Work Is Prayer
This spongy quality of work raises an interesting question: Is there something that work is meant to absorb and release? Something we can immerse our work in that works better than anything else? The pure water and fresh dish soap that will run through the sponge and leave everything it touches better off?
To conclude our Monastic Wisdom for the Marketplace series, I’d like to reflect on how the Benedictine tradition helps us answer this question. We’ve explored the classic Benedictine motto Ora et Labora—Pray and Work—before. But at some point along the way, another iteration of this phrase cropped up: Laborare est Orare—to Work is to Pray. Or, more simply: Work is Prayer.
This turn of phrase points us to the deepest meaning of working life. Prayer and work are not just a good pair, like milk and cookies or PB&J, distinct but complementary experiences. Prayer intertwines with and completes our work, crowning it with beauty in a way that nothing else can. That’s no accident; it’s the way God intended our work to function. At its simplest, prayer is welcoming the presence of God. That’s why it is so necessary to our labors. Work only becomes what it was always meant to be when it overflows with the presence of God to the world around us.