Ora et Labora?

In honour of the return to blogging of ‘Felix Culpa’ at Ora et Labora, I’d like to say something briefly about the title of his blog. As a devotee of St Benedict, I have become somewhat acquainted with this motto. It is frequently associated with Benedictine monasticism, and no wonder! As Terrence Kardong has observed in his interesting and occasionally humourous article, ‘Work is Prayer: Not!’, ‘Benedictines themselves have cheerfully plastered this motto on everything from their napkins to the carving above the front gate.’ But Kardong is anxious to clarify, first of all, that this motto, ‘Ora et labora’, does not appear in St Benedict’s Rule itself; and second, that the mistake some have made of reading it as suggesting that ‘Work is prayer’ is completely foreign to St Benedict.

As to the first point, Kardong notes that the motto does not appear until the nineteenth century. He cites an article (Marie-Benoît D. Meeuws, ‘Ora et Labora: devise bénédictine?' Collectanea Cisterciensia, 54 [1992] 193-214) as demonstrating that it originated with a popular book by Fr Maurus Wolter, whom—as the abbot of Beuron—I’ve already had occasion to mention on this blog.

Concerning the second point, Kardong refers to a mistaken quotation of St Benedict as having ‘once said, “Work is prayer”.’ But Kardong points out, ‘Now Ora et Labora is very close to Ora est Labora. Unless you know some Latin and are very careful with words, a qualification which eliminates most people, it is easy enough to arrive at Labora est Ora and blame it on St. Benedict.’ Furthermore, it is true that St Benedict considers work important, since in RB 48 he writes, ‘[T]hen are they truly monks when they live by the labour of their hands, like our fathers and the apostles’ (The Rule of St Benedict in English and Latin, trans. Justin McCann [Fort Collins, CO: Roman Catholic, n.d.], p. 111).

As Kardong goes on to demonstrate carefully, however, the Rule never merely equates work with prayer, but provides a rigid daily structure, the orarium, allotting time for work, prayer per se, and reading, often referred to by the Latin phrase lectio divina. Concerning the relationship between these three, it seems to me that Kardong’s take could stand to be supplemented by Armand Veilleux on lectio and the infallible Adalbert de Vogüé on meditatio—in the latter’s estimate something very like prayer of the heart (The Rule of St Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary, trans. John Baptist Hasbrouck [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1983], p. 242). In this context, de Vogüé says something similar to, but I believe richer than, Kardong:

Rightly has someone protested against the famous formula Ora et labora (Pray and work), wrongly presented as a complete summary of the monk’s life. In fact, as was said, a third term should be added: Ora, labora, lege (Pray, work, read) [he cites J. Winandy, ‘La spiritualité bénédictine’, in J. Gautier, La spiritualité catholique (Paris, 1953) 13-36, specially 33-4]. We in our turn would readily plead for one further enlargement of the formula: Ora, labora, lege, meditare. Without meditation the monk’s day is incomplete. Continual prayer lacks its support, reading lacks its prolongation, and work lacks its accompaniment. This work of meditation truly deserves a place among the fundamental elements of the monastic life, for it binds the chief occupations together and cements their unity. (p. 242)

Of course, as he is an Orthodox clergyman, I’m sure all of this, or something like it, is implied in the title of Felix Culpa’s blog, so I certainly don’t mean to protest his use of the formula. But it is interesting to see what the Benedictines have to say on the subject. Incidentally, while it’s been some time since I read it and I don’t recall much about his conclusions, Dermot Tredget’s paper, ‘Can the Rule of St Benedict Provide an Ethical Framework for a Contemporary Theology of Work?’ seems like another interesting consideration of St Benedict and labora.

The image above shows a sundial at Reichenau Abbey with the motto ‘cheerfully plastered’ on it. I found this on the eponymous blog, and Felix Culpa gives a full explanation of its provenance here.

Pro Arte Beuronensis

After reading Fr John Meyendorff’s article on the Orthodox Church in Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia, the very first thing that I read about Orthodoxy was Photios Kontoglou’s hard-hitting, but, I felt, persuasive apologia for traditional Byzantine iconography, ‘The Hopelessness of Death in Western Religious Art and the Peace-Bestowing and Profoundly Hopeful Orthodox Iconography’ (printed in English, in, I believe, The True Vine—my own copy is buried in a box somewhere in my house). I very quickly wrote off Western religious art. If it wasn’t the fleshy naturalism of the Renaissance and Baroque eras (made for churches like this), it was the tacky, quickly dated, and hopelessly subjective modernism of the post-Vatican II years (made for churches like this). Neither one seemed right to me.

