Ora et Labora, or Pray and Work, is an articulation of the practice derived from the Rule of St. Benedict. Why do I bring it up? Well, as I've contemplated our Thursday evening gatherings, I've considered its implications for the rest of our lives. Gathering to enjoy each other's company is good, but gathering to enjoy one's company while laboring in the cultivation of virtue toward holiness is most right. St. Benedict's rule is about the latter.
Guilds in Pre-Reformation England
While I've set it aside this book to read St. Maximus the Confessor's The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ for Lent, I am near the end of Gervase Rosser's The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England 1250-1550, and I do not exaggerate when I say that this work has, along with our Thursday night group and regularly praying the Daily Office, been instrumental in awakening, inspiring, and transforming my moral imagination regarding the labor of the lay faithful. In light of learning about the thoroughly spiritual work of the English guilds in pre-Reformation England, it is a bit of a shock to see how much more impoverished our idea of community actually is. I won't go into a full on review of Rosser's book since there are plenty of insightful reviews (though these likely make certain theological assumptions). Instead, I'd like to share some of what I've learned by proposing an idea for a shared labor that we might engage in this spring and summer.
While it's not the case for every guild, Rosser's book reveals that an abundance of guilds formed for devotional reasons. In contrast to this, many of our contemporary associations are based on affinity. If you like collecting Pokemon cards, there's no lack of Facebook Groups you can join, Meet-Ups you can attend, or YouTube videos you can like. Unfortunately, we often act and treat The One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic faith as yet another affinity group. Given the ontological reality of Christ's Church, this is a clear mis-categorization. The faith is true and real irrespective of what I feel, think, or believe. Since that is the case, you and I encounter the faith not as yet another option on the liberal smorgasbord, but as that against which everything else in the cosmos derives its meaning. Furthermore, we encounter it together, bound as one in Christ through the sacrament of baptism. Can anything remain untouched by the light of the Triune God if it is in Him that we live, and move, and have our being? The answer, quite obviously, is no. This brings me to my proposition.
A Proposal
One of the questions I think we all have is what labors, what good works prepared for us in advance, might we be doing? The answer to this question in the middle ages manifested itself in the guilds, and I believe this part of our tradition provides an answer for us today. Currently, our parish engages in the following practices:
- Dinners/Vigils around major feast days
- Fish fry on Fridays in Lent
- Morning Prayer
I believe there is room to enrich these practices. I propose that we consider laboring toward the following:
- Encourage and aid members of Saint Aelred to pray the Daily Office by:
- Planting and maintaining a garden to provide (some) food for Evensong/vigils of major feast days or the evening of major feast days
- Helping to host Evensong on the vigil of major feast days or on the evening of major feast days (this may occur before Mass if Fr. deems it fitting)
- Giving and encouraging others to give to purchase The Divine Worship: Daily Office books for individuals/families
It is important to note that what should compel any of us to do any of this must be the virtue of charity, for we ought "owe no man but to love him." I believe this provides a path for us to begin doing so beyond meeting and talking--as good as that is and has been. So, if you have had the compulsion to do more for your brothers and sisters, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the proposal above.
Ahmaud R. Templeton
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.