A Chance to Learn and Experience How to Live Your Faith in Your Daily Work! |
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SATURDAY, 1st DECEMBER 2007 Catholic Junior College, Performing Arts Centre S I N G A P O R E |
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A Chance to Learn and Experience How to Live Your Faith in Your Daily Work! |
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SATURDAY, 1st DECEMBER 2007 Catholic Junior College, Performing Arts Centre S I N G A P O R E |
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RELATED ARTICLES |
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Ioannes Paulus PP. II |
THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread1 and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself2, and he is plaaced in it in order to subdue the earth3. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons... (read more) (long article) |
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GAUDIUM ET SPES |
This mandate concerns the whole of everyday activity as well. For while providing the substance of life for themselves and their families, men and women are performing their activities in a way which appropriately benefits society. They can justly consider that by their labor they are unfolding the Creator's work, consulting the advantages of their brother men, and are contributing by their personal industry to the realization history of the divine plan.(3)
Thus, far from thinking that works produced by man's own talent and energy are in opposition to God's power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design. For the greater man's power becomes, the farther his individual and community responsibility extends. Hence it is clear that men are not deterred by the Christian message from building up the world, or impelled to neglect the welfare of their fellows, but that they are rather more stringently bound to do these very things.(4) 35. Human activity, to be sure, takes its significance from its relationship to man. Just as it proceeds from man, so it is ordered toward man. For when a man works he not only alters things and society, he develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he goes outside of himself and beyond himself. Rightly understood this kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be garnered. A man is more precious for what he is than for what he has.(5) Similarly, all that men do to obtain greater justice, wider brotherhood, a more humane disposition of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances. For these advances can supply the material for human progress, but of themselves alone they can never actually bring it about. Hence, the norm of human activity is this:
that in accord with the divine plan and will,
it harmonize with the genuine good of the
human race, and that it allow men as individuals
and as members of society to pursue their
total vocation and fulfill it. (Read more) (long article) |
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Key Principles of Catholic Social Teaching |
Human Dignity
Belief in the inherent dignity of the human
person is the foundation of all Catholic
Social Teaching. Human life is sacred, and
the dignity of the human person is the starting
point for a moral vision of society.
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Excerpts prepared by Ann Devine, SFO St. Clement of Rome (? - 102 A.D.) First Letter to the Corinthians 33:1-7 What, then shall we do brothers? Shall we slacken from doing good and abandon charity? May the Lord never allow this to happen to us, but let us be diligent to accomplish every good work with earnestness and zeal. Fro the Creator and Lord of the universe Himself takes joy in His works. For in His overwhelming might He has set up the heavens, and by His unsearchable wisdom He has put them in order... and the Lord Himself, adorning Himself with good works, rejoiced. Holding to this pattern, then, let us follow out His will without hesitation; let us do the work of justice with all our strength. 1st Letter to the Corinthians 34:1-2 The good laborer receives the bread of his labor with confidence; the lazy and careless one does not look his employer in the face. We must, therefore, be zealous in doing good; for all things are from Him (God). Ignatius of Antioch (? - 102? A.D.) Letter to Polycarp, 6 Toil and train together, run and suffer together, rest and rise at the same time, as God’s stewards, assistants and servants. Didache (before 120 A.D.) (authorship unknown) Didache 12:3-5 But, if he wishes to settle among you and is a craftsman, let him work and eat. But if he has no trade, provide according to your conscience, so that no Christian shall live among you idle. But if he does not agree to do this, he is trading on the name of Christ; beware of such men. Epistle of Barnabas (100-120 A.D) Epistle of Barnabas LIX, 10 Remember the day of Judgment day and night,
and seek each day the company of the saints,
either laboring by speech, and going out
to exhort, and striving to save souls by
the word or working with you hands for the
ransom for your sins. |
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