Introduction

“Ora et labora” — “pray and work” — is often presented as the motto of Benedictine spirituality and as if it summarized the Rule of Saint Benedict. The examination of the sources shows that the attribution is inaccurate and that the formula omits an essential element.

1. The formula is not in the Rule

The phrase “ora et labora” does not appear in any chapter of the Regula Benedicti, neither in chapter 48 (on manual work) nor in the other seventy-two. As the Benedictines Terrence Kardong and Marie-Benoît Meeuws (1992) have shown: the formula is of relatively recent origin and does not figure in Benedictine history before the 19th century.

Its probable source is Abbot Maurus Wolter, of the abbey of Beuron, in Praecipua Ordinis Monastici Elementa (“The Principal Elements of the Monastic Order”, 1880), where he writes: «Hinc vetus clarissimaque illa monachorum tessera: Ora et labora!» — “hence that old and most famous watchword of the monks: pray and work!”. The motto spread in the context of the 19th-century Benedictine revival.

2. The real triad of the Rule

What the Rule really teaches is not a pair, but a triad of occupations that organize the day. The opus Dei — the Work of God, the divine Office —, of which it is said «nihil operi Dei praeponatur» (“let nothing be preferred to the Work of God”, RB 43,3). The lectio divina — prayerful and meditative reading —, to which RB 48,1 adds the warning «otiositas inimica est animae, et ideo certis temporibus occupari debent fratres in labore manuum, certis iterum horis in lectione divina» (“idleness is the enemy of the soul; therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain hours in manual labor and at other fixed hours in divine reading”). And, thirdly, the labor manuum — manual work —.

The Rule pursues an equilibrium between those three poles against idleness, and not an exaltation of work for its own sake: work is moderate and is subordinated to the opus Dei.

3. What the motto omits

The decisive point is that the formula “ora et labora” omits reading. The expanded form “ora et labora et lege” (with the rhyme “Deus adest sine mora” —“God is present without delay”—) that is usually cited as a “medieval formula” is not attested in medieval sources: it is a modern mnemonic reconstruction that restores the third element that Wolter’s motto had suppressed.

The omission is not trivial. Lectio divina constitutes the intellectual and contemplative pole of Benedictine life: the reading that is ruminatively chewed, meditated, and turned into prayer. A motto that reduces monastic life to “prayer and work” loses precisely the component of study.

Conclusion

It can be safely asserted that “ora et labora” is not Benedictine, that it comes from the 19th century (Wolter, 1880), and that the Rule teaches a triad — prayer, reading and work — of which the motto omits reading. It should not be asserted that the formula faithfully summarizes Benedictine spirituality, nor that the expanded form “et lege” is medieval. The relation between reading understood as contemplation and the contemplate–transmit structure is studied in The Dominican intellectual tradition.

References

Primary sources

  • Regula Benedicti, chaps. 43 and 48.
  • Wolter, M., Praecipua Ordinis Monastici Elementa (1880).

Secondary sources

  • Kardong, T., commentary on the Regula Benedicti.
  • Meeuws, M.-B., on the origin of the phrase “ora et labora” (1992).