Father Dominic Emmanuel

When one sees someone deeply engrossed in one’s work, the sentiment immediately expressed by an onlooker is, “Isn’t work really worship (prayer) for his/her?” Depending on the angle from which one views it, work done with sincere intentions using honest means can surely be considered worship, though it would be difficult to regard worship as work unless someone has gone into commercialisation of rituals.

In Christianity, particularly belonging to the Catholic and Orthodox systems, there is a tradition slightly different from “work as worship”. It is known in Latin as “Ora et Labora”, which means “pray and work”. This tradition was made popular almost 1,500 years ago by a monk named Benedict in his monastery. Incidentally, when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected the Pope after the demise of Pope John Paul II six years ago, he assumed the name of the same St Benedict and became the 16th Pope, hence Benedict XVI, to do so. Today Catholic Church all over the world celebrates his feast. St Benedict is known as the father of Western monasticism, who, with his life and work, exercised a fundamental influence on the development of European civilisation and culture. In 1964, Pope Paul VI, declared him the patron saint of Europe.
Benedict was the son of a wealthy Roman noble of Nursia, the modern Norcia, in Umbria. He had at his disposal the means to a career as a Roman noble and was sent to Rome for his studies at a time when the Roman Empire and its civilisation were at their peak with great power to impact the rest of the world. But having a spiritual bend of mind, he soon got fed up with the dissolute and licentious lives of his companions in Rome and sought out a quiet life in the company of virtuous men. After a while he even withdrew from their company and spent his time in a cave in Subiaco, praying and meditating on the Gospels of Jesus Christ.
Throughout his life St Benedict was immersed in an atmosphere of prayer, the main foundation of his existence. He believed that without prayer one would find it difficult to experience God. Benedict’s spirituality was not an interior life divorced from reality. In the disquiet and confusion of his time, he lived under the gaze of God and with his own gaze fixed upon God, though without losing sight of his daily duties and the concrete needs of mankind.
He wrote a book of rules for the monks of his monastery which later became popular as St Benedict’s Rule. This book organises the monastic day into regular periods of communal and private prayer, sleep, spiritual reading and manual labour and the sole purpose of these exercises was, “To glorify God in all things”.
At a time when the society is riddled with many kinds of immoral and evil practices and when corruption or attempts at its eradication are so much in news, it might be good to think about St Benedict’s principle of “Pray and Work”. India’s high economic growth certainly points to the fact that all of us are working hard, something that we should be all proud of. Work divorced from prayer can undoubtedly contribute to monetary progress but would it necessarily contribute to our spiritual growth and moral values that accompany it? It is worthwhile remembering a similar question raised by Jesus, “What does it profit a man if wins the whole world and loses his soul?”
Speaking particularly about corruption, we know that most of the instances of corruption originate at the place of our work. While conducting our affairs in life if at all we pause for a while and consider “work as worship” or adopt the principle of “pray and work”, would we then so easily fall into the temptations that come our way?
Not that we as people do not pray or do not take our worship seriously. The point is whether our prayer and worship has any tangible influence on our day to day work and behaviour? Is our spirituality deep enough to keep the temptation of let us say, making fast buck by immoral means, at bay?
Hence, the significant question before us is whether while making moral choices (in fact the issue of moral choice does not arise in the first place if we only discharge our duties with utmost honesty) a little more inclusion of prayer before, during and after our work not help us a great deal? Pray and work, as proposed by St Benedict, would indeed not only make our work easier but also help us deal with temptations that arise therein.

— The author, a founder-member of Parliament of Religions, is currently the director of communication of the Delhi Catholic Church. He was awarded
the National Communal Harmony Award 2008 by the Government of India. He can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com