VI. The Monastic Day

(#15) Monks participating in the Divine Office

The Cistercian life is one in which a spirit of prayer, that is , living consciously in the presence of God, dominates. St. Benedict recognized that an arrangement of the day into three major components - private prayer, communal prayer, and physical labor - greatly furthers the continuous awareness of God's Presence. So the monk's day at Conyers is a combination of communal prayer commencing when most of the monks gather in the church or chapter room to pray together and to celebrate Mass, private prayer and meditation at set times during the day and work within the community. A striking characteristic of this community of the late twentieth century, when compared with the earlier regimens, is the immense diversity practiced here, both in the areas of prayer and work. There is considerable room allowed for individual needs, preferences, personalities, yet the rhythm of the community as an entity remains essential to the life.

An important means toward the realization of this unity in diversity is the practice of the Divine Office, traditionallythe form of monastic prayer. The visitor to the monastery who arrives fifteen minutes before the community Mass at 7:15 AM on weekdays will be able to participate in one of the major liturgical activities of the abbey, the Divine Office orOpus Dei . When St. Benedict wrote in his Rule , "Let nothing be preferred to the Work of God," he was referring to the essential role of this mode of prayer for the monastic existence.

The Divine Office or common prayer of the community is composed of hymns, reading from Scripture, psalms, all 150 of them being prayed in the course of a set period of time - one or two weeks. The arrangements of the times for this recitation has varied through the centuries, and today individual houses work out the arrangement that best serves their own mode of life. But the constant is that the prayer be communal and that it occur at regular intervals throughout the day and night.

(#16) The Organist accompanies the chants of the monks during prayer times in the Chapel The antiphonal nature of the chanting furthers the sense of community within the group. And since this isthe prayer of monasteries worldwide and is the official prayer of the universal Church, it unites the community to the whole praying Church. The periodic aspect of the Office imparts a rhythm to the monk's day, helping to maintain the focus on God. The repetition of the psalms throughout the year aims at impressing them so firmly in the mind and heart, that their words can spill over into the other occupations of the monk. In this way the prayer and the other duties and activities form a unity, expressed succinctly in the well-known motto of Benedictine monasticism - ora et labora (pray and work).

The music with its measured pace and simple structure intensifies the message of the words themselves. When Holy Spirit monastery changed from Latin to English recitation of the Office, the monks began to write their own music for changing. This was in keeping with the Order's 1969 Statute of Unity and Pluralism which noted that the fundamental values of the Cistercian life can be maintained without imposing a detailed uniformity where in fact a legitimate diversity should exist.

The day that begins with communal prayer also ends with it when the monks gather again in the church for the night prayer or the whole Church, Compline. Following this prayer the community observes the "Great Silence," now the only time of strict silence in the monastery.

In recent years the laity has rediscovered the suitability of the Divine Office as a way for all Christians to raise the heart and mind to God, and as a way to sanctify secular concerns. Visitors to Holy Spirit can share in this prayer in the morning at Lauds, at Vespers before supper, and at Compline after supper.