The Christian Doctrine of Work
By
V. REV. JOHN CANON McCARTHY, D.C.L.,
D.D.
Catholic Truth Society of Ireland No SE 83 (1964)
IN the world of to-day attempts are being made, consciously and
unconsciously, to departmentalize human life, to cordon it off into
separate areas, and to prevent or disclaim communication between these
areas. In particular, it is frequently suggested to-day that the
religious life of man is a sphere apart, that it is confined to times
of prayer, to Churches and to Sundays, that it is a sort of trimming on
the general fabric of human living. This is not the true or Christian
concept of life which considers the total man with all his aspirations
and hopes, in all his activities external and internal, in all his
relations and combinations within the social structures. Christianity
is not a doctrinaire thing. Nor is it a mere partial or part-time
philosophy of living. It is a practical way of life impinging upon and
directing every area of human activity, individual and collective. A
basic tenet of Christianity is that man's ultimate destiny is the face
to face vision of God in heaven, and that his earthly life, with all
its diversities of function, with all its strains and stresses, is a
period of preparation for, and merit of, that vision splendid. We have
not here a lasting city. We seek for one that is to come. We seek that
city, we reach out to it, we merit it, by knowing, loving and serving
God here below.
This intelligent loving service is not restricted to any sphere of
activity, to any particular time or to any special place. It must enter
into the daily ways of life, into the recesses of the heart, into our
homes, into the fields, the highways and the market place, into the
shops, the offices and the councils. This, in brief, is the
comprehensive vision and design of life and of its purposes which
Christianity presents to us: there is no area of human living to which
its doctrines and ideals do not apply.
In view of this all pervading ambit of Christianity there must
obviously be a specifically Christian attitude to, a Christian
philosophy of, work - and my task this evening is to set it out in the
presence of this distinguished audience. (* This booklet is the text of a lecture
given to the 1954 Congress of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland.)
May I say that our theme " The Christian Doctrine of Work" " is of
great importance inasmuch as it has an impact on, and bears a message
for, all. And yet very many are unaware of its implications and many
too are disinclined to relate their daily occupations and activities to
religion, to Christianity, to Christ. It is my privilege and high duty
to try to pinpoint that relation and, in my endeavour to do so, I shall
put before you the Christian concept of work and its place in human
life under three main headings: as a service of God, as a service of
the individual, and as a service of society - a service ennobled, at
every level, and in every form, by the living and vivifying example of
Christ. We cannot think of Christianity apart from Christ: it is
Christo-centric. It centres round Christ in every sphere and at every
level. I should recall that I am not concerned just now with the
problem of the relations between workers and employees, with the
question of wages or even with work as a merely technical or
sentimental problem but as a philosophical and religious problem which
reaches down to the roots of man's nature and to the great fundamental
purposes appointed for it by God.
In the divine design the purpose of all creation, rational and
irrational, animate and inanimate, was to manifest externally the
greatness and glory of the Creator. Irrational creation achieves this
purpose by its very existence. Coeli
ennarant gloriam Dei - sang the Psalmist. ('The heavens proclaim
the glory of God.')
"The signs and wonders of the elements
Utter forth God and fill the earth with praise".
It is given to man, endowed with a rational soul, consciously and
freely to serve God and to show forth His wondrous glory. In man, the
peak-point of God's creative activities was reached. "You have made him
a little less than the angels, You have crowned him with glory and
honour and have set him over all the works of Your hands. You have
subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, the beasts
also of the fields, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea"
(Ps. 8). Man's service of the Creator was primarily to be by way of
labour. He was created and directed to work upon the natural resources
of the earth placed at his disposal, to cultivate and tend them, to
subdue, develop, and fashion them. "Through regard for man's dignity
and his unique position, God left some things unfinished that man might
have the privilege of completing them. Even in the humblest and most
menial task we can feel that we are playing our part in developing and
perfecting God's work and in fulfilling His designs" (Cardinal D'Alton,
Lenten Pastoral, 1953).
Labour is a law of human life. Man is born to labour as is the bird to
fly. Even if Adam had remained faithful, labour would still have been a
duty of mankind. It is the will of God that nature should, be fertile
and should provide food and support not only for man but by man's
efforts. It is true that as a result of Adam's sin the discharge of
this duty of labour became more onerous, that thenceforth work would
have the additional purpose and effect of bending the will and heart
and body of man under the curse and yoke that came upon the world
through that sin. In the Book of Genesis we read God's sentence upon
Adam: "Cursed is the earth in your work ; with labour and toil shall
you eat thereof all the days of your life. In the sweat of your face
shall you eat bread till you return to the earth out of which you were
taken " (Gen 3; 17, 19). But work
itself is natural to man and is not a punishment for sin - but
only the blood and sweat and toil that accompany it since the Fall.