But then I was surprised to make a discovery. It was about two and a half years ago, when I was first looking into the history of the St Benedict medal. I learned somewhere (most likely here) that the medal as it’s typically produced now had been designed in something called ‘the Beuronese style of sacred art’, at the (I found here) ‘St Martin's Archabbey, Beuron, Germany’. Now, this name, ‘Beuron’, was familiar to me. In his wonderful conversion-to-Orthodoxy story, Fr Placide (Deseille) made a passing reference to this place, saying of his aunts that ‘the great abbeys of Beuron, Maredsous, and Solemnes were the high places of their Christianity’ (Archimandrite Placide [Deseille], ‘Stages of a Pilgrimage’, The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mt Athos, trans. and ed. Hieromonk Alexander [Golitzin] [South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary, 1999], p. 63). It was precisely this passage that sprang to mind when I came across that reference to the design of the medal. It sparked my curiosity as much as the expression ‘the great abbeys’ had fired my imagination.

The story I discovered is a long one, and I haven’t been able to work out all of the precise details. What I do know, is that the main figures in the development of Beuronese art were a group of German artists named Peter Lenz (1832-1928), Jakob Würger (1829-92), and Fridolin Steiner (1849-1906). The three young men went to Rome to work with some members of what had been the ‘Nazarene’ movement, a brotherhood of German artists devoted to St Luke the Evangelist (the first iconographer, according to tradition) who had lived a semi-monastic existence painting religious and neomediæval subjects in a simple, serene style. One critic in 1820 ascribed to the Nazarenes’ work the qualities of ‘simplicity, holiness, and purity’ (Fr Kenneth Novak, ‘The Art of Beuron’, Angelus Online). George Eliot referred to the Nazarenes as ‘the chief renovators of Christian art, . . . who had not only revived but expanded that grant conception of supreme events as mysteries at which the successive agess were spectators, and in relation to which the great souls of all periods became as it were contemporaries’ (George Eliot, Middlemarch I, Vol. VI in Works of George Eliot [NY: The Century, 1910], p. 310). James D. Merritt notes the Nazarenes’ influence upon and anticipation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England (Introduction, The Pre-Raphaelite Poem [NY: Dutton, 1966], pp. 9-10). A meeting with one of the Nazarenes, Peter von Cornelius, had a tremendous influence on the art of Ford Maddox Brown (1821-93), who subsequently was a mentor to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and a contributor to the Pre-Raphaelite periodical, The Germ (in a letter to Maddox Brown, Rossetti apparently writes ‘that if he ever does anything on his own account, it will be under the influence of such inspiration’—Joseph Knight, Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti [London: Walter Scott, 1887], p. 22).

So, to return to Lenz, Würger, and Steiner, they were highly influenced by the Nazarene movement. But, in addition, they became fascinated with the ancient Egyptian art that had poured into Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. According to Novak:

Lenz [the primary theorist among them] thought sacred art should reflect the natural laws of aesthetics through formulae he believed were forgotten after the Greeks and Egyptians. Geometrical proportions determine ideal forms, and the result is an innate harmony comparable to the mathematical relationships in musical composition.

Believing a monastic brotherhood to be the ideal context in which to put their ideas into practice, the three talked about forming a monastery. But in 1868 they met Fr Maurus Wolter, abbot of the new Benedictine monastery of Beuron. Wolter had initiated a close relationship with the centre of the Gregorian chant revival, Solemnes, corresponding with the abbot, Dom Prosper Guéranger, and even going so far as to model Beuron on the Solemnes Congregation. The cultivation of traditional Gregorian chant at Beuron dovetailed nicely with the approach to the visual and plastic arts of Lenz, Würger, and Steiner. The three were tonsured as monks of Beuron, taking the names Desiderius, Gabriel, and Lukas. They began an art school at Beuron that—besides designing the St Benedict medal—built churches, painted murals, created mosaics, and even hand-crafted church furnishings and altar vessels in Europe and later in America, based on the principles developed by Desiderius Lenz. Novak lists a few of these (apparently taken from Lenz’s writings):

The art speaks to the mind of the viewer. The art is itself worshipful and invites the viewer to worship. It does not stand out boldly of itself but is part of an environment of worship.

