After last week's catechesis on celebrations in family life, the Pope, at the General Audience on 19 August, spoke about work. "When work is detached from God's covenant with man and woman, when it is separated from their spiritual qualities, when it becomes the hostage of the logic of profit and disdains life's affections, the soul's debasement―he said―contaminates everything: even the air, the water, the grass, the food... Civil life is corrupt and habitat damaged. The consequences affect mainly the poor and the poorest families."
In the face of a "modern organization," there is "sometimes a dangerous tendency to consider the family a burden, a weight, a liability for labor productivity. However, let us ask ourselves: what productivity? and for whom? The so-called 'smart city' is undeniably rich in services and organization; yet, for example, it is often hostile to children and the elderly. Sometimes the planner is interested in managing an individual labor-force that can be assembled and used or discard according to economic convenience. The family is a great test. When the organization of work holds it hostage, or even obstructs the path, then we are sure that human society has begun working against itself."
According to Pope Francis, "work is sacred; it gives dignity to a family; and we pray that work is not lacking in any family." Now, Christian families "receive from this situation a great challenge and a great mission. They bring into the field the fundamentals of God's creation: the identity and the bond between man and woman, the generation of children, the work that makes the earth a home and the world inhabitable. The loss of these fundamentals is a very serious matter; and, in the common house, there are already too many cracks! The task―said Francis―is not easy. Sometimes, family associations may have the impression of being like David facing Goliath... but we know how that challenge ended! This takes faith and cunning. May God grant us to receive with joy and hope His call in this difficult moment of our history, the call to work in order to give dignity to ourselves and to our family."
