Praying and working, Ora et labora – in our time?
6 min reading time | published on: 02.09.2024
In a very old text from a tradition of the Desert Fathers, it is written: “An old man said: As nothing green grows on a well-trodden road, not even if you scatter seed, because the place is trampled underfoot, so it is with us: rest from every business, and you see growing things that you did not know were in you, because you have walked on them.” (1)
It is the pause, the stepping out of our usual routine, in which we can become aware of the silence. The silence that is within us and that we always overlook because we are so busy. Perhaps it is only a small, quiet and gentle moment. The next moment we distract ourselves again, cannot bear to linger in this intimacy with ourselves. Because we have not learned it.
Taking time and learning can help us with this. Praying can be very simple. It can be repeating a word, an image that we look at, it can be a spoken sentence or it can happen in silent contemplation. We can pray in community or on our own. It can be helpful to have conscious times and spaces for this. Perhaps in the morning after getting up, during a silent meditation or listening to nature. This makes it easier for us to rediscover the inner access to prayer and to root it within us.
At the same time, it is valuable to take these experiences with us into the day and to cultivate them while we work. In this way we can learn to break through the automatic processes of our actions and experience conscious moments. Over time, the experiences from silence are transferred to action. Perhaps we begin to notice how our body feels while we are working. Or we become aware that we are holding something in our hands. We also begin to become aware of thoughts while we are thinking them. It is the many small things that we become more and more aware of while we do them.
Meditation and prayer are therefore not separate from our everyday life, our actions and our work. On the contrary, they become more and more pervasive. And as with the Desert Fathers, we can speak of a perpetual prayer that is no longer a specific time period, but becomes an attitude, a life. “The prayer of union,” as John of the Cross called it.
Studying can be part of our work. An examination of texts and writings that support us in our prayer. It does not matter which tradition a writing comes from. It is the inner touch that is essential.
Sometimes it is difficult to stick with it and penetrate a text so that you understand it with your heart. Perhaps this is what connects prayer, work and reading, and together can open up access to silence. “Ora et labora et lege, Deus adest sine mora.” “Pray and work and read, and God will be there without delay.” This is what Benedict of Nursia wrote.
Muni Konradi
(1) Praying with the Desert Fathers, Pia Luislampe OSB, Beuroner Kunstverlag, 2016, p. 51