In the first reflection, I asserted that the ancients and the Greeks had a different definition of the word “leisure” than the one we use today. I also asserted that the definition advanced by the Greeks would have been identical to the one understood by Francis.
It sometimes shocks me how the Franciscan sources never fail to contain just the passage I need to substantiate a point I am making. The following is from The Major Legend of St. Francis by St. Bonaventure, chapter nine (slightly rearranged):
Jesus Christ crucified, into Whom he longed to be totally transformed through an enkindling of ecstatic love, always rested like a bundle of myrrh in the bosom of Francis’ soul. As a sign of his special devotion to him, Francis found leisure* from the feast of the Epiphany through forty successive days -- that period when Christ was hidden in the desert -- resting in a place of solitude, shut up in a cell, with as little food and drink as possible fasting, praying, and praising God without interruption.
* Footnote: The Latin is vacabat [he found leisure], a word difficult to translate but one rich in the contemplative tradition, where it has the sense of vacationing or taking a holiday in God.
In this passage, we can see that our rediscovered definition of leisure clearly had a place in the life Francis, which means it has a place in the life of every Franciscan.
The sources are full of instances where Francis isolated himself and spent time in contemplative seclusion. Before now, I would have not associated the word leisure with the “fasting, praying and praising of God” that Francis engaged in at these times, but now I have an understanding that allows me to make that connection. Leisure as I now appreciate it gives me a much deeper and richer admiration of what Francis was about when he retreated to the solitude that was instrumental in his development as a saint.
When Francis visited one of the many hermitages maintained by the order, he was separating himself from the everyday world in an attempt to know God more intimately. The goal would have been to make space for his intellectus to work unimpeded. Much of his prayer would have been geared toward listening, and he would have been doing everything in his power to make himself more receptive to whatever it was that God wished to reveal to him.
In the words of Psalm 46, he would have been endeavoring to be still so that he could know God as God. No amount of vigorous work by the ratio could help achieve this. Such striving could only get in the way and obstruct or forestall his ability to obtain what he was seeking. It was only in opening himself unconditionally in peace and tranquility that he could hope to gain a glimpse into the mystery that is God.
And then, when Francis heard God and comprehended whatever it was He was offering, he would have responded by exalting and praising God in thankfulness for the revelations and grace received. This pattern would finally achieve its climax at the end of Francis’ life, when, in the midst of his suffering, the stillness of his prayer led to an assurance from God that he had gained the Kingdom. Francis’ response of praise then reached its apex in the form of the Canticle of the Creatures.
_________
In the first reflection, the tension between work and leisure is evident throughout. That tension is exacerbated in the modern world by the redefinition of leisure as the opposite of work, but it is evident even in the ancient and medieval outlook. It would be very easy to look at our rediscovered definition of leisure and the excerpt above and come to the conclusion that leisure is the only thing we should be concerned about, to the exclusion of everyday work.
We must remember that Francis did not spend all his time as a hermit. Early in his conversion, the tension between prayerful leisure and the work of preaching troubled him deeply. In chapter twelve of The Major Legend of St. Francis by St. Bonaventure, we hear how Francis sent brothers to Clare and Sylvester to ask them to pray for him and help him with his dilemma: “Should he spend his time in prayer, or should he travel about preaching?” They both responded with the same answer, that God wished Francis to do both. Francis then “rose at once, girded himself, and without the slightest delay took to the roads.”
(This story also appears in The Deeds of Blessed Francis and His Companions, Chapter Sixteen. In this text, Francis is pictured contemplating a third order for the first time.)
Beyond this, Francis spent considerable time working with his own hands and he expected his brothers to do the same. In chapter one-hundred-twenty from The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, we hear from Celano how Francis could be less than charitable with those brothers who were unwilling to work.
How, Working Himself, He Despised the Idle
He used to say that the lukewarm, who do not apply themselves constantly to some work, would be quickly vomited out of the Lord’s mouth. No idler could appear in his presence without feeling the sharp bite of his criticism. This exemplar of every perfection always worked, and worked with his hands, not allowing the great gift of time to go to waste. And so he would often say: “I want all my brothers to work and keep busy, and those who have no skills to learn some.” And he gave this reason: “That we may be less of a burden to people, and that in idleness the heart and tongue may not stray into what is forbidden.”
