Apr 3, 2024
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What does Catholic morality teach about the seventh commandment and the meaning of human work?
I am a graduate student at the beginning of my career. In the context of schooling, I am studying for a Master of Arts in theology. In the context of work, I provide care at a residential mental health facility for women. For the first time in my life, I am making a definitive and long-term dedication to the work I do. The current period is different from my undergraduate studies in that I could easily change course in the direction I wanted to go (case in point: I changed one of my majors from Psychology to Biochemistry, and back again). As a graduate student, my work counts toward only my program. As a Mental Health Technician, the quality and consistency of the work I do in my one position reflects my competence and current abilities in the mental health field.
Saint John Paul II describes work as “a fundamental dimension of man's existence on earth” in his work Laborem Exercens (LE no. 4). The Father provided the seventh commandment, “you shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), to guide this integral part of human existence. In this blog post, I will explore three aspects of the seventh commandment and work: first, the connection between the two, second, the inherent inclination and duty to fulfill the commandment through work, and third, the benefits of fulfilling the seventh commandment through work, for the person and for people as a group.
How does the seventh commandment apply to work?
The seventh commandment, “you shall not steal,” concerns the distribution and possession of goods. Negatively worded (in terms of “what not to do”), the seventh commandment “forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one’s neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods” (CCC 2401). Positively worded (in terms of “what to do”), the seventh commandment “commands justice and charity in the case of earthly goods and the fruits of men’s labor” (CCC 2401). The different aspects of this commandment reveal different ways in which the commandment relates to work.
The negative sense of the commandment prohibits impeding someone else’s acquisition of goods through the process of work. The Catechism explains that “unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment” (CCC 2409). The property of others include the money and goods gained through work: for instance, one’s due wages or the goods that someone produces. Therefore, by the seventh commandment, actions like withholding just pay for one’s employees would be forbidden. This commandment does not only apply to the employer. Employees can also break the commandment by misusing the goods of an enterprise or by doing one’s work poorly, thus affecting the success of the company and of one’s coworkers.
The positive sense of the commandment, in contrast, mandates that the virtues of justice and charity guide helping one’s neighbor have access to what he or she has earned through labor. Justice relates to the seventh commandment in that one should be given access to his or her due wages. Making the active choice to provide fair wages to one’s employees, even when one has the option not to do so, is an example of living out the commandment in a positive sense. For the employee, using the goods of one’s trade to work wisely and efficiently would help one to keep the seventh commandment. These examples illustrate that the “spirit” of the law behind not stealing is comprised of love of G-d, respect and charity for created goods, and respect and charity for one’s partners in work.
Work is humanity’s natural duty.
Each person has a natural inclination and duty to work. Humanity is an industrious and resourceful species. One avenue of human fulfillment is the work that one completes. While “work is for man, not man for work” (CCC 2428), the desire that a person has to contribute to society and the pride one feels in a job well done attest to the inherent desire for work present in each person. The idea that work exists for the fulfillment of man explains how the economic life “is ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community” (CCC 2426).
Someone can observe the human inclination to work by spending time with children. Children are wired to create and to work. Pretend play, in which a child acts like a baker, construction worker, or a doctor, is practically synonymous with the childhood experience. Outside of play, children want to contribute to a job well done. Their curiosity inclines them to offer help with cooking, shopping, and chores. If this desire is fostered rather than diminished by the adults in one’s life, then children experience a natural progression of complexity in the work assigned to them by the adults in their life, until they transition into the world of adult work. My parents trusted me to do tasks like cooking and cleaning when I was younger. It fostered a sense of satisfaction and independence in how I approach work, and now, I look forward to each workday because it means another chance to do my job well and to contribute meaningfully to the lives of others.
While work is humanity’s natural duty, achieving satisfaction of that duty looks different for each individual, and even for the same individual in different contexts. When I was younger, my “work” was schoolwork and rehabilitation activities, depending on the time of my life being discussed. Now, my “work” involves helping women with mental troubles and teaching them about the aspects of living a healthy life. For the cognitively disabled individual, “work” may look like completing a job with accommodations. I have a wool sheep figurine on my dresser that I bought in Israel and that was made by an individual in a L’Arche community. It is a cute figurine, and I hope the person who made it takes pride in his or her job well done. The common thread that runs through these experiences is having a task accomplished, a task in which one can take confidence. Having the bravery and knowledge to complete these tasks is commendable. As we see in the next sections,
Work is beneficial for the individual and society.
Work benefits individuals in a constant way in that it fits with the stable dignity of the person. Saint John Paul II describes work as “a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it” (LE no. 9). I hope it is self-evident that each person has inherent dignity that neither people nor experiences can diminish. Work serves to amplify this dignity because, when someone completes work, that shows the person acting in the dignity with which he or she was created. As a trait unique to humans, the person completed work.
