WELFARE AND THE GRACE OF WORK

800 years ago, in 1212, a beautiful girl named Clare in  Assisi, Italy renounced her nobility and riches and became a follower of a young man named Francis in that city.

He preached a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience to God, and Clare bought it to the extent that she abandoned her luxurious home, permitted him to shear her golden hair, and became his disciple. Sufficiently convinced was she that she recruited several of her aristocratic girlfriends and her sister.

Clare instituted an order of nuns still known today as the Poor Clares, many of whose monasteries continue to adhere to the ancient, ascetic, and simple Rule she promulgated.

Chapter 7 of that document reads, "Let the sisters to whom the Lord has given the grace of working, work faithfully while they banish idleness, the enemy of the soul." If that does not betray her sentiment clearly, consider this admonition to her group from the woman that would become St. Clare; "Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy face." In any monastery WORK is a daily and integral ingredient of the inhabitants' lives.

This is not about Catholicism, Monasticism, or Asceticism, but if you wish to read about the remarkable lives these women lead, look on the web and find the Poor Clares of Roswell, New Mexico.

Another interesting concept is the Comunita Cenacolo, a worldwide system of homes that have become famous for curing drug addicts. Of course, residents, all voluntary, receive healthy doses of religion, but the sole physical therapy is WORK. A person spends three years of hard WORK, as, for example, buiding the very facility where he or she will live, and is practically guaranteed a cure.

With all the beneficent gifts flowing from work, why does this government subsidize able-bodied people and, besides copulation and the procreation of new generations of worthless dregs, obtain no work from them in return ?

Keep in mind
1. The Grace of Work
2. Idleness, the Enemy of the Soul

Why doesn't SOME politician SOMEWHERE have the fortitude to leap up and shout, "THIS IS THE END OF THE BLOODY GIVE-AWAYS THAT HAVE BEEN BANKRUPTING THIS COUNTRY FOR DECADES!"

Why doesn't one, huh?