“Ora et Labora”
(“Prayer and Work”)
In the beginning there was a garden in which God walked with man and man lived alongside creation, which in turn had a working harmony amongst itself. When man chose to distrust God, that perfect harmony was lost. However, for millennia there have been places which strive to return to that original harmony between Creator and created. Monasteries are places where God is again the Source and Summit of all, where thanksgiving and praise are rendered to Him while the mutual giving and receiving which is a participation in the Life of the Triune God Himself-and was always intended to be found also in creation- is nurtured. At the Bethlehem Priory of St. Joseph, Norbertine Canonesses have the primary responsibility of praying the Divine Liturgy, in which we serve as the voice of the Church-and of creation- in singing praise, thanksgiving, and supplications to God, but cloistered monastic life also involves drawing all of our day- and all of creation- into the praise and glory of God. “Ora et labora” is the time-honored phrase to describe the rhythm of daily monastic life–we pray and we work, with St. Paul’s admonition in our hearts “pray always.” We have fittingly chosen to do this in an agricultural setting- with livestock, pastures and gardens- which fosters the depth and vitality of the soul and its prayer-life, and enables the community to be self-sustaining: with God’s grace a true center of Life on many levels.
The more we live in accord with the way the Creator-of-all intended, the more we will return to the harmony that was meant to be within souls, between souls, between men and the natural world, and amongst the natural world. There is a movement growing in the world today to “return to the land.” In general, this movement encompasses the ideas and methods of working with the land and animals in a more natural way and on a human scale, imitating the God’s plan for nature itself, to manage domesticated animals, plants, and the soil, in order to foster the continual renewal and flourishing- and mutual giving and receiving- among men, land and animals. Taken up by the true Catholic understanding of who man is and the purpose for his existence, these methods of farming help develop sustainable communities grounded in the True, Good and Beautiful, enabling us to be the stewards of the earth that men were deputed by God to be.
In 2023 we Canonesses began to start to apply these principles and methods to our dairy farming efforts, embarking on rotational grazing and multi-species herds.
Although we do not have dairy products from these animals available for sale (the cheese that we sell we make from raw cow milk purchased from a local Grade A dairy), we do sometimes have sheep and cows available for sale.
