Time

Benedict spends eleven chapters (RB 8-18) talking about the order of the day, scheduling all of it around Ora et Labora, prayer and work. When I lived in the monastery, in the early days while I was still teaching full-time, I plodded through a bewildering schedule that called me to prayer for a half-hour, then over to school for three hours of work, then back to prayer (mass), lunch, and another fifteen minutes for noon prayer. After that, I returned to school for a few more hours, only to return to the monastery for evening prayer, supper, and compline. I couldn’t grasp why I wasn’t allowed to work a full day without so many interruptions.

How the heck did Benedict expect me to get anything done? Especially since, in those two periods of work, I was to fit in private prayer, reading, and lectio divina (RB 48)? It took some time for me to realize how often we prioritize our lives around our Work Schedule, instead of around our Awareness of God Schedule. It would be best if, like Paul says, we pray always. But then, presumably, I would not get anything done!

After some time, I realized that the interplay between prayer times and work times was the point. The world teaches me to evaluate the quality of my life by the work I do, which means that prayer must be an interruption of what is primary. But Benedict says my work is actually a ministry that I do in my time away from prayer, which means that work is actually the interruption. It’s what I do to support the community financially at the times when I am not physically present supporting the community in the Work of God – praying.

And now that I am no longer in the monastery, how do I order my day to perform what I still consider a ministry? How do I do that rather than work, and yet still pay attention to regular prayer times? One approach is to recall Benedict’s practical advice offered in 18:22: “Above all else we urge that if anyone finds this distribution of the psalms unsatisfactory, he should arrange whatever he judges better.” I do not follow the strict horarium of the monastery, but order my day so that I allow times for prayer and work. I pray morning prayer, vespers, and compline according to the day I am currently living. I can fit in lectio divina and spiritual reading several days each week. I pay attention to the ringing of the monastery bells, an easy reminder to say a brief prayer and be aware that I am in the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. I don’t have to step away from work to pray in community, but, right where I am, I stop and pray for the community. This is the essence of Ora et Labora when you live outside the monastery. You realize you can live the spirit of the Rule in the monastery of your heart.