Pray without ceasing
Some monks called Euchites, or ‘men of prayer’, once came to Lucius in the ninth region of Alexandria.
He asked them, “What manual work do you do?” They said, “We do not work with out hands. We obey St. Paul’s command and pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). He said to them, “Don’t you eat?” They said, “Yes, we do.” He said to them: “When you are eating who prays for you?” Then he asked them, “Don’t you sleep?” They said “Yes, we do.” He said, “Who prays for you while you are asleep?” and they could not answer him.
Then he said to them, “I may be wrong, brothers, but it seems to me that you don’t do what you say. I will show you how I pray without ceasing although I work with my hands. With God’s help, I sit down with a few palm leaves, and plait them, and say, “Have mercy upon me, O God, after they great mercy: and according to the multitude of they mercies do away with mine iniquity” (Ps 51:1). He asked them, “Is that prayer, or not” They said, “It’s prayer all right.”
He said, “When I spend all day working and praying in my heart, I make about sixteen pence. Two of these I put outside the door, and with the rest I buy flood. Whoever finds the two pennies outside the door prays for me while I am eating and sleeping: and so by God’s grace I fulfil the text, “Pray without ceasing”.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V
I think it’s quite ironic that they quoted 1 Thessalonians in order to justify not working since the very reason why Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians was because the Christians there had stopped working and become idle since they were expecting the Second Coming any moment.
Paul responds by saying we don’t know when the Second Coming will be and that Christians must work.
Consider:
4:11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
2 Thess 3:7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
Well, it’s a good thing Lucius was around 🙂
(Am I the only one who thinks of the werewolf from Underworld when I hear that name?)
I think about Harry Potter personally…
The villainous Lucius Malfoy!
This reminds me of a quote from a novice who entered a monastery and the Novice Master instructed him that after dinner it was the new Novice’s duty to wash the dishes. The ‘green’ new Novice went on to instruct the Novice Master that his precious hands were ‘made for chalices and not for calluses.’ As one might imagine, the new Novice’s exit from the monastery was rather quick.
Haha! Brilliant!
Welcome to Restless Pilgrim Tom 🙂