First of all then, work, in its various forms, must be looked upon as
the general vocation of all men, as the fundamental human service of
God which flows, as of obligation, from creation, as man's primal way
of co-operating in the creative activity of God. This dignity of work
is further and incalculably enriched by the example of the life of
Christ. In His own person Christ is the living dynamic exemplar of
perfect service of God. He came down on earth to do a great sublime
work: to redeem mankind and to reveal more clearly the ways of God with
man and the way of man to God. St. Leo the Great explained the divine
economy which culminated in the Incarnation in these words: "God, whom
we would follow, cannot be seen. Man, who could be seen, we could not
follow. Hence in order that God might be seen by man and be followed by
man, God became man". (Sermon on the Nativity). At the end of His
earthly sojourn Christ could say to His heavenly Father, 'I have
finished the work which You gave me to do' (John, 17; 4). As a
preparation for the final achievement of His sublime purpose Christ
lived the greater part of His earthly life in the humble ways of the
craftsman's shop at Nazareth, as the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and
thus He sanctified and ennobled and set the seal of dignity upon the
lowly task of manual labour. All this He did that He might leave us an
example, that He might light for us the true way of service of God and
men in the ordinary daily tasks of life. For He is the way, the truth,
the life and the light.
Human labour which is man's fundamental service of the Creator and
which, as such, has been so enriched by the example of Christ is also
the means appointed by God whereby we must serve our own needs. In his
great Encyclical Rerum Novarum
Pope Leo XIII wrote: "To labour is to exert oneself for the sake of
procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief
of all for self-preservation". Pope Leo goes on to point out that human
labour has two essential characteristics: it is personal; it is
necessary.
It is personal. Man, the worker, is the whole man, the whole human
person. He is not a mere "hand" or cog in the mechanism of production
but a being, composed of a body and a spiritual soul, with purposes,
hungers and aspirations which transcend the material sphere, which
reach out to the things of the spirit, to God. Man is made for God and
he can never rest until he rests in God. Man's capacity for work is
bound up with his personality. In work he finds the fulfilment of
himself, a means of self-expression, of personal development, of body,
of mind, of soul, of powers that otherwise would lie fallow, a sense of
achievement, of self-reliance and sturdy independence, a sense of
value. Work endows human life with a meaning and a nobility and a joy
linking it up, as has been noted, with the creative activity of God.
The tragedy to-day is that many men have lost contact with God in their
work. Hence they seek to escape work as far as possible, to neglect it.
Yet this work can, and must, be the means of bringing men to the feet
of God and to the eternal destiny of heaven, to the final fulfilment of
their personality and purpose - for men are not, and cannot be, saved
in isolation from their way of life, but by a Christlike fidelity to
the duties of their state, by the faithful discharge of the work,
whatever it may be, that they have been given to do. Here again we have
the vivifying example of Christ who, in the simple ways and in the
humble tasks of life in Nazareth, "advanced in wisdom and age and grace
with God and men" (St. Luke 2; 5).
Human labour is necessary. Without the fruits of labour man cannot
survive, and self-preservation is a first law and instinct of nature.
Man is bound to take the ordinary means of conserving his life and the
lives of those immediately dependent upon him. These means will be won
by human labour. There is no place for the human parasite. In his
second letter to the Thessalonians St. Paul wrote: "Neither did we eat
any man's bread for nothing, but in labour and toil we worked night and
day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you . . . if any man will
not work neither let him eat " (II Thess. 3; 8, l0). The provision of
his daily needs by personal effort, in accordance with his capacity and
opportunities, is then, a bounden duty for man. And when we speak here
of daily needs we are thinking not merely of material things but also
of the things of the spirit, of the things that are necessary for a
fully human life, for we know that man does not live on bread alone.
Once again let me recall the example of Christ and the life of Nazareth
and the contribution of His daily toil in the work-shop and in the home.
