Canonical hours

monastic hours

In the monasteries, the divine office is the principal exercise of the day. “Like the Prophet says it: " seven times the day, I proclaimed your louange" ”. The Hebrews thus respected already this rate/rhythm of prayer. That corresponds to the seven hours when the monks must recite the seven parts of the divine office. Here the usual distribution of the hours in the religious orders.

The day starts with the great prayer of the Vigiles . From November at Easter, the brothers rise per 8th hour of night (around 2 hours of the morning, after 8 hours approximately of sleep). “Of Easter to November, one will calculate the hour so that after the celebration of the Vigils and a short interval, during which the brothers can leave for the natural needs, begins the crossbred ones at once, which it is necessary to say to the point of the day”. The brothers are in the chorus. With the summer solstice at the time of the prayers the Crossbred ones, the sun, survey at 4 a.m., clarifies the chorus. Laudes is the large office of the rising of the day. As in Antiquity, the monks are occupied with their activities during the hours of the day. Premium (around 6 a.m. for us) and the other early hours, third (around 9 a.m. for us), sexte (about midday for us), nun (around 3 p.m. for us) corresponds to four divisions of the day among Romans; the prayers are shorter in order to be able to be recited on the spot during work… From Easter to Pentecost, the brothers lunch with sexte. The days of fast, they await nuns. Of Lent at Easter, they take a meal after Vêpres. “The sixth hour always fell at midday; the ninth following the seasons between 14:30 and 15:30”. “The hour of the office of Vêpres must be fixed so that the brothers do not require to light a lamp for the meal, and that all finishes in the light of the day”. After vespers, the monks go to the reading Conferences (of Cassien). When all are joined together, they say Complies, then no one with the permission of speaking. Two great moments frame the life of the community thus: vigils and vespers the evening, solemn celebrations of two offices of praises.

To carry out an exemplary life, the brothers rose early. “Holy Bernard spoke in praise of the hours of vigil, full with freshness and peace, where the pure and free prayer springs with joy towards the Sky, where the spirit is lucid, where reign a silence more perfect than all those which will follow”. The hours make it possible to the monks to request for the world while trying to approach the perpetual prayer. However, like humblest they must adapt in the light of the day.

Secular hours

All the catholic clerks are compels with the prayer of the hours. With this intention, they use the breviary, collection of these offices. The secular clerks not having a timetable as regulated as the monks, it is allowed to them not to say the prayers to the prescribed hour: but they must endeavor to celebrate this office in the course of the day.

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