. It is a means to help all of you to think together how we can control work with our love to each other. It is a tool to develop on us ways of how we can share our dignity as God's image and serve the society It is a way of life that should open us to ourselves, to our families and to others in applying the most of our Catholic faith. Work is a means to live, it is not the life. And "Do not do to others what you would not do to yourself" is the key of the success of your work." I know, it is so difficult to imagine it when we speak about buying and selling. But we need to think about it.

For us as CBN-SF, with the Social teaching of the Catholic Church we do believe on three dimensions of the dignity of work:

1) Our dignity as a person is the first important dimension. Many times our smiles, our greetings, our thanksgiving words, cards, feasts, are only means to get more business and to attract people to deal with us. We would not show these symbols if we do not expect something from the other. Then our smiles, greetings, our feasts lost of their dignity, they are merely artificials, they do not come from our hearts, they come from our mouth only. CBN wants to help you to mean what you do. CBN wants from you to see on your brother a person and not a business. Life does not worth anything if I do not deal with others as images of God. His call on you is love me, help me, support me, stand with me, take care of me….I am your brother, I am your sister after all.

2) Family constitutes the second important dimension. In fact work is a precondition for making it possible to found a family. Family is a community made possible by work, it should then become the first school for work. If work become more important than your family, if you think that family obligations are an obstacle to your work, if family becomes second in your life, if you prefer to be at work more than with your family, you have a problem. CBN-SF will try to help you to return back to this dimension and reorganize yourself. The experience of your brothers and sisters in the CBN-SF will be a witness to you on how you have to change. If really you respect this dimension in your life then you are able to respect the society that you belong to and the nation you serve, you will be building a better world.

3) Prayer is the third important dimension as a businessman and woman. Tell me if you pray before you go to work, during your work, after your work then I will tell you that God is in you. Your relation with God is very important. After all He is in you, through you, with you, for you, in the others, with the others, through the others and both belong to him with your work.. You cannot hide from God. CBN wants to help you to pray, to seek God on your work. This is what you need to be a successful business person. God in your life is our mission as CBN.

Making from your work an apostolate means that you understood that the three dimensions are very important elements of your life as a business person.

I conclude with this excerpts of the Encyclical 'Peace on Earth" :'In this way the world will be permeated by the spirit of Christ and more effectively achieve its purpose in justice, charity, and peace…Therefore, by their competence in secular fields and by their personal activity, elevated from within by the grace of Christ, let them work vigorously so that human labor, technical skills, and civil culture, created goods may be perfected according to the design of the Creator and the light of his word.

Thank you for listening,