Mission & Values
Abbey Agriculture & Trade exists to incarnate Church of the Lamb’s values by creating good work, producing well-crafted products, paying just wages, and fostering the development of Rockingham Abbey and her missions of mercy, benevolence, and hospitality.
“their prayer is in the practice of their trade.”
Common Good:
Good work, properly remunerated, leads to the flourishing of the communty.
Good work supports charity and benevolence ( “in order to have enough to help the needy… it is clear that we must work diligently… so that through us God may provide enough for our weaker brothers and sisters” (work and helping the needy).”
“Works of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship” (works of mercy as sign of true worship).
A vibrant local economy full of good things for humans to use and enjoy.
Dignified Work
Dignfied work: essential to human flourishing, respects the needs of the worker, imitation of divine creativity toward the products of that which is Good, which ennobles and provides for the common good.
Crafted Products
Crafted Products: real products, artfully crafted, which respect the objective natures of the thing crafted, oriented toward the proper end of a flourishing human
Just Wages
Just Wages: compensate that meets or exceeds the needs of an industrious person, sufficient for the provision for a family, based upon a healthy ratio of work to rest, not harmful to health or moral integrity of the worker, and completed with social protections for the workers.
“wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well‑behaved wage-earner” (natural justice and wages).
Good work respects rights and conditions that safeguard that dignity: proper remuneration (“just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family”), the right to rest (“the right to rest”), social protections like pensions and insurance (“the right to a pension and to insurance”), and a safe moral and physical environment (“not harmful to the workers’ physical health or to their moral integrity”).
Real products, artfully crafted, which respect the objective natures of the thing crafted, oriented toward the proper end of a flourishing human.