The object of work is similar to the object of playing golf. Who is happier at the end of a round of golf: the person who hit the ball 100 times or the one who only hit it 85 times? We all know the answer. The object of golf is to get to the clubhouse having played the fewest strokes one can. The person who took the fewest strokes is the happier golfer.

So, the object of golf is to play less golf. This is how work is like golf. Put simply, the highest object of work is not to work. Rather, the purpose of work is
to provide for the leisure for which we are created. We see this both in the structure and text of the first creation account in Genesis. “Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken” (Gen. 2:2). Of course, God does not need rest. Rather, his purpose is to demonstrate that work, while natural and good, points beyond itself to something higher. “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation” (Gen. 2:3). Thus, God later instructed Israel through Moses, “Remember to keep holy the sabbath [Hebrew: “rest”] day.”

While leisure from work may have the incidental effect of allowing us to return to work refreshed and reinvigorated, that is not its purpose. Sabbath rest is not merely a utilitarian function of work itself. As Catholic philosopher Joseph Pieper notes in his landmark book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, “Leisure does not exist for the sake of work—however much strength it may give a man to work; the point of leisure is not to be a restorative, a pick-me-up, whether mental or physical; and though it gives new strength, mentally and physically, and spiritually, too, that is not the point.”

Rather, Pieper established the principle that work points beyond itself to rest as a higher good. Important as work is, it is not an end in itself. Its purpose is to create the conditions that allow us not to work; to take a substantive break from work to pursue higher things. Of course, the immediate purpose of “the
sabbath” is to rest from work for the purpose of worshiping God. To give God the worship he is due, we must be free from the constraint, rigor, and distraction
of working.

But the sabbath rest is actually broader than worship. Worship of God is the highest form of that contemplation, but it is not the only form. The enjoyment of
art, music, family, sport, cinema, reading, civic and social engagement, travel, and a host of other goods are also aspects of the human capacity for transcendent contemplation and the need to fulfill it. We must have the time and means to pause from work so that we may seek those nonmaterial goods which are unique to the human creature. Work serves the purpose of providing time for leisure.

“Leisure, like contemplation, is of a higher order” than work, explains Pieper. It is meant in the sense of being “ordered toward” something by nature or supernature. Thus, Pieper continues, “order, in this sense, cannot be overturned or reversed…. [N]o one who looks to leisure simply to restore his working powers will ever discover the fruit of leisure.” The purpose of leisure is to pursue the higher goods, rooted in the transcendent nature of human dignity, that contribute to human flourishing. Leisure from work is not ordered toward working more, but rather toward the higher goods unique to the human person, made in the image and likeness of God. Leisure is the time and capacity to cultivate the human soul in all its transcendent goodness.

Leisure is for the fulfillment and flourishing of the human person; work is for the purpose of creating the time and means for that leisure. Therefore, the higher purpose of work is not the product made or the service provided, but rather the person who provides the good or service. This introduces the important distinction between the “subjective” and “objective” dimensions of work. The “objective” nature of work is the product or service produced in any particular job or vocation. The object serves the other.

But the deeper dimension of labor is the “subjective” nature of work. This is the dimension of work that focuses on the worker, herself. Work provides sustenance for the worker. But it also provides a sense of self- worth, accomplishment, and well-being. And again, the subjective purpose of work encompasses the leisure that work “purchases” so that the worker has the ability to achieve his God-intended purpose of worship, the ultimate sabbath rest. Like golf, the purpose of work is to work less.

Dr. Kenneth Craycraft, [email protected].  holds the James J. Gardner Chair of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology. He is the author of Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America.

This article appeared in the May 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here