CSDC 266

By his work and industriousness, man — who has a share in the divine art and wisdom — makes creation, the cosmos already ordered by the Father, more beautiful⁵⁸⁰ Cf. Saint Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 5, 32, 2: PL 7, 1210-1211PL — Patrologia Latina (Migne).. He summons the social and community energies that increase the common good⁵⁸¹ Cf. Theodoret of Cyr, On Providence, Orationes 5-7: PG 83, 625-686PG — Patrologia Graeca (Migne)., above all to the benefit of those who are neediest. Human work, directed to charity as its final goal, becomes an occasion for contemplation, it becomes devout prayer, vigilantly rising towards and in anxious hope of the day that will not end. “In this superior vision, work, a punishment and at the same time a reward of human activity, involves another relationship, the essentially religious one, which has been happily expressed in the Benedictine formula: ora et labora! The religious fact confers on human work an enlivening and redeeming spirituality. Such a connection between work and religion reflects the mysterious but real alliance, which intervenes between human action and the providential action of God”⁵⁸² John Paul II, Address during his Pastoral Visit to Pomezia, Italy (14 September 1979), 3: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 1 October 1979, p. 4..