A DAY IN THE LIFE
Pray and work. Work and pray. On its face it seems simple enough – order your life to God and happiness will follow – but how does the monk, the person staking his entire existence upon the truth of the Resurrection, go about doing that? Over the centuries monastic life has transformed, from the early Church fathers in the desert, to St. Benedict in his cave, to the Bavarian monks educating the faithful in Germany, to our own foundation in Atchison. Today we seek to live out that same rhythm of prayer and work – but often people ask, what does a day in the life of a monk look like? For us, there are a variety of answers. We have all been assigned a variety of tasks, from keeping the grounds to keeping the books, from the college mail room to Canon law, but at the center of our lives is our prayer. We break our silence each morning with prayer and return to that silence at night with prayer; it is a reminder that God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, should surround all that we do, and that all that we do also flows from God. In this day in the life we hope you can walk with us as we “run on the path of God’s commandments” (RB Prologue, 49).
photo by Mary Asher 20
S t. B e n e d i c t ’ s A b b e y