This tension between work and leisure is a given in human life. We even see it in the life of Christ, who, in the Gospel of Mark (6:3), is confirmed to have worked as a carpenter before he began His public life:
Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
When Jesus transitioned to His ministry, the work continued, just in a different form. The scriptures tell us of the weariness He experienced from traveling. (John 4:6, “Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.”) And a long day performing the work of healing must have left Him exhausted, because healing required the expenditure of power. (Luke 8:46, But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”)
However, we also see Christ as the epitome of prayer. When Francis sought solitude, he did so because he was following the example of Jesus. (Matthew 14:23, “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.”) And it was after an extended period of contemplation that Jesus authored the prayer we rely on most heavily today:
Luke 11:1-4
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.”
So clearly, when He was present here on earth as a man, even Jesus had to sort out the tension between contemplative leisure and everyday work and strike a balance that allowed Him to productively engage in both.
_________
If this tension between work and leisure is present in the life of Jesus and the life of Francis, it should not be surprising that it is also present in the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order.
Article Eight of the Rule says this:
As Jesus was the true worshipper of the Father, so let prayer and contemplation be the soul of all they are and do.
But Article Sixteen says this:
Let them esteem work both as a gift and as a sharing in the creation, redemption, and service of the human community.
The first is a call to leisure as I now understand it. The second clearly places significant value on the activity of everyday work.
My first reaction is to wonder, which is it? If “prayer and contemplation are the soul of all I am and all I do,” that does not seem to leave much room for anything else. The invocation of my soul in this formula seems to be asking for a complete and uncompromising commitment. I wonder how I would be capable of making something the “soul of everything I do” if I do not spend every minute of every day seeking to achieve that goal.
And yet, I am to esteem work. And yet, Francis did both, and Jesus did both.
How am I to proceed? If I go back to the first reflection, maybe I can find something of help.
Recall Pieper’s insistence that leisure comes first. If leisure is the basis of culture, then it is the fundamental act. It has to be present to inform and guide the direction and the development of any culture and any work within that culture. But it does not constitute the culture in and of itself. Perfectly pursued, leisure might be able to provide a perfect philosophy of existence. But without work, that philosophy will never be anything more than theory. All the work that had to be done to rebuild the German culture still had to be done. People still needed to eat. They still needed electricity and fuel to power their lives.
This means that one of the primary roles of leisure is to define the best possible application of work.
The Rule has multiple examples of how this might work. Certain assertions in the Rule require the exercise of leisure before they can be appreciated, absorbed and fully ingrained in my approach to life. I cannot “seek to encounter the living and active person of Christ in my brothers and sisters ….” (Article 5), or “conform my thoughts and deeds to those of Christ” (Article 7), or “unite myself to the redemptive obedience of Christ” (Article 10), or “accept all people as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ” (Article 13) if I am not intimately involved with Christ in the first place. The only way to achieve that intimacy is through leisure. (Which is why prayer and contemplation must be the soul of everything I do. In many ways, the rest of the Rule assumes success on this front.)
But my intimacy with Christ has no value if it does not translate to work. The Love engendered in me by these avowals in the Rule has no value if it does not culminate in some action. The Rule calls on me to “create conditions of life worthy of a people redeemed by Christ” (Article 13), and to “build a more fraternal and evangelical world” (Article 14), and to “promote justice by the testimony of my human life and my courageous initiatives” (Article 15).
These constitute practical and concrete manifestations of the Love I received, acknowledged, and learned through the contemplative leisure of the previous paragraph. They are the action I take and the response I make to the grace and revelation that Jesus bestows on me in my time of leisure. “Accepting people as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ” is what leads to “creating worthy conditions of life” (Article 13). If I do not believe that every person is precious, if I do not love every person just as God Loves every person, then I will not be motivated to perform the work it takes to “promote justice” in the world.
In other words, leisure and work are both necessary and complementary. The better I know God through prayerful leisure, the more effective my work will be in “bringing about the Kingdom of God” here on earth (Article 14).
But none of this is possible if leisure is not preeminent. If I lose myself in the work and forget that prayerful leisure must come first, then I will lose my way completely and fail at both things.
_________
In the past, I have often struggled with this tension. I struggle with it now. That’s part of my motivation for writing this series. I was wondering how leisure might relate to my vocation as a Franciscan so I googled the word. I do not remember what phrase I used, but it generated a link to some comments on Pieper’s book at the top of the first results page. I read a little and immediately ordered the book. Now I am trying to sort out what Pieper has to offer and I am dragging you along in the process.
