Discovering a Rhythm of Prayer
The Benedictine retreat participants and facilitators in June 2024 at St John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN.
Mark Longhurst is a Vowed Member of the Community of the Incarnation and the Benedictine Novitiate Dean. Join us for a discussion with Fr. Adam Bucko celebrating Mark’s new book, “The Holy Ordinary”, this Thursday, October 24th, at 7 pm ET. Sign up here.
This past June, I traveled with my cohort of the Community of the Incarnation to St. John’s Abbey. It’s a Benedictine monastery in Collegeville, Minnesota. Every day on our retreat, three times a day, we meandered by the sidewalk from the Guesthouse to the Abbey Church for prayer. We joined the Benedictines in their prayerful rhythm of what is known as the “divine office.” It is a prayer rhythm that originated in the Catholic Church at fixed times throughout the day, and has been simplified by the Episcopal Church in prayer times such as morning and evening prayer.
The way that the divine office developed is that monastic orders following the work of a famous monk named St. Benedict organized this practice of praying at set times. St. Benedict of Nursia was active in the late 5th and early 6th centuries and is nicknamed the “father of Western Monasticism” because he wrote a “Rule” or book of guidelines to shape collective monastic life. One of the practices Benedict recommends for communities is the praying of Psalms. The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes Psalm recitation eight times per day, from earliest dark morning hours through evening. But Benedict didn’t originate this practice; he codified the practice that earlier Christians like the desert fathers and mothers in fifth-century Egypt had long been continuously doing. One of the more well-known desert fathers named Evagrius wrote that “It is a great thing to pray without distraction, but to chant psalms without distraction is even better.” Benedict’s gift to the church was to take this desert inspiration, and the practices that people had been doing, and to write it down in an organized way for communal life.
It's also important to say that this practice did not originate with Christians, but with the ancient Israelites, for whom the Psalms served as worship songs. Jesus was formed in prayer by praying the Psalms, and the Gospel writers reference numerous songs through Jesus’ words. Jesus memorably cries out, for example, in Matthew and Mark at his time of death, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” which is a quotation of Psalm 22:1. We don’t know much about how the Psalms were used in ancient Israel, but we know that some were set to music. Some, like Psalm 136, are set in a call and response, antiphonal refrain, “Go give thanks to the Lord, for he is good – for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Different followers of St. Benedict have various ways of applying the Rule to their communities and lives. The monks known as Trappists (or Cistercians) follow the Rule of Benedict strictly, rising far before dawn for “Vigils” and following the rhythm typically six further times throughout the day, from the short and sweet midday “Sext” to evening “Vespers” and before-bed “Compline.” The monastery we visited this past June, St. John’s Abbey, is not Trappist; it’s “Benedictine,” which means that like the Trappists, they follow the Rule of St. Benedict, but with just a touch less severity. No 3:30 am prayers, for example. The monks at St. John’s Abbey are busy with activities like leading and teaching at the adjacent college, and so they hold morning, midday, and evening prayer, with a daily mass in the afternoon.
The monks at St. John’s Abbey kept the Psalm-praying tempo slow. They took an elongated pause after each Psalm line; if you weren’t paying attention, you might barrel forward and find your voice out of sync with the unhurried rhythm—maybe some readers are familiar with that awkward moment that happens in church when someone is a little too eager and jumps ahead. The guest house master was eager to support our efforts and helped us ensure we could find our way through various books of canticles and the like. If we cast our glances nervously around for a different prayer book, he magically seemed to appear to help point us to the correct page. After praying with the monks in this way for about four days, I began to feel that I was genuinely joining their rhythm. The prayer hour became a reliable invitation to center myself in God’s presence. I didn’t have to do anything, feel anything, or exert effort. The prayer services were just there for me, and the Psalms were there for me, regardless of how I felt or what was taking place that day.
I’m no Benedictine, but on regular days, I pray morning and evening prayer, serving the same purpose of creating set-apart times each day that I can look forward to time with God. These times of prayer sandwich my day so that my work and busyness are caught up in a larger rhythm that churches and monastics keep. When we pray the divine office, we are not praying alone, we are praying with the wider church, as well with our ancestors in faith or “cloud of witnesses.” But as grounding as transforming as the divine office can be, it’s important to say that the essence of prayer is not saying words to God, reciting Scripture, or attending a prayer service. As renegade theologian Matthew Fox says, prayer is a “radical response to life” itself. The fixed hours of praying help me pray by quickening my response to life—and I’m convinced they can help you quicken your response to life, too.
Mark is an “ordinary mystic,” author of “The Holy Ordinary” book and weekly Substack newsletter. He served as a pastor for United Church of Christ Churches in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts for ten years and worked as a faith-based activist in Boston non-profits for ten more. He’s a member of the new monastic “Community of the Incarnation,” and works as the Publications Manager at the Center for Action and Contemplation. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and a longtime yoga practitioner, Mark lives in western Massachusetts with his family.