Operi Dei nihil praeponatur

Or, in the Common Speech, “Let nothing be placed before the work of God.” (from the Rule of St. Benedict)

The Opus Dei is the Daily Office – Matins, Evensong, and the little hours, or more broadly, the life of prayer in its many forms. As St. Benedict says, it must come first. I know this, rationally and from personal experience. It is the settled and universal witness of Holy Mother Church that this is so. Nonetheless, it remains a struggle. The “battle of prayer,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls it:

Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. If we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray habitually in his name. The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer. (paragraph 2725)

I have sung or said the Offices for about thirty years. But I have not been sufficiently faithful with this duty, this Officium; Matins and Compline are almost always there nowadays, but Evensong – many times I am “too busy.” Or hungry, or tired. And, often enough, I choose food and sleep over prayer. It has been a negative in this respect that when I am home, I do the appointed psalms in Hebrew. I am getting better, but it still takes me a lot longer than they would in English. And I still groan when I realize that it is the Fifteenth Evening, and Psalm 78 is appointed, all seventy-two verses. On the other hand, the Psalms have increasingly been a motivation when I waver: “If I skip Evensong tonight, I won't get to do this psalm until next month!” Even Psalm 78 – I love the latter part, when the Lord awakes like a warrior refreshed with wine, and smites his enemies on the backside (“kicks butt” would be a perfectly adequate translation. I love it!)

A second thing that helps is accountability. During the academic year, we list Matins at 7:30 on two or three mornings a week, a relic of the days when Fr. Sanderson was Priest-in-Charge and we were able to do all fourteen Offices every week, plus midday Eucharist on Major Feasts. For a while, it was him, me, and Bill K. But Fr. S. was called to another place, Bill K. retired and no longer had reason to come into town at 7:30 am, and since then, it is usually just me. Still, it says on the calendar that we are doing the Office, so I had better get out in the church and do it. And one never knows; some years ago, it was a typical weekday Matins with just me, and who should walk in but our diocesan Bishop! He was in town for a meeting and came to the service. And perhaps he was checking to see if we did indeed pray the Office as we claimed.

A third thing is that I know by long experience that if I can just get started, I will be glad that I did. Once I make it to “O Lord, open thou our lips,” I will be all right.

But even with all this, it is hard. It is, as the Catechism says, a “battle.” The thought lurks that “if I weren't doing these things, I could get more done.” I could read the shelves-full of books at home. I could get started on my work at church and get so much done in this first and freshest part of the day, when I am itching to get onto the organ bench, or into the other work that needs to be done. The "wiles of the tempter" are at work.

I think that the temptation to not-pray, to do anything except pray, is one of the most fearsome and deadly, right up there with Pride.

It is better to pray badly than not at all.

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Longtime readers may remember this from my LiveJournal blog (April 4, 2008). Some of these old essays are worth revisiting. I hope to post another one or two soon, with further thoughts about Prayer.