In a series of taped lectures lent to us by one of our associate members, Orthodox priest Fr. Thomas Hopko speaks of the work of the people of God. He observed that all good, honest labor of the laity is a sacred work, not just when they are engaged in so called "church work".

In this light it is unfortunate that the claim "work is my prayer" is so often heard as a rationalization or excuse for not attending to the demands of prayer itself. We do not need to chose between work or prayer as if they were opposites. Work can indeed be prayer and worship but we do not really understand this unless we can see that the reverse is true as well and that prayer is work.

It seems ennobling to call work prayer and raise it to the status of liturgy. It may not seems quite so ennobling to call worship work. Yet bringing the seriousness and discipline associated with work into the practice of prayer is not at all demeaning to it. Worship is not casual and empty "fun". It is not a form of passive entertainment like lounging on a couch and watching TV. To pray is to be engaged in active mental and even physical work.

We can reflect on how much ordinary work must precede the conduct of worship. There is the heavy labor of erecting a safe and adequate building for the assembly to gather and all that goes into its constant upkeep; the more refined work of artists that contributed to its beauty through paintings, sculptures, and stained glass; the peculiar combination of musical talent and mechanical aptitude of an organ builder; the craft and skill of those who sewed the vestments, made the candles, and published the liturgical books and hymnals.

There is the less remote work of preparation for a specific Liturgy: the cleaning and perhaps decorating of the church; the setting out of vessels and laying out of vestments in the sacristy; the practicing by cantor and choir; the researching and organizing of thoughts by the preacher.

There is finally the work directly involved in the liturgy itself: the singing, reading, preaching, ministering in such a way that God is glorified and our fellow worshippers are edified. Most important is the maintaining of a right intention to praise and love God, and with this to keep a simple attention to the words of Scripture as they are read or chanted and to the meaning of the various rites in the liturgy. As St. Benedict puts it "let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices."

This concentration might be compared to that of truck drivers and airplane pilots who must keep their minds focused on what they are doing without being distracted or allowing their attention to lag.

St. Benedict in his rule does not build a wall between work and prayer or separate the life of his monks into the sacred and the secular. These categories are so dear to the people of our time but so foreign to a Biblical and traditional understanding of the work and prayer of the people of God. We do not wear sacred hats sometimes and secular hats at other times. In his rule St. Benedict can with equal ease speak of the entire complex of the monastery as the house of God or as a workshop. He can exhort his monks to treat the tools of the kitchen or garden as the sacred vessels of the altar and he can call worship the work of God.

Ora et labora (pray and work) is the familiar monastic exhortation. Although this implies keeping a balance between these activities, it never means "either pray or work." Prayer and work go together, not just side by side, but interpenetrating one another and deepening the meaning and practice of the other. Without the renewed sense of the sacred that worship brings, work degenerates into a meaningless "rat race". Without the disciplined attitudes of work, prayer soon becomes a casual and indifferent activity, and thus a fruitless one as well.

Some spiritual writers and some prayers of the liturgy draw our attention to the relationship of work and worship that is expressed in the gifts of bread and wine offered in the Holy Eucharist. Originating mysteriously from God’s gifts of earth and sunshine and rain they are transformed by human intelligence, labor and skill. The hands of so many have contributed to these ordinary elements before they are placed on the altar: those who planted and harvested, those who ground and pressed, those who baked and fermented, those who packaged and transported. All of this comes to be consecrated in the prayer of the assembled Church to be the living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Liturgy thus reveals the mysterious destiny of the whole universe and all honest and good human labor. It is redeemed to be united with Jesus Christ. This is the purpose of God "which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1:9-10).

Holy means to be set apart, separated from what is common and ordinary. Yet in a paradoxical way when we truly devote ourselves to the holy things, when we make prayer and the sacred moments and things of the liturgy important in our lives, we discover all the ordinary and common things of our lives to be contained within the holy. We see everything in a new and fresh way. In celebrating the sacramental presence of God at a certain time and in certain formulas and with certain material things we begin to understand and perceive how in Christ all things can be holy. As the account of creation read at the Easter Vigil would have us understand, all things really are being recreated and raised up in Jesus Christ.

Sincerely,
Fr. Richard G. Herbel