The Altar of Work

Matted size: 11 x 14
Mat color: Cream
Price: $185.00

This museum print is a limited edition, archival print that is hand gilded with genuine 23k gold, signed by the artist and comes with a certificate of authenticity.

Here, in this scene Here, in this scene, John Paul II kneels at his desk which is his “altar of work”. He is writing the encyclical, Laborem Exercens. Meditating on the New Testament’s, “Gospel of Work”*, he places himself in the workshop at Nazareth, where Joseph the carpenter is busy at his altar of work... the workbench. Beneath the workbench, among the scraps of wood shavings are two Golden Retrievers; “Work”, says the pope, “is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activities for sustaining their lives cannot be called work.”* Joseph, along with the child Jesus, are completing the magnificent oak structure they have crafted from a single oak tree. The oak is a Christian symbol of “longevity, enduring relationships and firmness and faith in God.”*
Atop the structure, oak foliage flourishes, and from it, the fruit of the oak, the acorn. The acorn is a symbol of Christ as “the shell represents his flesh, the cap of wood, the cross, and the inner kernel, his hidden divinity.**

The elaborate oak structure encases the scene of St. Francis before the Cross of San Damiano. He is holding a staff made of oak with three gilded oak leaves. In this scene are two other altars of work; the pulpit of the cross from which Christ continues his saving work in the church, as his voice commands Francis to, “rebuild my church which as you see is in ruins.”, and the actual physical structure which Francis repairs. The absence of the tabernacle and the fallen chalice represent the state of spiritual disrepair in the church today.

On the right side of the oak structure, between the spirals is an acorn nestled in a heart-shaped lattice surrounded by the tall spirals; the “city of God” in the third millennium, in which God and man coexist and all places of work can become altars of work.

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* “laborem excercens”
** “laborem exercens”
** “A Handbook of Symbols in Christian Art”, Gertrude Grace Still

The Altar of Work $185.00
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