The Benedictine Order of the day is a model for mindfulness

by DRM

An essen­tial step for­ward is the devel­op­ment of a fit­ting order of the day: a divi­sion of the day that gives a rhythm to the day, with a rea­son­ably fixed pat­tern of exer­tion and relax­ation, of spir­i­tual breath­ing in and breath­ing out, of order­ing one’s envi­ron­ment and moments when one is in touch with some­thing beau­ti­ful.“
The Rule of Bene­dict for Begin­ners, by Wil Derkse

The Ben­dectines call it the Order of the day: a sequence of prayers designed to con­nect the pas­sage of the hours to the divine state of exis­tence. Within this order, the monks are able to access the beauty of their faith.


When I was young, some after­noons I would cross the fields and walk up the hill to the church, break­ing a sweat to arrive before the monks gath­ered for Com­pline. This was the sim­plest hour of the day: a quar­tet of psalms repeated in plain­song each day. It was sung at dusk, when the sun was retir­ing from the sky.

The monks shuf­fled in silently from the back of the chan­cel. They were obscured by the faint light spilling in through the high stained glass win­dows. Each of them had an indi­vid­ual iden­tity for me: the monk who taught us flute, or the monk who would hand out treats at the back kitchen door, the one who gar­dened daily. Together iden­tity was sub­li­mated to the work of the group: prayer, under­stand­ing and veneration.

I knew that they didn’t speak dur­ing the day in the monastery. One of the monks would read to the group dur­ing din­ner and they would have some com­mon dis­cus­sion in the short spell after din­ner, but their other hours were spent in silence or service.

The muf­fled sounds over­whelmed me. I waited for the silence to break from con­fu­sion. A soft melody would seep from the dark­ness. A quiv­er­ing, deci­sive voice would lead the com­mu­nity into song.

They were not beau­ti­ful in a musi­cal way. The range was lim­ited, and some strong voices lacked vari­ety. What made the ser­vice beau­ti­ful was its reg­u­lar­ity, its prac­ticed flow. I could not under­stand the words. In the chant, I searched for a spir­i­tual con­nec­tion that eluded me. Today, I real­ize that I yearned for the “fit­ting order” that struc­tured their lives. I sensed that it might be a path to qui­et­ing the mind.

When I read about the Bene­dic­tine order of the hours, I con­trast it with the helter-skelter irreg­u­lar­ness of my day-to-day. To lead a prac­ticed, mind­ful and orderly life in such cir­cum­stances is a chal­lenge that I feel, cre­at­ing an absence that I rue.