Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

does not make you rich, but hunchbacked.“ The Christian will therefore not give himself up to
any utopia such as Lenin prophesied on May 11, 1920, when he said that in the communist
society of the future happy people would perform their work „without norms, without counting
on pay, without a wage agreement, fully selflessly and out of love for society“ and the
„need for a healthy organism.“ 93 Over against this secularized messianism Leo XIII already in
1891 emphasized that: „Even in the state of innocence men would not have been wholly idle;
but what they would then have chosen freely for the pleasure it gave them became, after the
Fall, some- thing to which necessity compelled them to submit, in painful atonement for their
sin...Anyone who claims to be able to rid the common people to all pain and sorrow and to
bring them peace and life of never-ending pleasure lies outrageously. He sets out a false prospectus
which can lead only to an eruption of evils even greater than those men suffer now“
(Rerum novarum, 15).
6. Work as Expiation.
The Christian teaching on work as penance does not pronounce a curse on work. It was a
curse, when the forced labor of slavery and of concentration camps degraded people and enslaved
them. But these abuses had men, not God, as their cause. It is misleading to read a
curse on work into the third chapter of Genesis, and „misleading to such a high degree“ that
one „should avoid this manner of speaking“; 94 for the curse fell not upon work, but upon the
soil. The drudgery of work is not a curse, but expiation. Whoever bears the hardships in a
Christian way may repeat the words of Paul: „Even now I find joy in the suffering I endure
for you. In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his
body, the church“ (Coll:24).
Pope John Paul II puts the „sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves in the present
condition of the human race“ in the light of the Pascal mystery: „By enduring the toil of work
in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the
redemption of humanity .“ For work has its place „not only in earthly progress but also in the
development of the Kingdom of God.“ 95
7. Work as the Glorification of God
Work as the glorification of God and as preparation for the future „ Freedom of the Children
of God.“ Work is a commission from God and a participation in his work of creation. At the
same time it is related to the salvation; for man's work is also redeemed with him. By shaping
the world „made subject to futility“ by his sin, man establishes a sign of what is to come. He
hears the groaning of creatures suffering with him, but also knows that at the return of the
Lord creation „will be freed from its slavery to corruption to and share in the glorious freedom
of the children of God“ (Rom 8:21-22). Whoever works with this attitude glorifies the
Lord, however difficult his or her work may be. The harshness and inexorability of social and
economic conditions entail the fact that not everybody will find a profession that corresponds
to his or her inclinations and abilities in every way. Many will have to put up with a so-called
compulsory profession. For the Christian, however, who believes in God's loving providence,
every profession is a call of God, whether it is an important or a subordinate one, whether it
corresponds to our inclinations or lies upon us like a cross. God calls man not only through
what he gives him (dispositions, aptitudes, abilities, inclinations), but also through what he
sends him (sickness, the consequences of war, adverse economic and social conditions etc.)
„Whatever you do, whether in speech or in action, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Give
thanks to God the Father through him“ (Col 3: 17).
93 Lenin, Ausgewählte Werke (Moscow, 1947),11:667.
94 O von Ne11-Breuning, Wörterbuch der Politik (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1949), m:121
95 Laborem exercens, 27.
76