Fr. Thomas speaks on the way of monastic prayer:
While there are many ways monk’s pray, I see the monk’s day as being built on three basic prayer practices: the Opus Dei, Lectio Divina, and the Lord’s prayer.
Opus Dei
The Opus Dei is our monastic Communal prayer. The Work of God, Opus Dei, is St. Benedict’s monastic version of the Liturgy of the Hours that priests, deacons and many religious women and men pray. Here at New Clairvaux, the first communal prayer is before dawn, at 3:30 am. It is called Vigils, participating in the prayer that Jesus made to the Father in the early hours before He began His day. The Opus Dei of the daytime (that is, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline) are arranged every few hours throughout the day to gather the monks together as a community to sanctify their day by a prayer that is at core the praising the Presence of God among us.
Lectio Divina
Another way monks pray is by Lectio Divina with the Sacred Scriptures or another deeply spiritual book. It consists of a slow, meditative praying of the text as a personal conversation with God. Monks believe that God speaks directly to an individual in this form of prayer through these books.
The Lord’s Prayer
The third Prayer that encompasses the monk’s entire day is a most well-known Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. The contents of this prayer reach into the incredible depths of one’s day, sanctifying even aspect of one’s behavior. It leads us in praising God and doing God’s Will, realizing God’s presence, forgiving one another, asking to be freed from evil: such are the purifications of the Heart’s depth. We offer the Lord’s Prayer communally four times a day to sanctify every aspect of our life.
#prayer #trappist #Cistercian #monks #newclairvaux
