Ora et Labora

 

"When My servants ask about Me, I am indeed close to them. I listen to the prayer of every supplicant, when he calls on Me. Let them also, with a will, listen to My call, and believe in Me, so that they may walk in the right way" (Qur'an 2:186).

"Did you know that 6 month prior to Ramadan the Sahaba’s used to make du’a to Allah that He would let them reach Ramadan. After Ramadan they used to make du’a for 6 month that Allah would accept their fasting and good deeds." Cristina Tarantino, "Be Successful This Ramadan"

Education and Economy

St. Benedict claimed conscious human life should be [is only?] conducted in one of two stages: prayer or labor ... ora et labora. Some even went so far as to claim an identity ... that prayer IS labor and labor IS prayer ... to indicate that the two ideas presuppose one another in such a way that neither is meaningful if separated from the other.

 

Just looking at the Latin words evokes the idea that they are related ... with labor [labora] being some sort of extension of prayer [ora]  by combining it with the Latin word labium or the Greek lobos meaning "lip or lobe" ... implying we must "speak" our prayers into existence thru our work ... although the precise root for the Latin word labora remains obscure.

 

For those who have considered the 3e's, prayer and labor resemble the notions of Education and Economy. [For more on prayer as Education see the Lamedh page in this blog].

 

Distinction and Connection

But distinguishing prayer from labor ... Education from Economy ... without disconnecting them is vital. Indeed, the 4th commandment reveals the relationship as 6 parts labor to 1 part prayer [ie. "not-labor" or "leisure" ... which is "schole" in the Greek from which we get our word "school"] insisting on the distinction:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.  Exodus 20

Of course, some Jews observed the distinction without understanding the connection. They identified prayer and the sabbath with the temple ... where "with the temple" is the literal translation of the word "contemplation".  [And anyone looking at the 4th commandment can see that "family" and "household" are at the heart of it all ... which is the topic in our prior posting].

The Jews also knew from Psalm 46 that once in the temple on the Sabbath they were to "be still and know that I am God" ... which Jesus attempted to explain on many situations ... including driving buyers, sellers and money changers from the temple [on two occassions?] ... clearly distinguishing Economy from Education without disconnecting them.

So how about us? What do we understand about the distinction and the connection between prayer and labor?

Process or progress

Most people believe the work ethic drives economic progress. But labor is only the power that drives us forward ... prayer is the steering mechanism that provides our direction and navigation. How does prayer do this?

The 3e's claim life is a process in which Ecology stands between Education and Economy ... God stands between prayer and labor ... as the missing link which connects Education to Economy ... so that each plays its assigned role and fulfills its intended purpose.

If we return to Psalm 46 above, we see this confirmed ... the purpose of being still is to know God in order to do the right thing ... Education arising from Ecology reforms Economy. And ONLY by understanding and observing all 3 stages of the process can we make sense of any of its 3 stages.

There can be no progress or understanding without following the whole process.