Benedict reminds us that “idleness is the enemy of the soul.” His remedy is both practical and profound: specified periods for manual labor, prayer, and sacred reading. Discipline begins by setting aside particular times for particular purposes.
Sister Joan makes clear that Benedictine life is immersed in the sanctity of the real. Work is not separate from the spiritual life; it is one of the places where the spiritual life is formed.
We frequently speak of transfiguration. Here, it is labor that transfigures the commonplace. Through attentive and creative work, we become participants in God’s continuing creation. But this requires grace—the grace to resist the false self, which continually seeks comfort, control, and immediate satisfaction.
Benedict understood that one way to protect the community from these “dark angels” was to keep its members faithfully engaged: in prayer, reading, service, and useful labor—the ordered discipline of the hours. Yet Sister Joan reminds us that it is not work itself that defines the Benedictine. What defines the Benedictine spirituality is the single-minded search for God.
We are called to undertake work that is creative, productive, and life-giving—work that tends the garden while God tends the soul. In time, we pray, Benedictine spirituality will fill our hearts with meaning and awaken within us an instinct for God—and, that day by day, we will become increasingly aware of his presence in us guiding us in all we do.
Growth does not happen by accident. We are called to cultivate it.
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