At last, we have a new Carmelite Monks Horarium website! It explains our daily life and schedule in the monastery. You can find our Monastic Horarium here. What is our horarium? Simply put, it is the schedule we live daily of all our prayer and community observance.

In our daily life, we live a strict regiment of Divine Office, mental prayer, Holy Mass, manual labor, recreation, spiritual reading, and common rosary. We spend most of our prayer time with the community in our chapel. This strengthens our community life with a focus on silence and union with God. We spend our evening mental prayer hour in the hermitage alone which makes for a beautiful end to the monastic day.

The Importance of the Carmelite Monks Horarium

My own experience of the horarium is that it is very freeing. When we get into the rhythm of the life, we forget everything else. Then, we place our focus on internal communion with God. God dwells in the hearts of the baptized faithful who are in the state of grace. As we mature in the spiritual life, we find God’s presence in a mysterious way that flourishes into its own world. Growth happens through the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. It is through these virtues that we commune more with God. Not surprisingly, we want to spend more time with God whom we love.

The horarium helps us to journey deeper in our communion with God. Then we offer to God our praise and love for the sake of the whole Church. That is being love in the heart of the church.

Is the horarium difficult?

At first, the horarium is difficult. Happily, we get into a rhythm and our bodies get used to it. That is good and bad since we have to keep our love new and strong. Love of God and souls motivates us to keep going. There is a danger of doing things by habit and not with fervor. The true motive in the heart enflames us so that we keep our loving fervor.

I encourage you to look at our Carmelite Monks Horarium page. There is a lot of text and explanation of what we do.