Br. Monday Wishes You a Happy Labor Day

September 7, 2015

This was originally posted on June 22nd, but I thought it worked especially well for Labor Day. The dignity of work has an important place in monastic tradition, down to the Benedictine motto: Ora et Labora. Br. Monday really did choose a lifestyle that he wasn’t quite cut out for…

Br. Monday came for the barbecue, not a lecture…

A brother came to Abba Theodore and began to converse with him about things which he had never yet put into practice. So the old man said to him, “You have not yet found a ship nor put your cargo aboard it and before you have sailed, you have already arrived at the city. Do the work first; then you will have the speed you are making now.”

It was said of Abba John the Dwarf, that one day he said to his elder brother, “I should like to be free of all care, like the angels, who do not work, but ceaselessly offer worship to God.” So he took off his cloak and went away into the desert. After a week he came back to his brother. When he knocked on the door, he heard his brother say, before he opened it “Who are you?” He said, “I am John, your brother.” But he replied, “John has become an angel, and henceforth he is no longer among men.” Then the other begged him saying. “It is I.” However, his brother did not let him in, but left him there in distress until morning. Then, opening the door, he said to him, “You are a man and you must once again work in order to eat.” Then John made a prostration before him, saying, “Forgive me.”