Why We Keep the Liturgical Hours in Common
A monastery is shaped by a rhythm that reaches beyond individual preference. At Mother of the Redeemer Monastery, the day is gathered around prayer in common, especially through the Liturgy of the Hours. The monks come together at appointed times to praise God, listen to Scripture, and place their work, joys, and burdens within the Church’s continual prayer.
Keeping the hours together gives visible form to a central Benedictine conviction: prayer is the work of the community. Each monk brings his own history and responsibilities, yet the common Office creates a shared spiritual home. The psalms spoken and sung by the brothers become a bond stronger than personality, mood, or daily circumstance.
This practice also opens the monastery to guests, oblates, retreatants, and all who seek a quieter way to pray. A visitor may arrive with a distracted mind or a heavy heart, but the steady movement of the liturgy offers a place to begin again. The hours teach us to receive time as a gift consecrated to God.
Prayer That Orders The Day
The Liturgy of the Hours divides the day according to prayer. Morning praise, daytime offices, evening thanksgiving, and night prayer give the hours a sacred pattern. Rather than treating prayer as something added after everything else is finished, the monastery allows prayer to establish the shape of the day from the beginning.
This rhythm matters because human attention is easily scattered. Work, correspondence, meals, study, hospitality, and practical concerns can fill every available moment. The bells and appointed offices call the community back to its deepest purpose. The monks pause together, turn toward God, and then return to their duties with a renewed sense of order.
The history of this community shows how its identity has developed through fidelity to prayer, place, and the Benedictine tradition. The monastery’s community history offers a broader view of the people and providential events that have shaped its life in Plaisance.
A Shared Voice Before God
In common prayer, the monks do not need to create an original expression of devotion each day. The Church gives them the psalms, readings, antiphons, intercessions, and gestures that form the Office. This common language makes room for personal experience while preventing prayer from becoming dependent on personal inspiration.
The psalms are especially important. They contain praise, grief, repentance, confidence, longing, and thanksgiving. One monk may be carrying sorrow while another is grateful; one may feel spiritually dry while another is filled with hope. The same psalm can hold all of these experiences before God. The community prays faithfully even when an individual’s feelings change.
Common prayer also expresses communion with the wider Church. The monastery is not praying as an isolated group, detached from the world. It joins priests, religious communities, families, oblates, and lay people who sanctify the day through the same biblical prayer. The voices of the monks become part of a larger offering that extends far beyond the chapel.
Why The Hours Are Kept Together
Private prayer has an essential place in monastic life, but common prayer gives the community a public and objective center. A monk may be tired, preoccupied, or tempted to postpone prayer. The gathering of the brothers provides a faithful structure that does not depend on convenience.
| Dimension | What Common Prayer Provides |
|---|---|
| Time | A dependable rhythm that marks morning, day, evening, and night |
| Scripture | Regular immersion in the psalms and readings of the Church |
| Community | A shared act that unites monks across different gifts and personalities |
| Stability | A faithful practice that continues through changing circumstances |
| Hospitality | A form of prayer that visitors can enter without special experience |
| Mission | A hidden offering for the needs of the Church and the world |
The hours also protect the monastery from becoming merely a place of private devotion or religious work. The brothers may have different assignments, but they return to the same prayer. This return renews their common identity. They are servants of one Lord, members of one household, and participants in one vocation of praise.
For visitors, the experience can be quietly disarming. There is no need to perform, explain, or prove anything. One may simply stand or sit with the community, listen to the words, follow the rhythm, and allow the prayer to do its work. The liturgy welcomes people who arrive with faith as well as those who are only beginning to seek God.
The Benedictine And Olivetan Heritage
The practice of praying at set times belongs to the ancient Christian tradition. Benedictine monasticism gave this daily pattern a durable form, joining prayer with stability, obedience, work, and life under a rule. The goal is not to escape ordinary responsibilities but to place them within a disciplined search for God.
The Olivetan Benedictine Congregation carries this inheritance with particular attention to conversion, humility, simplicity, and the continual renewal of the monk’s life. Learning about the Olivetan tradition helps explain why the hours remain central: they are part of a spiritual culture in which the heart is repeatedly turned toward God.
This heritage also explains why repetition is not considered empty. The same psalms return, but the monk does not remain the same. A familiar verse can reveal a new meaning after suffering, service, illness, reconciliation, or a season of grace. Persevering in the hours allows Scripture to accompany the whole of life.
What The Hours Teach Those Who Visit
Guests who participate in the Liturgy of the Hours often discover that prayer does not require a dramatic experience. It may begin with simple attention: hearing the opening words, standing with the community, responding to the psalm, or resting in a moment of silence. The monastery offers a setting in which prayer can be received before it is fully understood.
The hours also teach the value of interruption. Modern life often measures time by productivity, messages, appointments, and deadlines. The monastery interrupts that pattern with praise. A person who pauses for prayer learns that time is not only something to control or spend. It is also a place in which God can be encountered.
For oblates and friends of the monastery, the common Office can become a point of connection even when they cannot be physically present. They may carry the spirit of the hours into their homes by praying Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, or Night Prayer, and by allowing the psalms to shape their own daily responsibilities.
Carrying The Rhythm Into Daily Life
A person does not need to become a monk in order to benefit from the monastery’s rhythm. Small acts of fidelity can create a prayerful structure within family life, professional work, retirement, or study. The purpose is not to imitate every monastic practice, but to let regular prayer reclaim a meaningful place in the day.
The following practices can help translate the spirit of common prayer into ordinary circumstances:
- Set aside a consistent time for morning or evening prayer, even if it lasts only a few minutes.
- Pray one psalm slowly, allowing its words to speak to the realities of the day.
- Pause at midday to remember God before returning to work or other responsibilities.
- Attend the monastery’s liturgy when possible and let the community teach the rhythm through experience.
- Share a brief prayer with family members or friends so that faith becomes a common practice rather than a private concern.
The strength of these practices lies in their regularity. A brief prayer kept faithfully can shape the heart more deeply than an occasional effort made only when circumstances feel favorable. The hours invite a person to return, again and again, until prayer becomes woven into the texture of life.
When the monks gather, they witness that the world is sustained by more than visible activity. Their common praise is a form of service offered for the Church, for those who ask for prayers, for the local community, and for people whose needs may never be known to them. The chapel becomes a place where daily time is entrusted to God.
Mother of the Redeemer Monastery welcomes those who desire to encounter this prayer-centered way of life. Visit the monastery, participate in the liturgy when available, explore the path of an oblate, or support the community’s continuing mission and chapel expansion. By joining the prayer of the monks or helping sustain it, you become part of a living offering that gives glory to God throughout the day.