When God said, "Shut up and Listen"

Sometimes in the life of the church there is tension between piety and service. Some people think that the main thing is worship, while others believe working in the world to heal the sick and feed the hungry is the highest expression of the faith. Discipleship was never meant to be so divided. We worship and serve. We go to the mountain to pray, we come down to serve. Each experience flows into the other.

This was illustrated most profoundly on our Chicago mission trip, some years ago, when we worked one morning with the Sisters of Charity at their mission house, in their kitchen, chopping vegetables and washing fruit, to prepare a mid-day meal for whoever was hungry. We worked side by side with the sisters and other volunteers. The Sisters observe the hours for prayer prescribed by the 1,500-year-old Rule of St Benedict. When it was time for prayer, they prayed aloud, while we all continued to work together. The chopping and cooking and stirring took on the rhythm of the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and it was the most beautiful union of piety and service. “Prayer and work, work and prayer” is the Order in miniature.

There is so much work to be done. There are so many wounds to be healed, so many hungry people to feed, so many divisions to be reconciled in peace. But we do not have the power to do good apart from God. Apart from God our bodies fail, our compassion cools, hope gives way to despair. On the mountain we are reminded who is the source of our strength, our love, and our hope. Listen to him! We must return again and again to the source of light and life, so that we will have light to shine, and life to share.