Ora et Labora
October 20, 2022
I’ve never been good at learning another language. When in high school I took French for a year, only because that was the only foreign language my school offered. (And this little piggy went Oui, Oui, Oui, all the way home, see I can use it in a sentence!) I would have preferred Spanish. Rexanne and I have traveled a lot, primarily on mission trips, and we try to learn a few words of the country we are within, such as: Mexico or Honduras (Spanish), Ukraine (Russian or Ukrainian), Kosovo (Albanian), Jordan (Arabic), Germany (German), and Czech Republic (Czech). Hello, goodbye, thank you, and where is the bathroom, just about exhausts my language skills.
And then there’s Latin. Used by the Catholic Church for many years in their Mass service, otherwise it has become a very non-used language, except for the names of many things. I use Latin for my blog, which is called Vetus Via (the old path). And I’ve used it here for my title. This is a Benedictine phrase that means to “pray and work.” Ora et Labora.
Simple, yet I think elegant. As the old saying goes, labor as if it all depends on you, pray as if it all depends on God. Truth is, it’s a combination, as we pray, listen for God’s voice, then with direction do the work he has commissioned us to do. But the last sentence points out where I have an issue with the Ora et Labora. It’s not enough.
Anybody can pray, even if to a false god, and then work at some related project. It only becomes a Christian endeavor when we plug God’s direction into the formula. What are we praying about, and once we’ve prayed, what are we yielding to, what are we working for? That’s all up in the air unless we have a standard resource that provides input from God to direct us.
You see, this is a missing piece of what far too many “Christians” use as a guideline. They are willing to pray to some generic god of their making (it’s not the God of the Bible unless the Bible gets to define him) and then they work on some project, maybe a good project, but all loosely attached to “God.” A god that ends up being in their image, not the other way around. Many in our liberal thinking society choose this path, wanting little to do with what the Bible teaches.
The Apostle Paul told his apprentice Timothy (and tells us, as well), “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Now obviously we are not all “preachers” studying to prepare a sermon. But we all need direction from God through the words of Jesus and his apostles, whether by studying them directly, or by carefully listening to a preacher or teacher who has studied them. We need to consider context, and with time we gain a sense of balance to mesh teachings into a coherent path we follow.
This happens as we attend church services regularly, listening to our “pastor” or to the teacher of the group we belong to (class or small group). We hear what is communicated in scripture, we discuss it with others to gain their insights, we ask questions and process what we’ve learned, and we thus find direction as a Christian to guide us. With that in hand, we can then “ora et labora.” We can pray and work, knowing we’re on a path that honors the Lord in what we do.
And then there’s Latin. Used by the Catholic Church for many years in their Mass service, otherwise it has become a very non-used language, except for the names of many things. I use Latin for my blog, which is called Vetus Via (the old path). And I’ve used it here for my title. This is a Benedictine phrase that means to “pray and work.” Ora et Labora.
Simple, yet I think elegant. As the old saying goes, labor as if it all depends on you, pray as if it all depends on God. Truth is, it’s a combination, as we pray, listen for God’s voice, then with direction do the work he has commissioned us to do. But the last sentence points out where I have an issue with the Ora et Labora. It’s not enough.
Anybody can pray, even if to a false god, and then work at some related project. It only becomes a Christian endeavor when we plug God’s direction into the formula. What are we praying about, and once we’ve prayed, what are we yielding to, what are we working for? That’s all up in the air unless we have a standard resource that provides input from God to direct us.
You see, this is a missing piece of what far too many “Christians” use as a guideline. They are willing to pray to some generic god of their making (it’s not the God of the Bible unless the Bible gets to define him) and then they work on some project, maybe a good project, but all loosely attached to “God.” A god that ends up being in their image, not the other way around. Many in our liberal thinking society choose this path, wanting little to do with what the Bible teaches.
The Apostle Paul told his apprentice Timothy (and tells us, as well), “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Now obviously we are not all “preachers” studying to prepare a sermon. But we all need direction from God through the words of Jesus and his apostles, whether by studying them directly, or by carefully listening to a preacher or teacher who has studied them. We need to consider context, and with time we gain a sense of balance to mesh teachings into a coherent path we follow.
This happens as we attend church services regularly, listening to our “pastor” or to the teacher of the group we belong to (class or small group). We hear what is communicated in scripture, we discuss it with others to gain their insights, we ask questions and process what we’ve learned, and we thus find direction as a Christian to guide us. With that in hand, we can then “ora et labora.” We can pray and work, knowing we’re on a path that honors the Lord in what we do.
Posted in Cross Points