Work and Pray

St. Benedict (d.543) crafted a rule to govern his monks based on prayer and work or in Latin, “Ora et Labora.” In the years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the early medieval period was characterized as the age of chaos; however, his monks did well in preserving the influence of Greek and Roman civilizations. Moreover, the monks fostered and even spread Christianity farther into distant lands.

In the beginning, God created birds to fly, the fish to swim and man to work. He endowed us with intellect and will, senses and creative powers to manage His creation. Hence, Adam was precisely placed in the Garden to oversee God’s creation. For work to be perfected and meritorious, we need to be generous in our conversations with God, that is, prayer. As St. Josemaria Escriva writes, “Prayer is like a teacher who studies in order to give lessons to the students.”

Let us continue to work and pray with the driving force firmly rooted in Christ who is truth and love Himself, and be on guard lest our energies may be channeled towards purely material success centering on our ego, forgetting that we have a soul. St. Paul tells the Romans to have a high regard for work, for it is through work that God will judge us.

Our Blessed Mother was steep in prayer when the angel Gabriel revealed to her the role that she will going to play in the plan of God for the salvation of humanity. She did both.