Ora et Labora

Earlier this week I visited an older skilled nursing community.  The noise level is high here, and I always wonder how anyone can heal in the midst of such noise. The mental and physical health of the patients and residents varies greatly. Some are there for the rest of their lives and are quite frail; others are in rehab, and while their physical health has been impacted greatly, their stay is generally short-term.  Sometimes when I step into the activity room, I feel I am being tossed into a giant mixing bowl. Yet, the staff is remarkably stable, and we are always greeted as returning family. We find our way through the tables and the wheel chairs, and make some space for God.   

As I walked down the hall this week, I passed by the cramped administration and admitting offices, the kitchen, and the rehab area.  I have walked down that hall for over nine years, saying hello as I dodge mops, brooms, carts, and pails. Yet, this week it struck me that people were praying. They might not be aware of it, but as they perused emails, checked records, mopped the floor, or encouraged a wobbly elder to take just a few steps more, that is what they were doing. My paced slowed, and I let the silence in - the Silence that that is always there but seldom heard, and I joined my prayers to theirs, just as I am this morning.  

  

All work can be prayer, but in the crush of our busyness and distractions, we forget that Christ is at the heart of our work when we allow our work to connect us to others. St. Benedict knew this. Mother Teresa knew this (even the orphaned children she cared for would be assigned a regular task to do for the community). May we know it as well. Human beings cannot flourish until we recognize that we do not work, nor do we live, just for ourselves.      

Benedictine life is immersed in the sanctity of the real and work is a fundamental part of it. The function of the spiritual life is not to escape into the next world; it is to live well in this one. The monastic engages in creative work as a way to be responsible for the upbuilding of the community...Work and prayer are opposite sides of the great coin of life that is both holy and useful, immersed in God and dedicated to the transcendent in the human.  It is labor's transfiguration of the commonplace, the transformation of the ordinary that makes co-creators of us all.

The Rule of Benedict, Joan Chittister, O.S.B., 
page 132    

  

 ora et labora  pray and work