513. What is the meaning of work?

Work is both a duty and a right through which human beings collaborate with God the Creator. Indeed, by working with commitment and competence we fulfil the potential inscribed in our nature, honor the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him, provide for ourselves and for our families, and serve the human community. Furthermore, by the grace of God, work can be a means of sanctification and collaboration with Christ for the salvation of others.


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Paragraph 2426

2426. The development of economic activity and growth in production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. Economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power; it is ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community. Economic activity, conducted according to its own proper methods, is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order, in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God's plan for man.208

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2427. Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another.209 Hence work is a duty: "If any one will not work, let him not eat."210 Work honors the Creator's gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work211 in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish.212 Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.

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2428. In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. the primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work.213

Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community.


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