Holy Work

Extract

To say that Dom Rembert Sorg's Holy Work disappoints the hopes it arouses, is not to deny that it was an essay well worth writing. It attempts to show the relevance of the monastic tradition concerning manual labour not only for the rejuvenation of the monastic life itself but also for the solution of the problems of Christian labour in a pagan society. Let it be said at once that its claim to present a theological rather than an historical justification of its approach is somewhat exaggerated. It assembles a number of reflections which have a theological bearing, but they are not built into a cumulative and cogent argument, a weakness which reveals itself clearly in the important final chapter on the laity. To those not already favour. ably disposed to the author's thesis, its presentation will seem uncomfortably divided between two methods, neither of which is adequately used for it dispenses with a detailed historical treatment without compensating for it by a sufficiently judicious theoretical one.