(Photo by Bruna Fossile)
Mircea Eliade, in his great work The Sacred and the Profane, says that the traditional man (called by him in the book of religious man) uses myth as a way of sacralizing all his daily actions. Thus, everything he does refers to the divine: his entire life unfolds with his gaze on the heavens.
In the work, Eliade mentions, for example, agricultural activities, rites of passage, among a series of other daily acts. And ancient literature confirms this: in Work and Days, by Hesiod (dating from Ancient Greece), the author talks about agriculture and its relationship with the gods.
In Christianity, this relationship continued: the faithful interpreted socioeconomic changes in the light of the Christian faith and sought to sacralize economic and work relations. The last scholastics already theorized about the nature of money and value, something that would influence later economic discussions.
Starting with Pope Leo XIII (19th century), this concern became a subject officially addressed by the Church’s magisterium through the Social Doctrine of the Church: now, the pope and the bishops published documents with guidelines regarding labor relations, role of government in society and the dangers of social ideologies.
However, in an increasingly secularized world, the spiritual dimension of work is being lost and we begin to see life more and more as just a succession of disconnected facts and disconnected from any type of sacredness.
The point is that there is no vacuum in power: if religious and transcendental acts lose space, something takes their place. With the loss of the transcendent, only the immanent, the material, remained.
Therefore, in contemporary society, we see certain rituals linked to work gaining a status of transcendence: the first job, buying your own house, passing a good college and others become a kind of time frame, just as in ancient societies there were rites of passage, religious festivals, etc.
Precisely because of this secularization, people began to see the material world as an end in itself: instead of using money for the good of their family and community, achieving a good position at work and having social status became the ultimate objective. of many people.
Counterbalancing this, however, we are seeing a trend towards the sacralization of work coming through a Catholic initiative that has grown increasingly in recent decades: Opus Dei.
Opus Dei is a Catholic organization whose founder is Saint Josemaría Escrivá. This organization preaches sanctification through work and small daily tasks. The group’s emphasis is not on great martyrdoms or ascetic practices, but on routine and consistent faith through small acts that, little by little, bring the believer closer to God.
It seems to me that what made possible the development of this everyday spirituality, so to speak, were two developments in the Catholic faith: First, the publication of spiritual books for lay people, such as Filoteia, by S. Francis of Sales. Secondly, the little way, by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who promotes precisely a small and simple path, of sanctification of simple things.
It is curious to see the popularization of a new theology in real time. I imagine it will grow more and more and become the standard way of experiencing work for Christians. Let’s see how this plays out.
Some Marxists may claim that everything I’m talking about is just a strategy by the great elites to manipulate society through religion, making people conform to strenuous work and being oppressed without question.
Responding to this, I suggest the document In Plurimis, by Pope Leo XIII, which shows how Christianity has always changed the reality around it for the better – without needing to use revolutions to do so. Eventually I will write a text on this subject.
Recommended books:
The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade
The Forge and the Crucible, Mircea Eliade
Works and Days, Hesiod
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas Woods Jr. (Cap. 8)
The Way, S Josemaria Escrivá
In Conversation with God, Francisco Fernández-Carvajal
Introduction to the Devout life, S Francis of Sales
Story of a Soul, S Thérèse of Lisieux
Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII
In Plurimis, Leo XIII