Holy Rest
Ora et Labora is the motto of the Order of St. Benedict. It is a motto, when lived faithfully, draws one deeply into the heart of Christianity. This short phrase, in English translated “prayer and work”, provides a balance between two ways of deepening a relationship with God and the Christian community.
This summer St. Thomas will be entering into a Sabbath month, or a month of holy rest, as a way of preparing for the celebration of our parish feast day. Each year we have an event called Celebrate Saint Thomas! when we can come together to share in prayer, food and whole community catechesis. My hope is that this new addition to our parish celebration will help each one of us to deepen our relationship with the Lord in prayer, that we will strengthen our relationships with one another, and we will gain a clearer understanding of the unique ways God is calling us to share our gifts for the sake of the Kingdom.
Here is what we hope will happen. There will be a large number of volunteers who will agree to pray for the families of St. Thomas parish. Beginning on July 3, the Feast of St. Thomas, they will take up the task of sending a note to parishioners, whose names have been provided to them. The notes will be an ivitation to spend this month in prayer for one another with a unique opportunity the week before the parish picnic. Each day of the week prior to the picnic, the parish will host Eucharistic Adoration and we hope each person in the parish will commit to one hour of prayer during this time. There will also be a personal invitation to attend the Celebrate Saint Thomas! picnic on August 2. We will ask the various ministries of the parish to lay aside any “work” that can be postponed until August with the intention of focusing more fully on prayer and holy rest. Fr David and I will center our summer preaching on various ways to pray, so that those who have never spent an hour in silent prayer will have some tools to be successful in prayer.
It doesn’t end with Celebrate Saint Thomas!, however. There is one more challenge for the parish. We will ask our volunteers to visit each of the people that they invited to the picnic sometime before our celebration next year. The visits will have no agenda other than to connect parishioners to one another and to let folks know that there is someone praying for them by name. We will also encourage each of our ministries to give one hour of prayer each month of the coming year to praying for the success of their respective ministries, asking for God’s guidance in all they do to serve the people of this community.
If this sounds like a lot of prayer, it is. As I have begun to talk to people in the parish about focusing more on prayer this year, I have been excited to anticipate the good things, still unknown to us, that will happen as a result of us being more open to hearing God’s voice. It is clear that St. Thomas is already a strong center of prayer for this community, but we also know that there is no limit to the richness the life God has prepared for us. May this month of holy rest open us even more fully to receiving God’s grace.
Related Posts:
About The Author
Comments