On an ordinary day, what do you usually do around 7 in the evening? Riding a bus perhaps, or a jeep, or an FX, waiting impatiently to arrive home; preparing dinner for the whole family; relaxing on chair and watching the evening news (“24 Oras” if your are Kapuso and “TV Patrol World” if you are Ka-pamilya), doing your homework; getting ready for work the next day, or extending the hours in order to finish the work for that day.
I just came from a community of monks in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, the Benedictine Monastery of Transfiguration. And you know what they usually do around 7 in the evening? They gather to pray and then, retire for the day. In other words, they get ready to sleep. YES! At 7 in the evening, after prayers the monks go to their rooms and call it a day.
The Monastery of Transfiguration, the bell tower and the tent-like chapel,
taken around 5:30 am, sunrise...
I share your surprise and questions. Can anyone really go to bed at 7 in the evening? Can anyone really finish his day at 7 pm? I can’t imagine how one can go to bed that early. There are still 5 hours before midnight; still a lot can be done. How can one call it a day at 7 pm?
You understand why, when you come to know that the first prayer the monks have everyday is at 3:00 am (called “Matins”), followed by silent prayer until 5:00 am for the Lauds, then, the Holy Mass at 5:30. In fact, the monks gather together for prayer 5 times a day: Matins at 3:00 am, Lauds or Morning Prayer at 5:00 am, Midday Prayer at 11:30 am, Vespers or Evening Prayer at 5:00 pm and Compline at 7:00 pm. Not to mention the several hours spent for personal silent prayer.
Hymnal from the chaple of the Monastery
This kind of life, what we call monastic life, questions the way we live our lives. For many of us, we have accepted our kind of life as the norm, as the only way to live life, as the only way to manage the limited hours of the day. We have accepted that being busy with work, being concern with so many things, filling all our time with appointments, with things to do, with people to meet, with places to see, with concerns to dwell on, as the only way to get by each day.
We have taken for granted that there are people who have dedicated their whole life not in busyness and hurried appointments but in prayer and work; not in things to buy, to do, or to be concerned about but in simplicity and single-heartedness; not in the noises and indiscernible sounds of the world but in silence and contemplation.
The life of the monks makes us aware that what we consider the norm in living our life at present is not without alternative. The monks witness this to us, and the Monastery of the Transfiguration had been around for 25 years now (they celebrated their Silver Jubilee last August 6, 2008). To fill every waking time we have with work and concern is not the only way to journey through a day. Dedication to prayer, silence and work is a possible alternative to what most consider as the only way to pass through a day.
I do not think that we all should form monasteries and live as monks. No. But the awareness that such a monastic life fruitfully exists at present makes us aware that we have a choice in the way we live our life. We are not in a “no choice” situation. We have a choice not to make our lives only about being busy, earning a living, accumulating possessions, blindly accepting the noise, and praying only on a need basis (nagdarasal lang kapag may kailangan). There are other ways to live our life. And we have a choice.
