Monthly Social Conference/IAJP and CBI: The Spirituality of Work as a Sign of Faith Lived in Truth

The Institute of Artisans of Justice and Peace (Iajp) organized, in partnership with Coris Bank International (Cbi), its seventh monthly social conference for the year 2022. Led by the Reverend Father Charlemagne Koudhorot, the meeting took place held at Chant d’Oiseau, in Cotonou.

The seventh monthly social conference of the Institute of Artisans of Justice and Peace (Iajp) and Coris Bank International (Cbi) focuses on the theme: “The spirituality of work: a sign of faith lived in truth”.

To dissect the theme, the speaker, the Reverend Father Charlemagne Koudhorot, gave a panoramic view of human work in the Beninese context and of work in the light of the wisdom of biblical stories and finally laid the groundwork for a spirituality of work.

For the speaker, the spirituality of work, in the Beninese context, must take into account the phenomenon of cybercrime, with its considerations of maraboutage, or fetishism, which carry it, but also child or sex work, and other social categories of work. All this carried, he maintains, by a cultural state of mind, “which inoculates in us, a certain laziness, or a parasitism or even a fatalism”. And in the Beninese context, pollution, climate change, the water issue, the loss of biodiversity, the deterioration of the quality of human life and social degradation, planetary inequality, the weakness of reactions, diversity opinions, low pay, unemployment, underemployment, lack of political will, lack of vacation time, the dehumanization of certain jobs, the absence of strikes or trade unionism, the increase in taxation at the level wages, the absence of teamwork, are the obstacles identified by the Father, to the realization of the divine vow to make human work, an epiphanization of God and a source of sanctification. This, however, does not prevent, according to him, the relevance of the socio-anthropological data of work, marked by a certain self-esteem, for a job well done and well finalized; the social integration of men; work as transformation of the world, objectification of intelligence and production of subjectivity and work as an assumption of human nature.

According to the speaker, in the book of genesis, God presents himself as a craftsman, architect, worker, and the source par excellence of work. Creation is an activity of love and all human work participates in the loving work of God, he said. In this way, he recognizes, human existence then rests on the relationship with God, with neighbor, with nature. The spirituality of work, a sign of faith lived in truth, thus insinuates for him, that the work which elevates man and realizes him, can only take into account the whole man in order to develop him fully.

For a spirituality of work

Any spirituality of work must allow man to realize himself through his work, while respecting his dignity, the speaker pointed out. According to him, thanks to work, man must be able to multiply on earth the fruits of his activity, his dignity, his communion with his brothers in humanity, his freedom. “We thus understand that our spirituality of work cannot in any case forget God, at the risk of arrogating to us the place of God, of deifying ourselves, of imposing our own laws and interests on reality”, underlines t- he. The Reverend Father Charlemagne Koudhorot therefore proposes “a mystique that animates everything that we have deep within ourselves, without disconnecting our spirituality from the reality experienced daily”.

Thomas AZANMASSO