My Schedule

“Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading.”

–The Rule of Saint Benedict, Ch. 48

Some people have been asking what my daily schedule has been like. If you haven’t been asking, well too bad. I’m going to tell you because this is MY blog that you WILLINGLY clicked on.

The cornerstone of monastic life is the schedule. Monks here at Saint Benedict’s Abbey pray five times per day and follow a strict schedule. As a volunteer, we are expected to join one or two prayers per day, and attend to school duties as necessary. The life of a monk is hard– they have to be at morning prayer every single morning by 6am, and the average weekday includes over two hours of prayer on top of all the work they do in the school. While I don’t work quite THAT hard, I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m relaxing over here in Newark and leeching off of these hardworking men of God. 

Here goes: 

5:50- Wake up, stare at the ceiling, try to convince myself it’s okay to stay in bed 

6:00- Get out of bed, eat a scoop of pre-workout dry, turn on the Ben Shapiro Show and smash my head against a wall to get pumped-up for the day. Facts don’t care about your feelings.

6:30- Crossfit led by Tom Leahy the athletic director, Tom is 61 years old and in better shape than most of us. 

7:45- Breakfast. One piece of peanut-butter toast and a scoop of blueberries. Every day.

8:00- Convocation. I still haven’t been asked to lead singing. 

8:35–12:00- Class, either substitute teaching (glorified babysitting) or assistant-teaching theology

12:00- Sneak over to the monastery for lunch. Sandwich, soup, and Chobani yogurt. Every day.

1:00-3:10- More glorified babysitting or theology-teaching

3:30- Wrestling Practice. I’m still not too old and out-of-shape to wrestle with (most) of them.  

5:30- Get cleaned up for dinner

6:00- Dinner with the monastery. Meals are eaten in silence while a monk reads from a book. Currently we are reading The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers. They have ignored my repeated pleas to try Twilight: New Moon instead. 

6:35- Dinner is finished. The volunteers usually head to the reading room where I skim a copy of the New York Times. Again, they have ignored my repeated pleas to stock the Wall Street Journal. I’d even settle for a USA Today at this point.

7:00- Vespers, then we sing the Salve Regina. My Latin is not great. 

7:35- More community time with the monks. They like to play “one-card poker”, a game I know as “shit on your neighbor”, which I’ve been playing since I was 8. 

8:00–10:00- Tutor at Leahy House, Read, Write, Scream into the void, Relax, etc. 

Rinse, Repeat. 

Now, sometimes I’ll shake things up a little bit. If wrestling gets out early, I’ll go to daily Mass at 5pm, and if I really want to add some ol’ razzle-dazzle, I’ll go to midday prayer at 11:50. Now if this seems boring, know that I’m leaving out the countless small interactions with staff and students that make being here so much fun. What all-boys prep schools lack in interactions with women, they make up for with humor and shenanigans. It’s my kind of place.

Until Next Time,

Jack Barsody, Chobani Greek Yogurt Enthusiast