Work is also intended by God to be the means whereby the individual
contributes to the welfare of the community and society to which he
belongs. And here we naturally think, first of all, of the family - the
fundamental unit of social organization. It is surely obvious that the
head of the family is bound by every law to use all reasonable efforts
to provide for the support and welfare of the other members dependent
upon him. But it should be added that they too are expected to help, in
their own way, as Christ did in the household of Nazareth. Pope Pius XI
wrote: "It is right indeed that the rest of the family contribute
according to their powers towards the common maintenance as in the
rural home or in the families of many artisans and small shopkeepers". (Quadragesimo Anno). We must also
think of the larger communities and societies of which man is a member.
It has been said earlier that man the worker is the whole man, the
whole human person. And it is necessary to remember that the human
person, despite the inviolable individual rights and dignities which
are vested in him, does not and cannot live as an isolated unit.
Man is a social animal. He has from God, the author of his nature, the
desire, the capacity and the need for society, for uniting and
combining with other men in order to obtain common purposes. Man has to
live and work out his salvation as a member of the community and
society to which he belongs. Additionally, then, to his rights, and
duties as an individual, he has rights and duties as a member of
society. He is bound to contribute to the welfare of society. This is
fundamental social teaching, but it is frequently unrecognized or
ignored in the selfish processes of modern life. In fact much of the
social disorder and unrest stems from a failure to recognize and honour
the twofold aspect, the social and individual aspects, of human life,
of human institutions and of human effort. In our sociological teaching
we emphasize the social necessity and value of human labour. But, of
course, we must not over-exaggerate these aspects. To do so would be to
fall into the totalitarian error and to ignore or depreciate the
individual personal values of work. In all this context the true
teaching strikes a middle way between extreme or selfish individualism
and a juggernaut collectivism. The individual and social values of
human labour are complementary not contradictory or conflicting.
By his labour a man can not merely develop his own personality and make
provision for his needs, but he can also make a contribution to the
total welfare - to the welfare of society and mankind. This he is bound
to do. He is meshed into the social structure. He is under obligation
to play his part, to be a useful member within that structure. Society
needs men who are conscious of their social duties and are prepared to
honour them. It needs workers, not drones. It needs, for its survival,
the honest work, the loyal service of good citizens - of men and women
who are willing and determined to contribute to, as well as to share
in, the common welfare.
In the light of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, this
social aspect of work is vested with a higher dignity and is
safeguarded by a greater sanction. The doctrine of the Mystical Body
implies the brotherhood of men under the Fatherhood of God. It means
that there is between the individual members of the Church and Christ
and between the members themselves, an intimate and vital union and
solidarity wrought by the Holy Ghost ; that Christ and His members form
one single body with a common source of life, common interests and a
common purpose. There is plurality and diversity of members in the
Mystical Body. Each member has a part to play, a contribution to make,
to the welfare of the whole Body. "As in one body we have many members
but all the members have not the same office; so we, being many are one
body in Christ and every one members one of another", wrote St. Paul to
the Romans (12; 4, 5).
This outline of the doctrine of the Mystical Body eloquently emphasizes
the social necessity and value of work - which is presented as a means
whereby men can co-operate with Christ and with one another in the
furtherance of the purposes of the Incarnation and Redemption. The
various members of the Mystical Body are meant to work together, to
help one another and all mankind towards the attainment of the common
supernatural destiny of mankind. According to this Christian teaching
we are our brothers' keepers, our brothers' helpers. We are bound to
bear one another's burdens. Unless we do this, St. Paul warns us, we do
not fulfil the law of Christ. We are bound by the great commandment of
love - love of God and love of the neighbour. We can best and most
effectively fulfil this great commandment by a true appreciation of the
necessity, potentiality and value, in the social order, of the work
that is ours to do and by directing that work not merely to our
individual benefit but to the welfare of our fellow-men and especially
to the help and succour of those in temporal or in spiritual need. It
is obvious, then, that the doctrine of the Mystical Body leaves no
place in any true philosophy of life or work for selfish individualism.
