The Rhythms of Day and Night in the Rule of St. Benedict - Guest Article by a Monk

The following article was given to NLM by a monk of the Order of St. Benedict who writes under the pen name Placidus. Any reader who would like to get in touch with him may write to placidus12986@gmail.com.

I have often wondered how a monk would have spent his day in the time of St. Benedict. An overview of his Rule for Monasteries shows that he would typically divide his time between five things: praying, studying, working, eating, and sleeping. The way that these activities where distributed throughout the day, however, depended upon the amount of daylight available for artisanal or outdoor agrarian work, and the amount of darkness from which one could profit a full night’s sleep.

In St Benedict’s day, an hour was not counted by a division into 24 equal parts of the period from one solar noon to the next. Rather, one solar hour of the day was counted as one twelfth part of the period from sunrise to sunset, and a nocturnal hour was likewise one twelfth of the period between sunset and sunrise. At Montecassino, the total duration of the twelve daylight hours varies from about 15 conventional hours at the summer solstice to a bit more than 9 conventional hours at the winter solstice.

How one calculates an hour is somewhat arbitrary in the end, but the main principle is that it be based on some fixed law of motion, if, indeed, time is the numbering of motion according to an order of before and after. Whether one calculates time according to the daily motions of the sun, or the vibrations of a caesium atom, is a matter of taste and practicality. In a technocratic culture dependent upon world-wide commerce, communication, and travel, a system of time-keeping that admits of no variation anywhere in the world makes sense. But in an agrarian culture that is without such dependencies, as was that of rural Italy in the time of St. Benedict, the daily motion of the sun was the natural choice for tracking the day.

A Roman solar day near the summer solstice

A Roman solar day near the winter solstice

One of the reasons why St. Benedict calculates the hours according to the amount of daylight is because the liturgical day ends at sunset, and so the daily requirement of praying to God seven times a day (cf. Ps. 118, 164) was to be completed before then. Hence, for St. Benedict, a monk’s prayer was to be distributed according to evenly spaced solar hours between sunrise and sunset. Lauds, therefore, is generally prayed at first-light, such that it concludes near the moment of sunrise, Prime is one solar-hour after sunrise, Terce is around three later, Sext is at solar-noon, None is around nine solar-hours later, and Vespers occurs about an hour or so before sunset, whereas Compline is sung at sunset, during the twilight period, so as to close off the day. [1] All of these, St. Benedict says, must be sung while there is still some light in the sky.

However, Scripture also tells us to pray at night (Ps. 118, 62), and so St. Benedict prescribes that the office of Matins (or Vigils) be prayed after a full night’s sleep in winter (eight hours after sunset), and just before Lauds in Summer, since the time between sunset and sunrise for most of this season is not enough for a full night’s sleep. [2] To make up for these short nights, a siesta is added before None so that the monk still gets his total of eight hours of sleep each day.

In winter (October 1st to Easter), St. Benedict has his monks spend any available time between Matins and Terce and between None and Vespers doing lectio divina, the prayerful study and meditation on Sacred Scripture and the Church Fathers, or else the monks are to memorize those Psalms that have not yet been learned by heart. But the warmer and brighter hours between Terce and None during this season are spent outside doing manual labor. However, in summer (Easter to October 1st), the inverse occurs. The monk spends the hottest hours in the middle of the day between Terce and None inside the monastery doing his lectio divina, whereas he spends the cooler hours in the morning between Prime and Terce or in the evening between None and Vespers doing manual labor outside, or he spends it doing artisanal labor in one of the monastery’s workshops.

Yearly solar horarium according to the Rule of St. Benedict, chs. 8, 41, 48

In any medieval monastery, study was easily done in summertime within the cool, stone interior of the monastery’s scriptorium or cloister-walk, but in wintertime, it was done by candlelight at the fireside of the calefactory. However, indoor artisanal work requires at least daylight coming through the workshop windows, and agrarian labor also requires bearable outdoor temperatures, determined by the passing of the sun. The day is arranged, then, to make the most efficient use of light and temperature.

The taking of meals also reflects this harmony with and dependence upon the sun and seasonal changes. In fall and winter (beginning on September 14t), when there is less manual work to do outside, the monk eats less, taking his one main meal after None, or after Vespers during Lent, but in summer (beginning at Easter), when the manual work is more intense, the monk eats his main meal after Sext and also takes supper after Vespers. However, in accord with his Italian heritage, St. Benedict makes no mention of breakfast in the early morning.

Now, if we compare the total amount of time given to each activity, mentioned above, we can see that the monk spends an average of 5½ hours a day in manual labor and 4 hours in study. These vary inversely so that there is more work in the summer, but more study in the winter. The monk also has the option of replacing his siesta in summer with more study, if he wishes.

