Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
‘Work Is A Good Thing For Man’
‘Work Is A Good Thing For Man’
Apr 1, 2025 9:41 PM

I was transfixed by this video the other day. The simplicity of the video itself, the careful, skillful work, the lovely hands of a master at work – all brought to mind the goodness of work and creation that God granted to us. St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Laborem Exercens (On Human Work) says this:

It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. If one wishes to define more clearly the ethical meaning of work, it is this truth that one must particularly keep in mind. 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 fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, es “more a human being”.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Tom Wolfe and the Strangeness of America
A new documentary about the parable novelist and social critic demonstrates, however unintentionally, why we’ll probably never see the likes of Wolfe again. Read More… Conservatism doesn’t really produce or nurture writers nowadays. The notable exception in the past couple of generations is Tom Wolfe, who died in 2018. Wolfe was universally beloved. He sold millions of copies of his various writings. Wolfe had a distinctive Southern-gentleman plete with “trademark white suit and vest, a high-necked blue-and-white-striped plemented by a...
Questioning Science after Darwin
David Berlinski has been provoking debate on a variety of subjects for decades. His new book is a sampler of his challenges to Darwinism, materialism, and the hubris of scientism. Read More… I can find no better way to summarize David Berlinski’s book Science After Babel than to say that it is classic Berlinski. The man himself defies a simple summary. He is a polymath and raconteur, as even his bio at the panying website explains. His Ph.D. in philosophy...
The Constitution of the Fifth Republic at 65
Have the tensions between individual freedom of conscience and the principle of laïcité finally reached the breaking point? Read More… Nearly 20 people were killed in Paris during and immediately following the Islamist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. Then, in November of that same year, terrorists killed 130 and injured hundreds more in a series of coordinated attacks across Paris that included suicide bombers detonating explosives outside the Stade de France, indiscriminate shootings at crowded restaurants,...
Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller: Computer Programming Innovator
Early in puting revolution, a Roman Catholic nun trudged away to make information retrieval available to all, proving that one hidden life can have many extraordinary public effects. Read More… Emerging from the vibrant and innovative postwar years, the nascent discipline puter science in America was attracting top talent in mathematics, engineering, putational linguistics. Several schools were creating puter science” programs by the 1950s and early ’60s. In fact, the first ever doctoral degrees in this emerging discipline were awarded...
Are We Free to Think About Free Will?
Are we predestined to debate the free will vs. determinism question forever? Or can we shed light on the nature of the human person such that this vexing question of why we do what we can finally be answered? Read More… Does God exist, or are we the mere by-products of evolution, simple accidents of the Big Bang? Do we have free will, or is everything predetermined, robbing us of true moral agency? A recent book by philosopher Paul Herrick,...
The Strange Death of DEI
More Americans than you think support training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And why are more and more corporations looking beyond it? Read More… Once considered the highest rising feature of America’s business spaces, the cliffs of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are slowly eroding under the reliable and unrelenting tide of American apathy. Fewer and fewer businesses are seeking to hire a chief diversity officer, and those who manage to get hired are finding their jobs often paired...
Willmoore Kendall and the Meaning of American Conservatism
Less well-known than Kirk and Buckley, the pugnacious and discerning Kendall is nevertheless a voice that needs to be revived in the present fractious moment. Read More… In our moment, the nature and meaning of conservatism is disputed, sometimes hotly, and it’s unsurprising to observe participants turn to history for wisdom or support. Either in praise or vilification, current schools frequently mention John Courtney Murray, Russell Kirk, Frank Meyer, Irving Kristol, and William F. Buckley (obviously), among others. The appropriation...
Laudate Deum: Or, Is the Catholic Church Just Another NGO?
Is there a way to balance economic growth and sound environmental stewardship? If only Pope Francis would take his own advice. Read More… If there is anything we have learned about Pope mentaries on issues ranging from economics to the environment, it is that they invariably add up to a by-now predictable mixture. Parts of this mélange consist of often profound insights and wisdom. But it also reflects straw man arguments, the random assembling of pieces of data plucked out...
The Right’s Racial Suicide
Did conservatives betray their ideals? Or were they never ideal to begin with? Read More… “To be conservative,” wrote Michael Oakeshott, “is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery.” His definition of conservatism, not as a set of policy aspirations but as a deeper sensibility, explains the conservative respect for tradition and view of history as a source of norms—that’s the positive side. The negative side is that there are...
No, Chicago, We Don’t Need Government-Run Grocery Stores
After Walmart shuttered locations due to rising crime, the mayor of Chicago decided the answer was to … open their own grocery stores. What could go wrong? Read More… The city of Chicago is plagued by waves of violence, looting, and plunder dating back to 2020, which was deemed “the summer of looting” by the Chicago Tribune, spurred by the murder of George Floyd while in police custody amid COVID lockdowns. That summer, the Chicago police superintendent called for longer...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved