Ora et Labora – Prayer and Work

The fifth hallmark is the great Benedictine motto “Ora et Labora” (Prayer and Work). Perhaps in another context, one would hold up prayer, particularly liturgical prayer, as a value in and of itself. This motto stresses the unity of the monastic life. The motto does not present two different things. Rather, it holds prayer and work together in a unity. The chapel becomes the place for the Work of God (Opus Dei), but the work of God does not end at the chapel door. God continues to work where we work.

The monastic cell is the place of solitude, but this is not an escape from the common life. There must be time and place to be alone and to be with others, to pray alone and to pray with others. For the individual, there must be a unity of the inner life and the outer life. As Psalm 19 says, “May the spoken words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart win favor in your sight, O Lord.”

A favorite quote from John Cassian speaks powerfully to this integration of one’s life:

When all love, all desire, all zeal, all impulse, our every thought, all that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, then that unity the Father now has with the Son and the Son with the Father will fill our feelings and our understanding.

Just as God has loved us with a sincere and pure and unbreakable love, so may we also be joined to God with an unending and inseparable love.

Then we shall be united to this same God in such a way that whatever we breathe, whatever we think, whatever we speak may be God. (Conferences, 10.7.2)

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