Rule of St Benedict Reading for June 20, 2009

February 19, June 20, October 20

Chapter 16: How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day

"Seven times in the day," says the Prophet,
"I have rendered praise to You" (Ps. 118[119]:164).
Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us
if we perform the Offices of our service
at the time of the Morning Office,
of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None,
of Vespers and of Compline,
since it was of these day Hours that he said,
"Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You."
For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says,
"In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You" (Ps. 118[119]:62).


Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator
"for the judgments of His justice" (Ps. 118[119]:164)
at these times:
the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None,
Vespers and Compline;
and in the night let us arise to glorify Him.

Some thoughts

There are modern Benedictine communities which have adapted the Daily Offices from 7 to 4 by the, conflation of Lauds, Prime and Terce into one office while still observing prayers at Sext (noon) which also combined None (mid-afternoon around 3PM) Vespers and Compline. Or as I like to call it, the nighty night prayers.

You may wonder why I have not mentioned Matins. The Offices mentioned above correspond to the prayer hours of the Temple in Jerusalem which are believed to have been observed by the Apostles who handed down the practice to their own disciples of the Sub-Apostolic Period (aka the Patristics but that is a gender exclusive term which overlooks the contributions of women) who in turn passed the tradition along.

Matins is something the Desert Christians practiced. In addition to fasting to the point of anorexia, they also courted sleep deprivation. Which is why we see the RB as somewhat revolutionary as he was concerned that monks get enough sleep. Even though he observed the practice of Matins when he said "in the night let us arise to glorify Him."

The Jews considered that there was a symbolic meaning to numbers. The number 7 was the general symbol or metaphor for all association with God. IOW, 7 is the number that represented perfection. It was the favorite religious number of Judaism, typifying the covenant of holiness and sanctification, and also all that was holy and sanctifying in purpose. The candlestick had seven lamps, and the acts of atonement and purification were accompanied by a sevenfold sprinkling. The establishment of the Sabbath, the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee was based on the number 7, as were the periods of purification and of mourning. The number 7 is the Divine number of completion.

In the Book of Common Prayer of the American Episcopal Church (TEC) there are 4 Daily Offices. I myself have tried to pray the 7 offices but with all our modern labor saving devices, I fear I do not get done what I think I need to through out the day when I pray all 7 offices. But I still wonder if it would not be better to let go some of what I consider priorities and replace them with the 7 sacred hours. I wonder sometimes if by replacing my priorities with Benedict's that there would be Big Changes that I could never possibly have foreseen.

What would it be like to punctuate the day with prayer? To interrupt the mundane with a rhythm of prayer that may well make the mundane something else entirely. What do you think?

Reading for Feb 19, June 20, Oct 20

Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 19, June 20, October 20
Chapter 16: How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day

"Seven times in the day," says the Prophet,
"I have rendered praise to You" (Ps. 118:164).
Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us
if we perform the Offices of our service
at the time of the Morning Office,
of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None,
of Vespers and of Compline,
since it was of these day Hours that he said,
"Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You."
For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says,
"In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You" (Ps. 118:62).

Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator
"for the judgments of His justice" (Ps. 118:164)
at these times:
the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None,
Vespers and Compline;
and in the night let us arise to glorify Him.

It seems to me as if prayer punctuates the Benedictine day. There is a rhythm I love. Prayer, work, prayer, meal, prayer, study, prayer. It's as if prayer brackets the other activities and makes them an offering to the Lord.

In addition to the Prayerbook, I use the Jesus Prayer frequently: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Walking across parking lots, standing in line at the market or Post Office, any time I am waiting, I try to remember to pray the Jesus Prayer. For one thing, it can take my mind off of seemingly interminable stop lights. For another, it is a reminder of Whom it is that I love and to Whom I given my life.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html


"Prayer is the service of the heart," the Talmud says. Benedict clearly thought the same. In forming his communities in prayer, Benedict had two realities with which to deal. The first was the biblical injunction "to pray always" around which the monastics of the desert had centered their lives. The second was the reality of community life itself: "We earn our bread by the toil of our hands," the Rule says.

The problem was that Benedict's monks were not hermits who scratched their daily fare out of a dry desert, living on locusts and honey. They were not gyrovagues, wandering monks, who, to demonstrate their dependence on God, begged their way through life. Benedict's monks were cenobites, community people with a family to support. They were each as responsible for their inexperienced young and worn out elderly as they were for themselves. They were, in other words, just like us.

To sanctify both situations Benedict instructs his communities to rise early in the night, as his culture allowed, to study and to pray and then, during the day, to recite brief, simple, scriptural prayers at regular intervals, easy enough to be recited and prayed even in the workplace, to wrench their minds from the mundane to the mystical, away from concentration on life's petty particulars to attention on its transcendent meaning.

Benedict scheduled prayer times during the day to coincide with the times of the changing of the Roman imperial guard. When the world was revering its secular rulers Benedict taught us to give our homage to God, the divine ruler of heaven and earth. There was to be no stopping at the obvious, at the lesser, for a Benedictine.

The point is clear: there is to be no time, no thing, that absorbs us so much that we lose contact with the God of life; no stress so tension-producing, no burden so complex, no work so exhausting that God is not our greatest agenda, our constant companion, our rest and our refuge. More, whatever other people worship, we are to keep our minds and hearts on God.