Community Prayer and the Vocation of the Choir Monk

Seven times a day, I have sung your praises. (Ps.118:164)

Perhaps the most obvious thing that strikes the visitor to a Cistercian monastery is the recurring frequency with which the monks go to ‘choir’ or church during the day. This they do so for what is commonly called the (Divine) Office. The origin of the Office goes back to the Old Testament. The early Christians continued this Jewish practice of regular prayer times, and well before the end of the fourth century the set times for prayer as we have them today had become the norm. Saint Benedict wanted nothing to be preferred to the Office, which he called the ‘Work of God.’

In monasteries the Hours of the Office still retain their traditional Latin names, and basically they follow the natural rhythm of the day. Lauds and Vespers, or Morning and Evening Prayer, form the pivot of the Office. Then there are the shorter Hours of Terce, Sext, None, which correspond to the mid-morning break, lunch hour, and the afternoon break. The day ends with Compline or Night Prayer. Following an unbroken tradition which has its roots deep in the Old Testament and which our Lord himself practised, the monks rise in the early morning hours for the Night Office or Vigils.

Even before the year 200 a Christian writer called Tertullian remarked that one of the values of having fixed times for prayer is that they tear us away from what we are doing so that we, as it were, force ourselves to pray. The reality is that we need such a prayer structure, for without it we may end up not praying at all.

Speaking of the Psalms, which form the core and bulk of the Divine Office, the Venerable Columba Marmion, OSB, (d. 1923) writes:

Thus, the soul’s most intense desires, its deepest aspirations, its most pressing and extensive needs find wonderful forms of expression furnished by the Holy Spirit. And each soul can appropriate to itself these forms as if they had been made for itself alone.

Going on to speak of the Office in general he continues:

When the Divine Office is recited with fervour, it is the Holy Spirit who throws light upon some text of the Psalms or of the Liturgy; this text then particularly strikes the soul, and by this vivid, penetrating and effectual action of the Spirit of Jesus, it hereafter becomes a principle of light and joy, and like a wellspring of living water where the soul may constantly allay its thirst, renew its strength, and find the secret of patience and inward gladness.

Tradition, with plenty of flexibility, has given a theme to each Hour. Vigils is a keeping watch for the coming or return of the Lord; Lauds and Vespers have the obvious light and darkness theme, which Christ himself made so much of. Terce celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit at the ‘third hour’ (9.00 a.m.); Sext, at midday, Christ’s (the Sun of Justice) mounting on the cross; and None (3.00 p.m.) his redemptive death. The last Office, Compline, prepares us for our meeting with the Lord through death. The sign of our desire for perfect union with God is the concelebrated Community Mass. This is the pulsing heart of our day, the source of our communion with Christ, with one another and with the whole Church. By participating in the eucharistic liturgy we receive a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of
Jerusalem, to which we are heading as travellers. It provides us a daily opportunity to thank our heavenly Father, through the
Holy Spirit for the Gift of his Son. It is a time of favour which ripples
out across the day bringing us ever closer to the Father’s house.