Wisdom about Work from Archbishop Chaput

by Randy Hain | June 29, 2010 1:00 pm

We’re often schizophrenic about our work.  We tend to define who we are by what we do; yet we also[1] imagine our working lives as something completely distinct from who we are.  Work is where we play life’s game by a different set of rules, which have little to do with what we really value.  The shop is usually the first place where we leave our faith at the door.  A reporter once asked a prominent Catholic businessman about the moral implications of closing down a plant and putting people out of work.  ‘That’s business,’ he shrugged.  ‘It has nothing to do with my religion.’

All of us share that attitude from time to time.  We take our work, box it up, and put it in a corner.  We rarely perceive our work as playing any major role in our spiritual lives or in our responsibilities as members of the body of Christ.  Yet most of our waking moments are spent on the job, and if our faith doesn’t apply there, it can’t have much practical effect on our lives. – Archbishop Charles Chaput, Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics

Source URL: https://integratedcatholiclife.org/2010/06/wisdom-about-work-from-archbishop-chaput/

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