5: A Life of Time
I've got a whole bunch of crazy stories to tell you, I promise. Dozens of personal diary entries and letters to share too. We'll get there soon! But first, it's important I keep setting the stage. I want you to see how wildly different this world was for me, and through these first few blog entries, I hope to paint a larger picture of what my life there was like.
There were truly so many fascinating parts of being a monk. Many of them I look back on now with great amusement too. But the schedule? Well, as you might guess, it wasn't easy getting used to. Here's what my day generally looked like for the summer of 1993. I think this will help put everything else into better perspective going forward.
What follows is my best recollection.
I'll discuss mealtimes and what the workday often included in future blog entries, but here's a little bit about what you see above regarding my schedule.
Morning Prayer was a short series of prayers that didn't vary too much, and only lasted around 15 minutes, but included a brief reading from the bible (known as Lectio Divina).
For Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, twice a day, the brothers took turns for a week at a time reading a small part of the bible out loud. It took us a little under two years to get through the whole bible this way, reading just a bit each morning and evening, so we probably read it cover to cover 2.5 times while I was there. Not just the greatest hits either, mind you, but every frickin' word of it.
Spoiler Alert: there are A LOT of unchristian, downright immoral passages in the bible, and plenty of truly boring parts besides. It's honestly quite unbiblical in places.
With Morning Prayer starting at 6:30 AM weekdays (6 during the school year), that usually meant waking up by 5:30 AM.
A full Mass followed immediately afterward every day, lasting roughly 45 minutes until we went back into the brothers' house for communal breakfast (which also began and ended with a prayer).
I'll discuss what the workday entailed for me in a separate blog entry, but most of the time during the summer months, we worked with student crews over in the high school on refurbishment projects around the grounds of the high school. With the school mostly empty and inactive over the summer, this was our chance to repaint, re-tile, rewire, and much more. I learned so many great skills I've been grateful to take with me throughout the rest of my life!
Meditation time began at 6:20 every night, and lasted for 20 minutes until Evening Prayer, which ran from 6:40 to 7:00.
For Meditation time, we'd generally read a spirituality related book privately, pray in silence for a while, or some combination of the two. We did this as a community, so we were all in our seats in the chapel during this time (we each had an assigned seat too, and every seat had a storage sleeve underneath for our prayer books and personal meditation reading – see photos).
After a long day of work or school, you'd occasionally see heads nodding as sleepiness took over, and on rare occasions, you might even hear some snoring, which always led to a low-volume, room-wide chuckle.
After Evening Prayer, we met in the dining room most nights for communal dinner at 7, once again beginning and ending with its own prayer. On Friday and Saturday nights, we had dinner in one of two other community rooms in the monastery. (Water and wine were offered with dinner Sunday through Thursday, but a full bar always set up for Friday and Saturday night meals.)
And Night Prayer was the shortest scheduled prayer time we had all day, and honestly it was the perfect way to end the night too, because after some brief prayers, we finished by singing part of a Gregorian chant together a cappella (the first minute and a half of this video was my favorite of these). This would end around 9:45, and by 10 PM, we began what was called The Great Silence, where only whispers and low talking were allowed in the bedroom levels of the house.
As we all had to be up, showered, dressed, and in the chapel as early as 6 AM the next day, being quiet after 10 was pretty easy to do!
For those keeping track, that was approximately two full hours of community chapel and prayer time each and every day for over four years of my life (I invariably prayed back in my room often too). Of course I somehow had to squeeze in my college schoolwork too, which I'll explain more about in a future blog entry. For now, I just wanted to show you what the basic schedule looked like, at least for the summer.
We woke up early, had Morning Prayer and Mass together every day, breakfast together too right afterward, and then changed from our habits into work clothes for work from roughly 9 to 5. In the evening, we wore casual clothes (khakis and a polo or dress shirt) to chapel and then dinner. Bed around 10 or 10:30, rinse and repeat!
Coming Next Week: The Young Brothers
There were truly so many fascinating parts of being a monk. Many of them I look back on now with great amusement too. But the schedule? Well, as you might guess, it wasn't easy getting used to. Here's what my day generally looked like for the summer of 1993. I think this will help put everything else into better perspective going forward.
What follows is my best recollection.
