Episcopal Relief & Development's 2025 LENTEN Meditation Journey . . . A COMMONPLACE Lent

Pray and work. —Saint Benedict

A decade ago, if you had told me that I would begin to crave the feeling of dirt between my fingers in late winter, I would have laughed out loud. Gardening was never my thing. It was Nathan’s thing, my mother’s thing, my mother-in-law’s thing, but not my thing. I was firmly a house person, an indoor sort. I was not a gardener. Until I was.

A line in the General Thanksgiving, a prayer toward the end of an Episcopal eucharistic service, says: “We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.” I have found that the more I garden and want to garden, the more I understand specific prayers and passages of Scriptures. Standing in my living room, reading The General Thanksgiving out loud, windows open, birds chirping, dining room table covered with seed pots and rooster crowing in the yard, I realize that the words are filled with a deeper meaning now that I work to preserve the lives of animals, gardens, trees and children in my care, now that I am harvesting blessing after blessing of fresh eggs, herbs, flowers and copious amounts of vegetables, each of which always comes to me
as a sort of miracle. That we plant a seed tinier than a freckle into a mound of dirt, and months later, we are eating an endless meal of tomato sandwiches, so fresh and ripe that the juices run down my chin, is a miracle every time.

This is one of the ways Saint Benedict’s motto of ora et labora—pray and work—has been made real to me. Work and prayer come together as co-creators in the goodness of creation, in the miracle of planting, tending and harvesting tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and okra.

For REFLECTION:

What does “pray and work” mean to you?

Click here to read the introduction to the 2025 Lenten Meditation "A Commonplace Lent."

The Lenten Meditations prepared by Episcopal Relief & Development invite readers to deepen their spiritual practice during the season of Lent, the time of preparation leading to Easter. Our 2025 meditations explore the idea of “A Commonplace Lent.” This concept reflects Episcopal Relief & Development’s tagline: “Working Together for Lasting Change.” We share in common the work of advancing lasting change in communities impacted by injustice, poverty, disaster and climate change.

We also share in common spiritual practices that strengthen our faith—prayer, worship, love, grace, service and so much more. The author explores another meaning of common in the  meditations: finding God in the common and ordinary as well as in the extraordinary mountain-top moments. Each day begins with wisdom from desert mothers and fathers, monastics and other spiritual leaders who offer insight into our common path of faithful discipleship and service. Each meditation concludes with a question for deeper reflection.

Episcopal Relief & Development is the compassionate response of The Episcopal Church to human suffering in the world. Hearing God’s call to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to respect the dignity of every human being, Episcopal Relief & Development serves to bring together the generosity of Episcopalians and others with the needs of the world.

This Lenten Meditation Journey is provided courtesy of Episcopal Relief & Development and was authored by Jerusalem Jackson Greer, co-executive director and agrarian minister for the Procter Center, an Episcopal farm, camp and retreat center in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. As former manager of evangelism and discipleship for The Episcopal Church under Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, she co-founded the Good News Garden movement and oversaw Way of Love and Evangelism initiatives for the wider church.