I tend toward wanting to wallow in the intellectus. I have a romanticized version of my life where I spend all my time, every day, doing nothing but engaging in prayer and spiritual reading. Jesus often feels like a stranger to me, and I am sure that if I could just spend more time seeking Him or more time abiding in His presence, then I would start to feel closer to Him.
This means I tend to see anything other than prayer, even simple things like grocery shopping, doing my laundry, making the bed, fixing dinner, or mowing the lawn, as an intrusion on my ideal life. These tasks are the everyday work of a normal human life. They are not evil in any sense of the word. To requote Article Sixteen of the Rule, I should “esteem them as a gift and a sharing in the creation, redemption, and service of the human community.” This is especially true because these things are in service to my family, which is the subject of the next article of the Rule.
Instead, I tend to see this work as “of the world” in an entirely negative way. I see it as an imposition. I blame it for distracting me from my true purpose and desire. “If only I was not bogged down in these mundane tasks, then I could achieve the level of prayer and contemplation I desire! If I could set these tasks aside, then I could spend the time with Jesus I need to be firmly connected to Him! I could finally know Him as I wish to know Him!”
But the truth is, I am retired, and I have plenty of time every day for prayerful leisure. The harder truth to admit is that I rarely engage in this leisure anywhere close to the extent that my idealized version of my life suggests I should. I procrastinate. I watch TV and play video games on my phone or computer for hours at a time. I do everything but this thing I tell myself I cherish above everything else. Or, worse yet, I simply do nothing.
When I read the quote on work by Francis above, I know he is talking about me. I shudder to think about how much I “allow the great gift of time to go to waste” every day. How often does my “heart stray into what is forbidden” because of my own idleness? How harshly would Francis, or the Lord, criticize me if I met them face to face?
I might spend more time in contemplative leisure than most, but I hardly spend as much time as I could. I probably spend less time in work than most, but that does not make me particularly productive on either front. And I often neglect or postpone the basic work I know I need to responsibly complete.
In some way I cannot complete express, I am blaming “the world” for keeping me from engaging in leisure to the extent I want to, while at the same time neglecting the must-do work that I know I am responsible for. And, despite the neglecting, my prayer life is not as complete and fruitful as I know it should or could be. Somewhere in there is a sin that I find myself incapable of naming, let alone acknowledging or confessing. I think I need some help. Like Francis, I need my brothers and sisters to pray for me and let me know the outcome of their prayer.
_________
There is no denying that the modern world is set against me when it comes to leisure. It would gladly load me down with more work than I could ever complete. The trend toward work as everything that Pieper was arguing against in 1947 post-war Germany has not abated. It has only accelerated and become amplified. Unfortunately, his point of view did not triumph.
I can look at my life and see how it would be possible to get lost in work even though I am retired. The list of tasks above is a must-do list. If I tried, I could easily expand that list so that it would take up all my time and then some. I could also add some “want to” things. I might even have a hard time telling the difference in many instances.
I do need to be aware of not succumbing to the pressures and promptings of the everyday world. But I also need to be more aware of identifying the work that is truly must-do and taking care of it promptly and competently.
I ended the first reflection with some comments about the importance of balance. I think I am back to that idea.
But I have to acknowledge that balance is impossible with honesty. If I am not being completely honest with myself about how I view work and how I approach leisure, then balance is something I will never attain. I may not be able to name the sin I identified above, but I know it has something to do with not being honest with myself. In that dishonesty, I seem to open a third possibility that exists as a no man’s land between leisure and work, where nothing gets done, and true idleness and excruciating sin hold sway.
That true idleness is defined by Pieper like this:
Idleness means that the human being has given up on the very responsibility that comes with his dignity: that he does not want to be what God wants him to be……. It is the “despair of weakness” that consists in someone not wanting “to be oneself.”…….. It is the “sadness of the world” spoken of in the Bible. (2 Corinthians 7:10, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”)
If, by my actions and inactions, I place myself in a gulf of idleness and sorrow where I refuse “to be myself,” is it likely that I would lie to myself about what I was doing? Seems like not wanting to be myself and lying to myself would go hand in hand, so that answer must be yes.
Which means my balance is even more out of whack than I might have originally thought. And the only way to correct this is to start being honest with myself.
Complete self-honesty, then, would seem to be a prerequisite for being able to live a life properly balanced between leisure and work.
If I cannot achieve that, then I cannot follow the instruction of the psalm, and I may never understand how to consistently “be still and know that He is God.”
OFS Ongoing 
2 thoughts on “The Tension Between Work and Leisure”