Our Monastic Horarium

    I thought you might be interested in seeing what a typical day is like for the professed sisters in our monastery.

4:30 a.m. - Rising bell

4:45 a.m. - Office of Readings (Matins)

5:15 a.m. - Contemplative Prayer in cell, outdoors or in Chapel

6:15 a.m. - Morning Prayer in monastery chapel (Lauds)

7 a.m. - Holy Mass followed by 5 minutes of Thanksgiving and then Midmorning Prayer (Terce)

Breakfast

Tidy cell

Work/Class/Spiritual Reading

12 noon – Midday Prayer (Sext)

Dinner & dishes

Recreation

1:25 p.m. – Silence Time (free to exercise, read, rest, etc.)

Mondays of Advent and Lent, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday - 2:45 p.m. - Midafternoon prayer (None) followed by the “Offerings of the Precious Blood” with arms extended for 5 minutes and the Divine Mercy Chaplet

Mondays of Ordinary Time, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday - Silence time ends at 3:15

Work/Class/Study

4:30 p.m. - Rosary can be prayed communally at this time or in solitude.

5:00 p.m. - Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament & Evening Prayer (Vespers)

Followed by 1 hour of private contemplative prayer

Supper

Dishes

Recreation

8:00 p.m. - Night Prayer (Compline)

8:30 p.m. - Great Silence

· During the year we have various days of retreat, Forty Hours devotions, Lectio Divina afternoons, etc when there is more time for prayer and study.

· On Fridays we have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament all morning and are free from unnecessary work to spend time with our Eucharistic Lord in honor of His Sacred Passion.

· On Sundays, certain feast days and Holy Days of Obligation there is extra time for prayer and recreation.

Also, we have Gaudeamus days several times per year (Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Mother Superior’s feast day etc.) when we are dispensed from silence all day and have more time for recreation: skits, games, fishing, hiking and just being together as sisters in the Lord!