Likewise, the monk spends from around 4 to 5 hours a day in liturgical prayer and about ¾ to 1¼ hours at meals. These are similarly related inversely so that the extra time during the monastic fast between September 14th and Easter, when only one meal is taken rather than two, is replaced by more time in liturgical prayer, i.e. at Matins. The monk also has the option here of adding more time for personal prayer in the chapel on his own, perhaps during the long period between Matins and Lauds in Winter. Hence, as the night hours increase, study and prayer increase, but when the daylight hours increase, work and bodily nourishment increase.

There are many things that we can learn from this contemplative rhythm of life that is built around this daily ebb and flow of light and warmth. The monk sees the rising of the sun each day as he comes out from Lauds, having just admonished all creation to divine praises: “Praise him sun and moon, praise him every star and light” (Ps. 148, 3; cf. Dan. 3, 56-88), and thus he is reminded by the dawn of God’s loving Providence over all things. In the hymn at Lauds the monk praises God for having created night and day:

Maker of all, eternal King / Who day and night about dost bring / Who weary mortals to relieve / Dost in their times the seasons give.

Now the shrill cock proclaims the day / And calls the sun’s awakening ray / The wandering pilgrim’s guiding light / That marks the watches night by night. . . .

O let us then like men arise / The cock rebukes the slumbering eye / Bestirs who still in sleep would lie / And shames who would their Lord deny. [3]

The Creator of the day speaks to us through nature, both by the rising light of dawn as by the rooster’s crow, which both attest to the ordered celestial laws that govern the days, months, and years, as well as to the necessary submission of nature to those same laws. If the rooster is obedient to the rising light and announces on time its maker’s glory, all the more are we encouraged to do so. Hence, St. Benedict rouses his monks to wakefulness in the Rule, saying,

Let us then rise at length, since the Scripture arouseth us, saying: “It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep” (Rom. 13, 11); and having opened our eyes to the deifying light, let us hear with awestruck ears what the divine voice, crying out daily, doth admonish us, saying: “Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps. 94, 8) . . . “Run whilst you have the light of life, that the darkness of death overtake you not” (John 12, 35). [4]

The urgency of his admonition is all the more apparent when the time one has for daily work is clearly marked by the unchanging laws of the sun. “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world” (John 11, 9). All that we have is today for our conversion; no man knows if the sun will rise for him again. “Night is coming when no man can work” (John 9, 4). The Scripture that is read each day at Lauds also warns us to cast off the night of our sins and to put on Christ.

The night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day (Rom. 13, 12-13).

Singing Lauds just before sunrise reminds us that Christ himself is coming: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light” (Eph. 5, 14). Nearly every day the monk is reminded in song of this rising light, which he sees with his own eyes and knows in his own soul: the physical light that casts off the shadow of night, and the spiritual light that breaks through the darkness of sin. The rising light of day recalls to mind that we are given yet another chance to return to Christ: “Therefore, our days are lengthened to a truce for the amendment of the misdeeds of our present life.” [5]

Dusk on the mountain in November

At Vespers, the monks recalls again the ordered harmony of the celestial motions:

O God, whose hand hath spread the sky / And all its shining hosts on high / And painting it with fiery light / Made it so beauteous and so bright.

Thou, when the fourth day was begun / Didst frame the circle of the sun / And set the moon for ordered change / And planets for their wider range. [6]

These ordered laws that govern the heavenly motions are continually proposed to the monk for contemplation: the circuit of the sun, the phases of the moon, the wheeling stars and wandering planets. All of these point in their constant change to something changeless and eternal: the Divine Will and Providence, unchanging in its firmness, but which governs all things with love and sweetness, bringing them to their preordained consummation. Meditating on this divine rule in the ordered changes of the seasons, the great St. Boethius declared shortly before his execution,

Thou short the days dost make / When Winter from the trees the leaves doth take,
Thou, when the fiery sun / Doth Summer cause, makest the nights swiftly run.
Thy might doth rule the year / As northern winds the leaves away do bear . . .
None from Thy laws are free, / Nor can forsake their place ordained by Thee.
Thou to that certain end / Governest all things. [7]

Living by the rhythms of the sun, the monks of old were compelled to assent to its benign governance, and through submitting to its care, they were made to acknowledge the One who created it, and who is ever over all things, supreme.

NOTES 

[1] St. Benedict has Terce and None vary slightly according to the season, depending on the exigencies for outdoor manual labor and the time given to study or lectio divina.

[2] Lauds follows shortly after Matins from Easter to November. However, since Matins is longer from November until Easter by as much as ½ an hour due to lengthier readings, Lauds moves back to just before sunrise.

[3] From the hymn Ætérne rerum Cónditor, from Lauds on Sunday.

[4] Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue.

[5] Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue.

[6] From the hymn Cæli Deus sanctíssime, from Vespers on Wednesday. Cf. Gen. 1:14-19.

[7] St. Severinus Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, 1.5.