Work also benefits individuals in a particular way in that it can exist in coordination with one’s redemption. According to the Catechism, “Work . . . can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, . . . man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of [G-d] in his redemptive work” (CCC 2427). Jesus redeemed humanity through his suffering, death, and Resurrection. One can unite the toil of one’s work to Christ’s Passion in order that it could act for one’s redemption, in the temporal sense as well as in the eternal sense. The experience of work, again, whatever “work” means for us, makes us better people: more patient, more disciplined, and more skilled.
Finally, work helps more than the person. It also helps people, as a group, by impelling societies to grow in justice. As Jared Dees shares in “The Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching,” “work is the way that we participate in [G-d’s] creation. To protect the dignity of work, we must protect the basic rights of all people to find jobs that pay a just wage, to organize and join unions, and to own private property (The Religion Teacher, “The Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching”). Societies function through the work of its members. This work occurs smoothly, thus helping society to function smoothly, when justice, charity, and truth guide the relationships and tasks of both employers and employees. When individuals contribute to the justice of work in a society, the society improves as a result. The difference begins with the individual.
Conclusion
The seventh commandment instructs us about the use and possession of created goods. In its forbiddance of the unwise or unjust use of goods in one’s approach to work, it encourages individuals and societies to approach work and the distribution of goods with the virtues of justice and charity. Humans are naturally inclined to work. Although this “work” looks different depending on individual abilities and needs, one can easily say it is natural and good to take confidence in a job well done. Work benefits individuals by corresponding with human dignity and helping humans to play a part in their own redemption. The work of virtuous individuals helps societies by moving them to flourish in justice and charity.
As I come to the end of my Moral Theology course, I can say confidently that I take confidence in doing this job well. I received the right instruction and tools, and I know that I completed the course work to the best of my ability. I feel that completing this course has made me a more virtuous person through allowing me to learn more about moral theology, but also through prompting me to test my comfort and boundaries in expressing myself. I know that this satisfaction is the satisfaction I want to feel as I move on to complete other work in my life.
Bibliography
Dees, Jared. “Video: The Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching.” The Religion Teacher. May 15, 2017. https://www.thereligionteacher.com/principles-catholic-social-teaching/.
John Paul II. Laborem Exercens. September 14, 1981. The Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens.html.
Me: I’m a virgin.
Pervert: Come on, I’ll get you a hooker.
Me: I’m OK with being a virgin, and my body belongs to my future wife.
Pervert: Wait, you mean like, you’re going to practice BDSM with her?
Me:
Q.72. What is forbidden in the seventh commandment?
A. The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
Ex. 20:14 "You shall not commit adultery."
Mt. 5:28 "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Co. 4:6 "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."
Ep. 5:3-4 "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving."
2 Ti. 2:22 "So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."
Seventh Commandment (5/5)
It must be admitted that our society rather encourages the vices that lead to adultery.
Consider the romantic lie, fostered by many magazines and films and radio programs, that love in the erotic sense is the real meaning of life; that its presence guarantees an effortless and unending happiness; and that its absence means that your marriage is over.
Consider the sexual confusion which permits a terrified prudery to rear many of our young people knowing no more of mating than that it is "not nice" - and which combines this ignorance with the constant erotic incitements of our advertising and entertainment.
C. S. Lewis again: "We grow up surrounded by propaganda in favour of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales resistance."
-Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain
Seventh Commandment (4/5)
Even the disciples were appalled. Even Paul was afraid; the real point of his famous "Better to marry than to burn!" passage is that marriage may be no sin but it's certainly a mess of trouble. Elsewhere he exalted wedlock in terms that established it as holy, yet his fear is more remembered than his love. For a moment, however, the Christian world did accept in its full austerity and its full glory our Lord's doctrine of marriage.
Only for a moment. Human weakness and human necessity combined to demand modifications. The historian Gibbon remarks, "The ambiguous word that contains the precept of Christ is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislature can demand."
Yes, and flexible also to any interpretation that our folly, our sins, and our bad habits can demand.
-Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain
Seventh Commandment (3/5)
In much of the Orient, even into modern times, you could have innumerable wives and mistreat them in innumerable ways; you could throw out any woman you got tired of; you could visit a harlot and feel no guilt, since no man suffered a property loss thereby. All around little Judea, the Orient rioted and wantoned, nor was Judea itself (for all its intense interest in God) particularly strict in its sexual behavior.
The Testaments tell us a good deal about that. However ready to stone a woman taken in adultery, the men of the time seem to have taken their own freedom for granted.
It was this male self-satisfaction which Christ attacked by defining lust as a certain view of women rather than as a certain act -"Whoseover looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
The naïve and the prudish have sometimes thought he meant that all erotic desire was bad in itself. To this let his own words answer - the famous words that call a man and his wife one flesh....
With that particular command, the old half-slavish status of women vanished, and a new concept of womanhood and wife-hood came into the world. Every statement our Lord made about sexuality works to protect women and to awaken men to their own responsibilities...
Perhaps that, in itself, is enough to prove him more than man. For throughout history even the best of men have usually sought to shift the blame for their sexual weaknesses to the women. "The woman tempted me and I did eat!" cried the father of the tribe, and "The woman tempted me " has been the cry ever since.
-Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain