Time & the Monastic Life

[Bruce Michael]

Hi Friends,


The times of day for the monkish Divine Office were as follows:

Mattins- the eighth hour of the night (2 am)
Lauds- the long service in the early morning
Then followed the four "Little Hours":
Prime- the first hour (6 am)
Terce- the third hour
Sext- the sixth hour (noon)
None- the ninth hour
Vespers- the long Evening Office, was sung just before it was dark
Compline- the last before going to bed

By starting the hourly count of the day from dawn makes good sense. The hours of the true day are longer in summer and shorter in winter. Thus in winter your hours might only be thirty minutes long.

The above list of times is for a more modern monastery.

The monks of Mt. Athos measure time from sunset to sunset.

"In no place do you lose every concept of time, that carefully guarded measure of our reality, so fast as on Athos. Not only do the monks still live by the old Julian calendar, the hours are counted in Athonite time, which is measured from sunset to sunset. And the night becomes the middle of the day: "Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery," says Lao Tse."

There is never any need for daylight saving with this method.

"Yet now more than ever the Western modern-man has little or no instinct as to the time of the day. By time of the day, we do not mean eleven or twelve, but rather what eleven or twelve of itself does bring into the world. For all regions offer conditions which are best suited for certain activity, and impulses vary between noon and noon just as the light filtrations also vary in intensity, in hue, in gradient composition."

-Chronic Fatigue


-Br.Bruce