Work is so common that it is easy not to think about it . . . other than how to get around it, be treated justly for it, be better remunerated for it, or remunerated at all, in the event of unemployment. Indeed, unemployment has a great deal of our attention now. Pope Francis made everyone’s head turn when he made the startling claim that one of “the most serious evils that afflict the world these days is unemployment.” Was this mere hyperbole? What about the dissolution of the family? The attacks on human life? The loss of the sense of God? And yet, surely the Holy Father is correct in pointing to the fact that work is something essential to the human person, obliging us to ask a more fundamental question: What is work?
It is this question–about the essence, importance, and dignity of man’s vocation to work–that stands at the heart of the first in our four-part series on this theme: “All You Who Labor.”
We invite you to look back at the wisdom of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as the profound lyricism of Charles Péguy in the ReSource treasure trove. Feature articles by D. C. Schindler and Deborah Savage offer sustained reflections on the meaning and the dignity of work, respectively. We also review books by Nicholas Carr, Edward Hadas, David Sax and Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński.
Also not to be missed: recent ArteFact postings address the forgetfulness of our spiritual roots and the destruction this causes, as Michalina Ratajczak reflects on “Reminiscence in the Work of Kazuo Ishiguro” and Mark Thomas reviews the post-Christian action-flick “Logan.”
Read the full issue at the Humanum Review site.
Featured articles include:
D.C. Schindler, “Quaerere Deum: Work as Love of God and World“
Jonathan Elliott, “How Your Moleskine Can Bring Out Your Humanity: Why Matter Matters“
Jakub Grygiel, “Work Is A Form of Prayer: The Thought of Cardinal Wyszyński“