January 14 – On the Inside

Having been invited in, let’s explore the monastery and see what we may learn. For our great benefit, we will use a compilation of some of the most marketplace useable features of several Orders, Benedictine, Poor Claire, Carmelite, and others.

As we have learned, the Benedictines are the ethereal Sisters. They are deeply contemplative, by tradition. The Carmelites are strict, but very merry, and the Poor Clares are a mendicant order, especially foreign to us.

Let’s begin, then, with those misunderstood Poor Clares. They are the Sisterhood that formed when Clare of Assisi desired to follow the example that was being set by Francis in that region. Clare was a very wealthy young woman, and she came into monastic life in her best gown and jewels in order, symbolically, to lay them aside for her bridal union with Jesus.

Here is the Horarium for a typical day in a Poor Clare monastery:

5:30 a.m. Rise
6:05 a.m. Divine Office- (Morning Prayer and Office of Readings)
7:00 a.m. Mass
8:00 a.m. Thanksgiving after Mass
8:20 a.m. Communal Rosary
8:50 a.m. Breakfast
9:10 a.m. House Cleaning
10:00 a.m. Work Time
11:30 a.m. Divine Office 11: 50 a.m. Chaplet of St. Michael
12:00 p.m. Lunch
12:30 p.m. Free Time
2:00 p.m. Work Time
4:00 p.m. Lesson with Abbess or Novice Mistress
4:30 p.m. Spiritual Reading
5:00 p.m. Divine Office
(Evening Prayer and Night Prayer)

5:25 Chaplet of Divine Mercy
5:35 p.m. Supper
6:30 p.m. Recreation
7:30 p.m. Free Time
10:00 p.m. Lights Out


Do you notice that, except for the 12:30 free time, the 4:00 p.m. lessons and the 4:30 spiritual reading, there is work from 9:00-5:00, with an hour off for lunch! By converting some of their schedule, we could live just as they do, with plenty of opportunity for worship, study, meditation and prayer. (We might have to rise an half hour or more earlier than they!) We will leave in the recreation and take out the truly wasted time in our days. There is a cell (Jesus called it a closet, even smaller!) in Cor Unum for everyone who seeks a life of seeking after the Lord, the Beloved!