“Ora et Labora”
Ora et Labora - the “motto” of the Benedictines?
How did we get from “Ora et Labora” to “Work is Worship?”
Ora et Labora - work and pray
Ora est Labora - work is prayer - one letter in Latin makes all the diference
Laborare est Orare - to work is to pray
Laborare est Orare - to work is to worship
Laborare est Orare - work is worship - Carlyle
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Anyone familiar with the Benedictine tradition has encountered the phrase“' ora et labora，”“prayer and work。”The adage is ubiquitous among the Benedictines, employed in everything from stone inscriptions and mission statements to gift shop trinkets and dinner napkins. Beyond the Benedictine family, one finds references to the adage as a paradigm for contemporary religious life, and even the language of Perfectae Caritatis echoes its spirit in a call to renew religious communities"manner of living, praying, and working" in the modern world. Many naively presume, however, that the phrases provenance is the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict (RB). To counter such ignorance, Terrence Kardon has continually reminded scholars both that the phrase "ora et labora" is absent from the Rule and that there is no evidence of its widespread adoption among the Benedictines until the end of the Nineteenth century. Kardong's source is the study of Marie-benoit Meeuws, who cogently maintains that Maurus Wolter (1825-1890) an eminent leader of Germany's Benedictine revival, was the first monk to apply the exact phrase"ora et labora"to general monasticism in his 1880 book, Praecipua ordinis monastic elementa. From this influential work the popularity of the phrase spread, prompting Benedikt Sauter (1835-1908), Wolters confrere and cofounder of Beuron, to become the first author to identify the phrase as a distinctly Benedictine charism in 1899.
Although Meeuws's undisputed thesis is insightful, it possesses two fundamental flaws. Its purview omits the American Benedictines altogether, and its chronology unravels when confronted with the following words of a Swiss-American monk penned in 1876 on the western frontier of Dakota Territory:
. . . the family life of a true Benedictine house of worst encompassing material as well as spiritual progress, is the model and ideal of family life, upon which rests the welfare of the individual and society. Ora et labora is still today only formula for curing the children of Adam, and both cannot be taught with words.
These lines come from Martin Marty (1834-1896), the first abbot of St. Meinrad Abbey in southern Indiana and the first bishop of the Dakota Territory. Written four years before Wolters work and almost a quarter of a century before Sauter's application, it presents an indisputable refutation of Meeuws, 's thesis.
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Prayer, Work and Study
The motto Ora et Labora (pray and work) is attributed to the Order of St Benedict. But this formula is actually of late origin. It would have to be changed to ora, lege et labora (pray, read and work) to be a true description of our life. Prayer, lectio divina – i.e. the prayerful reading of the Word of God – and work are the three supporting pillars of our life since they are ideal ways to encounter God.
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An article published by Assumption Abbey, of North Dakota, U.S., challenged that the translation of the Benedictine motto is Ora est labora, meaning, "[To say] 'Pray!' equals [saying] 'Work!'" It argued that that interpretation is a result of urban legend and that the actual motto is Ora et labora, meaning "pray and work!" The latter would refer to two major components of a monastic life: first prayer and then work to support the community and its charities.
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“My work is my prayer.”
This oft-heard phrase roughly translates the Latin expression ora est labora (literally, “pray equals work”). A more dynamic translation might be “my spiritual life is dying,” since they mean the same thing. If someone tells us that their work is their prayer, we should start worrying about their life of prayer.
“Hold on,” you say, “isn’t that a bit much? I mean, we can make our work into a prayer, can’t we?”
Absolutely we can. Not only that, we should. Offering our daily work to God as a sacrifice is a beautiful way for busy people to remain in the presence of God.
But there’s a big difference between someone who says “my work is a prayer” (note the indefinite article, which gives us the distinct sense that this work is but one prayer among many) and someone else who says “my work is my prayer” (note the italics, which gives us the distinct sense that it isn’t). In the former case, prayer pervades everything, even our work; in the latter case, work replaces everything, even our prayer. The former is a sign of spiritual life, the latter of spiritual death. That’s why monks strive for the former, workaholics for the latter.
“But wait a minute,” you object again, “how can you say that when Benedictine monks have ‘ora est labora’ for their motto?”
Au contraire. They don’t. The Benedictine motto is ora et labora. That “s” may be easy to miss, but it’s pretty pivotal. The real Benedictine motto means “pray and work” or “prayer and work.” For monks in the tradition of Saint Benedict, the two stand side-by-side, complementary but distinct. In other words, ora et labora amounts to a full-on denial of ora est labora. We can (and should) accompany our work with prayer, but we can’t conflate the two.