Monthly Masterpiece - November
Sacred art can help us to contemplate the mysteries of our faith.
Every month we will look at a different image and the mystery it represents.
Every month we will look at a different image and the mystery it represents.
|
|
In the Genesis account, work may appear as a curse:
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field (Gen. 3:17-18).
However, in his Encyclical Laborem exercens[1] (1981) Pope John Paul II brings out that work itself was indeed part of the divine plan from even before the Fall: the mission to dominate and subject the earth was a free and happy participation in the creative work of God, and even a share in his lordship. It was following on from sin, that work then became a task that was painful and necessary to nourish all the members of the family. But with Jesus, the “son of the carpenter”, work regained its dignity, and Joseph is henceforth the model worker. Marie Thérèse de Ruffray
[1] Encyclical On Human Work published 14 Septembre 1981 on 90th anniverary of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum Pope Léon XIII.
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field (Gen. 3:17-18).
However, in his Encyclical Laborem exercens[1] (1981) Pope John Paul II brings out that work itself was indeed part of the divine plan from even before the Fall: the mission to dominate and subject the earth was a free and happy participation in the creative work of God, and even a share in his lordship. It was following on from sin, that work then became a task that was painful and necessary to nourish all the members of the family. But with Jesus, the “son of the carpenter”, work regained its dignity, and Joseph is henceforth the model worker. Marie Thérèse de Ruffray
[1] Encyclical On Human Work published 14 Septembre 1981 on 90th anniverary of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum Pope Léon XIII.
|
|
To see past editions of Monthly Masterpiece, view the Archives:
|