The doctrine demands that all in the community or society of the
faithful shall, in the common interest, pull their weight and
competently discharge their allotted task - whatever it may be. And
this is demanded not merely on the grounds of the natural solidarity of
the social organizations and societies but in virtue of the
supernatural solidarity of the members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
I have put before you what I conceive to be the Christian philosophy of
work as a service of God, as a service of the individual, as a service
of society. It is hardly necessary to say that these aspects cannot be
kept completely distinct or isolated. They are rather facets of the
full picture of the activities of man - of total man, the citizen of
time and of eternity. May I now refer to some of the practical
conclusions which should emerge from a consideration of this Christian
teaching on work. Reference has already been made in passing, to the
value of human labour as a form of co-operation in the divine
activities of Creation and Redemption, as a means of personal
development and the achievement of the final purpose of life, as a
contribution to the welfare of society. These values, too, are knit
together. All along I have been speaking of work in general. I cannot
particularize. Nor is it necessary. Work can take almost an infinite
variety of forms. The worker's lines will be laid in a whole host of
different circumstances. But honest work, of every type and in every
circumstance, if properly motivated and directed, can achieve the
purposes and values I have mentioned. In the pagan philosophies manual
occupations and work for wages were regarded as things to be ashamed of
- but according to Christian teaching, as Pope Leo XIII emphasizes,
they are honourable and creditable ways of life. Within the unity of
the Mystical Body -as in the physical body - there are many members all
with different functions, some of less importance than others but all
making a contribution, a necessary contribution, to the welfare of the
whole body.
It is perhaps difficult for those of us who are engaged in the, humdrum
ways of apparently lowly and menial occupations to realize that in the
faithful discharge of our daily tasks we are fulfilling a divine
vocation and purpose. Yet this is irrefutably true. We have the proof
in many ways. We have it particularly in the example of Christ the
carpenter, of Mary the housewife, of Peter the fisherman, of Paul the
tentmaker and of the countless other Saints whose lives were spent and
sanctified in the discharge of humble and so-called insignificant tasks.
It is supremely important that workers of every class and condition
should have a clear vision of life, that they be able to see, in their
occupations a divine vocation and that they have a correct attitude
towards, and a right motive in, their work. The consequences of all
this will be of incalculable worth, for time and for eternity. If
workers keep in contact with God in their various occupations, if their
daily tasks are related and orientated to God, the dull and drab
monotony will be transmuted into a joy of service. The tasks, however
lowly and dreary, will be invested with a new interest and dignity.
This is a result of great psychological importance. The blood and sweat
and toil, associated, in consequence of Adam's sin, with so much of
human labour can be linked up with the great offering of Christ and
will thus assume a sacrificial value. All these considerations will
immeasurably help and inspire workers to take a legitimate pride in
work well done, to aim at perfecting their methods, technique and
products, to render an honest return to their employers - not because
of any merely material or earthly sanction but because they want to
present to God the best service of which they are capable.
In these days of mechanism or machinism the human and personal aspects
of labour may easily be submerged and forgotten. And the tragedy is
that this is often so. With the onset of the industrial era and the
factory system, with the herding together of vast groups of workers,
automatically operating machines in the mass production of commodities,
the individual worker came, in many places, to be regarded as a mere
"hand", a mere cog in the total equipment and organization. The
factories and furnaces were like monuments casting their long shadows
over society, telling of man's enslavement and of the sullen rhythm of
human lives. That this happened was, to a large extent the fault of the
controllers of the industrial system. I cannot speak of that here save
to recall the indictment of Pope Leo that "it is shameful and inhuman
to treat men like chattels to make money by or to look upon them as so
much muscle or physical strength". The workers themselves are not
without blame in allowing the dehumanization and depersonalization of
their labour. No outside control, no system can dictate their attitude
of mind and heart. The workers can, in spite of mechanization,
repetition and monotony, direct their activities to the higher levels,
towards the development of their personality, towards the service of
God and man.
It is particularly necessary in this age of easy material socialisms
and state paternalisms that workers should understand the importance of
attaining and maintaining, by their own efforts, a competence and
sturdy independence. This, indeed, is the price of their ultimate
freedom. There is nothing more stultifying and demoralizing, both in
the social and individual sphere, than that citizens should voluntarily
come to depend for the necessities of life on State or public
subvention. God has given man energies and powers of work which he must
use and provide for his needs. He is less than a man, he is entirely
false to his divinely given birthright, who, though he can by
reasonable effort make this provision, fails to do so and is content to
be a burden on the public purse. This way lies an open road to the
servile state in its most virulent form, the road to complete
enslavement, for, - make no mistake about it, - the measure of State
support will soon become the measure of State control. The primary
function of the State, in this context, is to provide the conditions
and opportunities in which citizens can by their own initiative and
effort, by working according to their capacities attain a reasonable
competence and measure of prosperity. It is no function of the State to
supplant or render unnecessary individual effort. It is no function of
the State to maintain those who are able but unwilling to seek and to
use the available opportunities of working to support themselves.
