How will you spend your day?

         The daily schedule of a Cistercian monk:

4 hours - for the Divine Office and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin

2 hours - for Masses

2 hours - for study and spiritual reading

4 hours - for manual labour

4 hours - for private devotions, reading and minor monastic duties

1 hour - for meals

7 hours - for sleep

---------------------------

24 hours in total 

O God the only Fount of life, existing long before all time:

Look down on us condemned to die as guilty sinners in Thy sight.

Almighty Father Thou did decree Death's penalty for sinful man:

That, dust to dust he should return in due atonement and disgrace.

And yet the living breath Thou gave, will never die and must remain,

As pledge of Thy unfailing gift, And seed of immortality.

This is our hope and comfort sure, O, Lord, we all shall rise again,

And Christ, the First born from the dead will seize and bring us back to Thee.

May these ( ) Thy servants ( ), now deceased, deep rooted in the faith of Christ,

Anointed by the Spirit's grace gain access to Thy realm of life.

When we from Earth must pass away, Thy Kingdom's gate fling open wide,

That we may ever sing to Thee, Beginning and the End of all.

                            Amen.