Saint Benedict and the Work of God

Today is the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, who can safely be said to be the father of western monasticism. His monastic Holy Rule, still followed today after almost 1,500 years, spread throughout the west as the Roman Empire collapsed. Pope Pius XII lauded him, for in the perilous times that followed Rome’s fall, it was Benedictine monks who preserved the ancient learning and aided in the rebuilding of western civilization.

The Holy Rule treats a wide variety of topics concerning everything from the discipline and governance of monasteries to humility in the spiritual life of the monk. Of the 73 short chapters, however, fully 18 treat the sacred liturgy or the oratory in which it is to be sung, and many more chapters reference it while treating other topics. That’s roughly a quarter of the text.

The Monastic Work of God

Throughout the Holy Rule, the saint refers to the singing of the Divine Office as “the Work of God”, which puts an additional, deeper meaning to the Benedictine motto of Ora et Labora – pray and work.

“As soon as the signal for the time of the divine office is heard, let everyone, leaving whatever he hath in his hands, hasten with all speed, yet with gravity, that there may be no cause for levity. Therefore, let nothing be preferred to the Work of God.” (Holy Rule, Chapter 43)

Across the many centuries and the thousands of Benedictine monasteries, the obedience to this admonition that “nothing be preferred to the Work of God” has waxed and waned. You’d think with the Benedictine Order having the motto Ora et Labora, the order of business would be pretty clear.

But no. Every couple of hundred years, a new reform movement arises to put the spine back into the monasteries. One of these early reforms was that of Saint Bernard in the 12th century.

Another reform was undertaken by the Abbey of Cluny under its great reforming Abbots in the 10th century. In many of the monasteries in Europe, the monks had come to live an indolent life. Their liturgical life was whittled down to nothing; in some cases they had even given up praying the Divine Office entirely.

Cluny made its mission the restoration of the sacred liturgy. They figured that all other reform would flow naturally from that. And they were right.

The conscientious celebration of the Hours and the Mass requires discipline and planning. Although the monks themselves lived simple lives, they devoted themselves to their mission: celebrating the Work of God with beauty, reverence, and discipline.

For five hundred years they were successful: every day the monks of Cluny Abbey and of the hundreds of other monasteries in their monastic congregation prayed the Divine Office for the sanctification of the people of God.

But even this most liturgically stringent of the Benedictine monasteries eventually found itself in desperate need of reform and a return to their medieval discipline by the 16th century. And ultimately, they failed to enact the needed reform. Where is the monastery of Cluny today? In ruins.

The Work of God for the Rest of Us

And speaking of reform, what did the Second Vatican Council have to say about the singing of the Divine Office? Chapter IV of Sacrosanctum Concilium treats the reform of the Office¹. Of special interest is paragraph 100:

100. Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.

And the very first sentence of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours says, “Public and common prayer by the people of God is rightly considered to be among the primary duties of the Church.” Paragraph 2 states:

2. This kind of common prayer gradually took shape in the form of an ordered round of Hours. This Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office, enriched by readings, is principally a prayer of praise and petition. In fact, it is the prayer of the Church with Christ and to Christ. (emphasis mine)

So, in the mind of the Church, the Divine Office is to be celebrated (at least on Sundays and principal feasts) in our parish churches because public and common prayer is “among the primary duties of the Church” and the Divine Office in particular is “the prayer of the Church with Christ and to Christ”.

We have seen that over time the monasteries which failed in their duty to sing the Divine Office – who failed in performing “the Work of God” – have either been brought back to that discipline by reforming saints or have perished. But it is not just monks who are called to this Work – the Church also calls our parishes with their priests and parishioners to the Work of God.

We need to stop waiting for a new Benedict or Bernard or the saints of Cluny and get to Work ourselves.

1. The reform enumerated in Sacrosanctum Concilium did not necessarily apply to those in monastic orders, as is made clear in the Thesaurus Liturgiæ Horarum Monasticæ, issued in 1977, which provides that any Benedictine congregation of monasteries, or indeed any individual monastic community, may adopt the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, the traditional Monastic Office, or any one of three designated alternative two-week psalm schemas.