Indeed, if the State were to exercise these functions it would be
guilty of a grave social crime. To do so would involve unjust
expenditure of public moneys, would be destructive of the moral fibre
of the people, would exploit the hardworking honest citizen and would
set a premium on idleness, laziness and improvidence.
Before I conclude I must point out that Christian teaching which
emphasizes so much the necessity and values of work, is far from
excluding leisure from life. There is, there must be, a place and time
for leisure, not, however, as taking the place of work, nor as implying
emancipation from the basic duty of work, but as complementary to work,
as completing and giving dimension and vision to human life. "We work
in order that we may have leisure," wrote Aristotle. There is, indeed,
a twofold necessity for leisure. Firstly, it is necessary in order that
the worker may maintain or regain his physical strength and may be able
to function efficiently in his particular task. Secondly, and even more
importantly, leisure is necessary for the rational and spiritual
welfare of the worker, in order that he may live his life more fully as
a human person. Here again we return to the concept of the worker as
the total man, the complete human personality. Man is not a mere
machine. His activities as a worker, no matter what his work may be,
must be of a higher order than the merely mechanical.
It is a cruel paradox that modern life, with its vast apparatus of
mechanization which should provide more abundant opportunities for true
leisure and fuller human development, should rather have tended to
dehumanize and depersonalize man's labour. If the worker is to really
live a human life he must rise above and reach out beyond the merely
material and the secular. He does not live by bread alone, on rations
or on secular programmes. He needs the things of the spirit. He really
lives by religion and faith and hope and love. He should be able to see
life as a whole, to look beyond the narrow confines of his limited
tasks, to have the wider and the clearer vision. For all this, leisure
is necessary. In brief, leisure is necessary in order that the worker
continue to be a man in the true and full sense of the word. Pope Leo
XIII had this in mind when he wrote: "As a general principle it may be
laid down that the workman ought to have leisure and rest proportionate
to the wear and tear of his strength; for waste of strength must be
repaired by cessation from hard work. In all agreements between
employers and employees there is always the condition expressed or
understood that there should be allowed proper rest for soul and body.
To agree in any other sense would be against what is right and just;
for it can never be just or right to require on one side or to promise
on the other, the giving up of these duties which a man owes to God and
to himself" (Rerum Novarum).
The Holy Father in an address to a labour group from Turin on 31st
October, 1948, sums up the Christian attitude to the worker and to work
in the following words: "Neither work alone, nor its most efficient
organization and most potent tools suffice to mould and guarantee the
dignity of the labourer - but rather religion and all that religion
ennobles and makes holy. Man is the image of the Triune God and is
therefore, himself a person, brother of the Man-God, Jesus Christ and
with Him and through Him heir to life eternal: that is where his true
dignity lies . . . . If the Church insists always, in her social
doctrine, on the respect due to the inherent dignity of man, if she
asks a just salary for the workman in his labour-contract, if she
demands that his material and spiritual needs be met by effective
assistance, what prompts this teaching if not the fact that the
labourer is a human person, that his productive capacity may not be
regarded and treated as so much merchandise, that his labour represents
always a personal service . . . . Only this religious ideal of man can
lead to a unified conception of the standard of living he should
maintain. Where God is not the beginning and end, where the order that
reigns in His creation is not a guide and measure of the freedom and
activity of everyone, unity of men cannot be achieved".
Let me return to my starting point. Christianity is a complete
philosophy of life. It gives a meaning and a value to human life and
its activities at every level and in every sphere, in the high-ways and
in the by-ways. Christianity means following Christ, imitating Him,
working for Him. With Christ the tremendous jig-saw puzzle of human
life, with all its inequalities, apparent shapelessness and jaggedness,
finds its pattern, its meaning, and falls into place. Without Christ
and His teaching what have we but a welter of contradictions and
confusions, unintelligible and uncontrollable tensions, the
philosophies of frustration, disillusionment and despair. The honest
worker in every sphere, but especially in the humble occupations, is
very dear to the heart of Christ. He is the God-Man. He knows. He
understands. He has lived and walked in the lowly ways of this earth.
If the day-to-day tasks are linked with His life, if they are done for
Him, they will surely win compensations and rewards which are durable
from the daily dust of earth. And may I say in conclusion that a life
of honest work, however lowly, if dedicated to Christ, is the best
insurance against disillusion, doubt and fear in the evening of life.
* * * * *