[Life4seekers - click here to return to the homepage]
 

life4seekers homepage - lifestyle & values - Personal - Work
Image of Tillie, your guide for this section

I believe work is crucial to personal fulfilment and we and it can make a positive contribution to society. Whatever we do, from the highest paid job to the lowest, our work affects the world and the people around us. It can help foster within us a sense of self-worth and fulfilment, whether we are bankers or cleaners, and also helps to give us a sense of purpose in life.
Tillie

There are some jobs that I would find it difficult to take. My Catholic values would prohibit me from working for a weapons factory that produces arms to service a dictatorship, for example. I'd also find it hard to be the manager of a sweatshop. I'd want employees to have a wage which gave them enough to live on, and good working conditions to ensure that the basic needs of the workforce were being met.
Pause for thought - Image of Asian children living on the street

What jobs would you do or not do?

 

What about if you desperately needed to support your family, might you be willing to compromise?

On a spiritual level, Catholics believe that just as God created the world at the beginning of time, through daily work in the here and now, human beings share in this on-going creative process. Our work is bound up with, what's called, "our calling" or "vocation" in life, be we full time Mums or shop keepers. See www.ukvocation.org.
 
Image of a man writing and using a laptop
 

"The greatest of work is inside man."
Pope John Paul II, Pan Dictionary of Religious Quotations, pg. 453.

  
 

"Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock."
Pablo Picasso, taken from www.quoteland.com

  
Arrow

The bottom line is that my Catholic faith gives me the conviction I need to put my beliefs into practice. My values and respect for the needs of others, mean that the choices I make, regarding work, are essentially rooted in something life giving and positive.
[Read on? Books/links - Click here for more] Life4seekers open door

Lifestyles & values:

Work.
Life4seekers response

Your guide for this section is Tillie. She is 22, and lives in Leeds. Click here to read her story.
This is a website of the Catholic Enquiry Office; part of an Agency of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.
 

 

^^ back to top

Our place in this world | A place for God in our world? | Lifestyle & values | Our club & community | Spirituality & prayer | Channelling

Life4seekers highlights: what's the meaning of life? | The Passion | spirituality & prayer | guides and seekers stories

life4seekers homepage | frequently asked questions | downloads | find out more about the Catholic Enquiry Office | website designed by IMDC