Monday to Friday:
6:30 AM Morning Prayer and Mass
7:30 AM Breakfast
8:45 AM Meet in School For Work
(Lunch Break 12:30-1:15 PM)
5:00 PM Finish Work
6:20 PM Meditation and Evening Prayer
7:00 PM Dinner
9:30 PM Night Prayer
___________________________________
Saturday:
7:00 AM Morning Prayer and Mass
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM Work
(Lunch Break 1:00-1:45 PM)
5:00 PM Finish Work
6:20 PM Meditation and Evening Prayer
7:00 PM Dinner
9:30 PM Night Prayer
___________________________________
Sunday:
9:30 AM Morning Prayer and Mass
10:30 AM Breakfast
(Lunch on your own)
6:20 PM Meditation and Evening Prayer
7:00 PM Dinner
9:30 PM Night Prayer
I'll discuss mealtimes and what the workday often included in future blog entries, but here's a little bit about what you see above regarding my schedule.
 |
| Fr. Ernest Lorfanfant and Fr. Garrett Long lead an Ash Wednesday service (Chaminade High School's Facebook page) |
Morning Prayer was a short series of prayers that didn't vary too much, and only lasted around 15 minutes, but included a brief reading from the bible (known as Lectio Divina).
For Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, twice a day, the brothers took turns for a week at a time reading a small part of the bible out loud. It took us a little under two years to get through the whole bible this way, reading just a bit each morning and evening, so we probably read it cover to cover 2.5 times while I was there. Not just the greatest hits either, mind you, but every frickin' word of it.
Spoiler Alert: there are A LOT of unchristian, downright immoral passages in the bible, and plenty of truly boring parts besides. It's honestly quite unbiblical in places.
With Morning Prayer starting at 6:30 AM weekdays (6 during the school year), that usually meant waking up by 5:30 AM.
A full Mass followed immediately afterward every day, lasting roughly 45 minutes until we went back into the brothers' house for communal breakfast (which also began and ended with a prayer).
I'll discuss what the workday entailed for me in a separate blog entry, but most of the time during the summer months, we worked with student crews over in the high school on refurbishment projects around the grounds of the high school. With the school mostly empty and inactive over the summer, this was our chance to repaint, re-tile, rewire, and much more. I learned so many great skills I've been grateful to take with me throughout the rest of my life!
Meditation time began at 6:20 every night, and lasted for 20 minutes until Evening Prayer, which ran from 6:40 to 7:00.
For Meditation time, we'd generally read a spirituality related book privately, pray in silence for a while, or some combination of the two. We did this as a community, so we were all in our seats in the chapel during this time (we each had an assigned seat too, and every seat had a storage sleeve underneath for our prayer books and personal meditation reading – see photos).
After a long day of work or school, you'd occasionally see heads nodding as sleepiness took over, and on rare occasions, you might even hear some snoring, which always led to a low-volume, room-wide chuckle.
After Evening Prayer, we met in the dining room most nights for communal dinner at 7, once again beginning and ending with its own prayer. On Friday and Saturday nights, we had dinner in one of two other community rooms in the monastery. (Water and wine were offered with dinner Sunday through Thursday, but a full bar always set up for Friday and Saturday night meals.)
And Night Prayer was the shortest scheduled prayer time we had all day, and honestly it was the perfect way to end the night too, because after some brief prayers, we finished by singing part of a Gregorian chant together a cappella (the first minute and a half of this video was my favorite of these). This would end around 9:45, and by 10 PM, we began what was called The Great Silence, where only whispers and low talking were allowed in the bedroom levels of the house.
As we all had to be up, showered, dressed, and in the chapel as early as 6 AM the next day, being quiet after 10 was pretty easy to do!
 |
| Photo of a Eucharistic Adoration service; from The Long Island Catholic |
For those keeping track, that was approximately two full hours of community chapel and prayer time each and every day for over four years of my life (I invariably prayed back in my room often too). Of course I somehow had to squeeze in my college schoolwork too, which I'll explain more about in a future blog entry. For now, I just wanted to show you what the basic schedule looked like, at least for the summer.
We woke up early, had Morning Prayer and Mass together every day, breakfast together too right afterward, and then changed from our habits into work clothes for work from roughly 9 to 5. In the evening, we wore casual clothes (khakis and a polo or dress shirt) to chapel and then dinner. Bed around 10 or 10:30, rinse and repeat!
Coming Next Week: The Young Brothers
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