Holy Leisure: The Key to a Good Life

Holy Leisure: The Key to a Good Life

By now you are aware that our theme for this year is "Living Leisurely through the Liturgical Year" which we have adapted from Benedictine Spirituality.  In her book Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Benedictine sister Sr. Joan Chittister shares her reflections on the Rule of St. Benedict.  

"Leisure, in other words, is an essential part of Benedictine spirituality.  It is not laziness and it is not selfishness.  It has something to do with the depth and breadth, length and quality of life.  In an American culture...leisure may also be one of the most difficult spiritual elements to achieve.  We are trained to be doers and makers, not dreamers and seers.  Benedictine spirituality, on the other hand, sets out to develop people who reflection what they are doing, people for whom the gospel is the filter through which they see their world.

Work, it is clear from the Rule of Benedict, must not exist in a vacuum.  Monastics do not exist to work.  Work is to be integrated into monastic life without doing violence to either.  In the Benedictine vision of live, no one dimension of life is to be exclusive.  Prayer, community, and personal development are all as essential to the good life as work.  And that takes a sense of holy leisure."  

Over the next days and weeks, as we parents struggle to balance our work lives with our children's school lives, let us aspire to do so in  away that does not "do violence to either."  Let us also be mindful, that our children and youth continue to look to us for guidance, inspiration and the attitude to have toward the difficulties to come.  If we place the blame and responsibility for our time management, our prayer and reflection, our work-life balance on the world, the school, someone else, we will not be able to show them how to depend upon God.  This Labor Day weekend, let us make sure to take time to plan out the coming week in such a way it gives each of us quiet time for reflection each day in order to allow God space to work in our very, very busy lives.

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