Works are anonymous, done by group effort, and not for the glory of the artist, but of God.

As in icons, the Beuronese style favors imitation over originality, with freehand copying revealing an artist's true genius.

There is full integration of art and architecture. Painting and sculpture are not ‘stick-ons’ to an architectural plan but an integral part of it. Beuronese art encompasses painting, architecture, altar vessels, and furnishings.

One can see some examples of these principles in practice at the Archabbey of Beuron itself here, in the crypt of the monastery church at Monte Cassino here, at the Mauruskapelle here, in the Basilica at Conception Abbey in Missouri, at the Abbey of St Hildegard here, at Maria Laach Abbey in Germany here, and at the chapel of the Gymnázia Teplice in the Czech Republic here. There is a beautiful photo of a Beuronese chapel at Daniel Mitsui’s blog here, and a few images at ‘History and Sources’ here. The photo above is of the 'Great Hall' at St John's University in Collegeville, MN, which was apparently restored some years ago.

Oblature and the St Benedict Medal

As our parish church is dedicated to St Benedict of Nursia, my spiritual father decided to start a group for lay people interested in studying St Benedict’s Rule and trying to apply it to their lives, keeping in mind that these people are not celibate, cœnobitic monks. Such groups are traditionally known as ‘oblates’ of St Benedict, from the Latin oblatio, or ‘offering’. In the West they have been around in some form since St Benedict himself was alive, and Chap. 59 of the Rule mentions boys being ‘offered’ to the monastery during the Oblation.

Well, today my wife and I became novice oblates. There was a short ceremony during the liturgy, in the course of which our spiritual father asked, ‘What do ye seek?’, and we replied, ‘The mercy of God and fraternity with the Community (confraternitatem).’ We then received a small copy of the Rule and a St Benedict medal to wear around our necks.

This medal is a very interesting item. I have included a photograph of it above. The front side features a fairly simple cross, on the vertical bar of which are the letters C.S.S.M.L., standing for Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux (‘The Holy Cross Be My Light’), and on the horizontal bar the letters N.D.S.M.D., for Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux (‘Let Not the Dragon Be My Guide’), and in the angles the letters C.S.P.B., for Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti (‘The Cross of the Holy Father Benedict’). Surmounting the cross is the word PAX, or ‘Peace’, the Benedictine motto. The margin contains the letters V.R.S.N.S.M.V.—S.M.Q.L.I.V.B., for the distich, Vade Retro Satana, Nunquam Suade Mihi Vana—Sunt Mala Quae Libas, Ipse Venena Bibas (‘Begone, Satan, do not suggest to me thy vanities — evil are the things thou profferest, drink thou thy own poison’).

The reverse side features an image of St Benedict with a cross in his right hand and the Rule in his left. On one side is the cup of poison that cracked when St Benedict blessed it (St Gregory the Dialogist, Dial. II.III.4), and on the other is the raven he used to feed (St Gregory, Dial. II.VIII.3). On either side of his head are the words Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti, while the margin is inscribed, Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamus (‘May we at our death be fortified by his presence’—St Benedict is often invoked for a holy death). Beneath St Benedict’s feet is the inscription, ex SM Casino MDCCCLXXX (‘from Holy Monte Cassino, 1880), showing that it was designed for the 1400th anniversary of St Benedict’s birth, celebrated at his famous monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy.

This ‘Jubilee’ medal is a particular version of a medal that had already been around for two or three hundred years, and was based on some crosses and inscriptions found on the walls of another German monastery and said to have protected it from witchcraft. At some point a couple of years ago, I came across a reference to the design of the ‘Jubilee’ version of the medal that noted it had been done at the Art School of the Beuron Monastery in Germany (mentioned approvingly by Fr Placide [Deseille] in his wonderful conversion-to-Orthodoxy story, ‘Stages of a Pilgrimage’, in Hieromonk Alexander [Golitzin], ed. and trans., The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos [South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary, 1999], p. 63) . The liturgical art produced at this monastery, beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century, is quite beautiful and fascinating. I’ll have to dedicate a future post to the sadly obscure subject of Beuronese art!