Conversing About Silence

Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston interviews several Trappist monks via email about how they live and how they practice the vow of silence:

I was nervous; a lapsed Catholic who chased his ideals into a long education, I have a weakness to people who devote themselves more than I ever did to higher pursuits. But I found the group to be more than usually friendly, loathe to judge, voluble in writing and full of enthusiasm to correspond. They’d write me in the spare time they had between their daily work and daily prayer, most seeming pleased. Most asked that I respect their privacy, so their names have been removed here. This conversation was culled from four different interviews conducted using the same starting questions.
Could you walk me through a day in your life? What's the hour-to-hour schedule of someone who lives in a Trappist monastery?
Father A:
• We rise at 3:45 each morning.
• At 4:00 a.m.: Vigils. This is the night prayer, including a hymn, psalms and readings from the Bible and from a Father of the Church or renowned spiritual writer.
• 5:00 a.m.: we may have breakfast or take the time for private prayer, spiritual reading.
• 6:45 a.m.: Lauds, the Morning Prayer. Shorter than Vigils, but also consisting of psalms, hymn and prayer. This takes about half an hour. The time left is for reading, walking outside, etc.
• 8:15 a.m.: This is time for the daily Eucharist. (On Sundays, it’s at 10:00).
• 9:15 a.m.: We go to work until 11:30. There is here half an hour to clean up and be ready for the next prayer.
• noon: The prayer of SEXT (from the Latin: sextus, 6th) It is a short kind of Prayer-Break so to speak! And Lunch follows at about 12:20.
• After Lunch, we may have a siesta or do whatever we like until the next prayer at
• 1:40 p.m.: the Prayer of NONE (9th) it lasts maybe 15 minutes and we go back to work until 4:15 p.m.
• 5:00 p.m. Dinner. Free time. During the Free Time, we may read, meditate on the Scripture, study, anything that may help us in growing in our spiritual life, and even some other relaxing things for we must avoid strain or anxiety and tension.
• 6:00 p.m.: Vespers. Like Lauds, about half an hour. And free time.
• 7:30 p.m.: Compline: the last prayer of the day. It means “accomplishment or achievement” so we are ready to finish our daily schedule and go to bed!
• 8:00 p.m.: We retire for the night. (And believe me; we (at least me) sleep).

Lots and lots of prayer.  They must be better at coming up with things to pray about than I am.  I've always kind of figured if God was omniscient, wouldn't He already know what I'd want to pray about.  Anyway, the questions and answers are pretty interesting.  This guy thinks about a lot of the things I do:

Father B: I worry and pray about world poverty, overpopulation, consumerism, the moral bankruptcy of laissez-faire capitalism, the polarized, simplistic "thinking" in our country; about the public face and stupid blunders of the Catholic Church, about politicians who capitalize on religion; about veterans, war refugees, migrant workers; about people in jail (I used to do intervention work in the Criminal Justice System and in the inner city) and people with no meaning in their lives. I didn't come here to get out of the real world but to get perspective on the real world.
I still believe that intentional community, communal ownership and a community of goods is a viable human endeavor, but I look for no utopia.

He finishes up on a much more religious note than I would, but overall, I appreciate where he is coming from.