Should You Pray - Can You Pray - at Work Today?
We continue with the "Tools of Good Works" from St. Benedict's Holy Rule to help us focus on those acts of charity that we can perform during Lent in the work place.
Today we look at our most important "support" network - one that we can't afford to neglect at work, but one that may be the most challenging to build up during our busy days: prayer. Here are three tools related to prayer that St. Benedict recommends to us:
First, we should understand that our work can be "turned into" a prayer. A simple offer of our work for God's greater glory does the trick here. Notice: simple - not superficial. It doesn't take more than a few seconds to sincerely tell Our Lord that all your efforts this day will be for His greater glory. Just do it in a heart-felt manner, not in some offhanded way while you're thinking about your upcoming meeting, or focusing on that pile of work sitting there waiting for your expert handling. We're talking seconds here. Pause, maybe close your eyes. In a silent few seconds you can speak from the heart and even tell Our Lord you love Him. Then get to your work. Those few seconds will connect with eternity someday.
Second, develop the discipline of praying during the day when you're not at work: upon rising, a few minutes before getting ready for work, lunchtime, on the commute to and from work, at the end of the day as you leave work, before going to bed. You'll be working out your prayer muscles such that the strength you gain will carry over throughout the day. If you simply look at the opportunities we just listed, you'll realize the limitless possibilities you have throughout the day to pray. If your not in the habit yet, pick one, better two, and start there. Develop the habit of prayer.
So now that you pray a few seconds at work, and ideally more than just a few seconds at one or two or more other times during the day, get serious with your prayers. Don't just mouth the words you learned as a child. Take up St. Benedict's suggestions to pray "with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God." If you don't know you're a sinner, wake up from your spiritual torpor. We should all know what slimy worms we really are. The practice of a simple examination of conscience at some point during the day - looking at your thoughts, words, and actions to see how they stack up against the Ten Commandments, for example - will point you in the right direction here. The "tears and sighs" come from deep within you. You don't need to produce droplets of water that run down your face. People don't need to hear you expel your breath to demonstrate your contrition. You get the point.
Now if you can manage such serious, heartfelt prayers of contrition - and you can - that's when you make up your mind to amend those sins for the future. The object of your sorrow isn't emotion or drama. It's amendment. If your emotions are aroused when you think of your sinful self, fine. But make sure you get to the more important next phase that should follow the recognition of and sorrow for sin: a firm purpose of amendment. And don't make any excuses about how you might as well not say you'll never sin again because you know you will. That's the coward's way out. Man up and tell Our Lord loud and clear that you don't want to sin anymore. Oh, you'll likely slip and fall, of course. But having proclaimed your desire not to sin, that subsequent bout with evil will not fall through the cracks of your busy life, to be ignored or glossed over. Having put yourself on the line, you'll know right away, and in a manner that will impact your mind and soul, that you've fallen. You'll know the next step: tears and sighs...then amendment again.
That's just the way it is for us, gents. We're not perfect, but we need to strive to perform the duties of our state of life perfectly. We're sinners, but we need to keep saying we're just not going to sin again - or at least that we don't want to. Doing so is an act of your will. Remember, God gave us free will. Use it. Free will isn't a free pass. It's doesn't guarantee that what you will comes about just as you willed it. But the willing is the heart of the matter.
So with that, we just found the time - and it only takes a few seconds - to pray during the work day. And we understand what we can do so during those times when we're not actively working to build our habit of serious, heartfelt prayer, such that prayer itself becomes a natural part of our day. As natural as waking, breathing, eating, sleeping, etc.
We conclude today's remarks as we have been, with this traditional exhortation from the praying of the Stations of the Cross, to remind ourselves we live and work now in the holy season of Lent:
Today we look at our most important "support" network - one that we can't afford to neglect at work, but one that may be the most challenging to build up during our busy days: prayer. Here are three tools related to prayer that St. Benedict recommends to us:
- To apply oneself frequently to prayer.
- Daily in one's prayer, with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God.
- To amend those sins for the future.
First, we should understand that our work can be "turned into" a prayer. A simple offer of our work for God's greater glory does the trick here. Notice: simple - not superficial. It doesn't take more than a few seconds to sincerely tell Our Lord that all your efforts this day will be for His greater glory. Just do it in a heart-felt manner, not in some offhanded way while you're thinking about your upcoming meeting, or focusing on that pile of work sitting there waiting for your expert handling. We're talking seconds here. Pause, maybe close your eyes. In a silent few seconds you can speak from the heart and even tell Our Lord you love Him. Then get to your work. Those few seconds will connect with eternity someday.
Second, develop the discipline of praying during the day when you're not at work: upon rising, a few minutes before getting ready for work, lunchtime, on the commute to and from work, at the end of the day as you leave work, before going to bed. You'll be working out your prayer muscles such that the strength you gain will carry over throughout the day. If you simply look at the opportunities we just listed, you'll realize the limitless possibilities you have throughout the day to pray. If your not in the habit yet, pick one, better two, and start there. Develop the habit of prayer.
So now that you pray a few seconds at work, and ideally more than just a few seconds at one or two or more other times during the day, get serious with your prayers. Don't just mouth the words you learned as a child. Take up St. Benedict's suggestions to pray "with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God." If you don't know you're a sinner, wake up from your spiritual torpor. We should all know what slimy worms we really are. The practice of a simple examination of conscience at some point during the day - looking at your thoughts, words, and actions to see how they stack up against the Ten Commandments, for example - will point you in the right direction here. The "tears and sighs" come from deep within you. You don't need to produce droplets of water that run down your face. People don't need to hear you expel your breath to demonstrate your contrition. You get the point.
Now if you can manage such serious, heartfelt prayers of contrition - and you can - that's when you make up your mind to amend those sins for the future. The object of your sorrow isn't emotion or drama. It's amendment. If your emotions are aroused when you think of your sinful self, fine. But make sure you get to the more important next phase that should follow the recognition of and sorrow for sin: a firm purpose of amendment. And don't make any excuses about how you might as well not say you'll never sin again because you know you will. That's the coward's way out. Man up and tell Our Lord loud and clear that you don't want to sin anymore. Oh, you'll likely slip and fall, of course. But having proclaimed your desire not to sin, that subsequent bout with evil will not fall through the cracks of your busy life, to be ignored or glossed over. Having put yourself on the line, you'll know right away, and in a manner that will impact your mind and soul, that you've fallen. You'll know the next step: tears and sighs...then amendment again.
That's just the way it is for us, gents. We're not perfect, but we need to strive to perform the duties of our state of life perfectly. We're sinners, but we need to keep saying we're just not going to sin again - or at least that we don't want to. Doing so is an act of your will. Remember, God gave us free will. Use it. Free will isn't a free pass. It's doesn't guarantee that what you will comes about just as you willed it. But the willing is the heart of the matter.
So with that, we just found the time - and it only takes a few seconds - to pray during the work day. And we understand what we can do so during those times when we're not actively working to build our habit of serious, heartfelt prayer, such that prayer itself becomes a natural part of our day. As natural as waking, breathing, eating, sleeping, etc.
We conclude today's remarks as we have been, with this traditional exhortation from the praying of the Stations of the Cross, to remind ourselves we live and work now in the holy season of Lent:
We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee,
Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou Hast Redeemed the world.
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