Photo Credits: Charles Kinnane
REGINA: Is it true you get up in the middle of the night to chant? Why? Fr. Basil Nixen: The ancient monks used to get up in the middle of the night to sing the Psalms. They did this because in the Psalms themselves the prophet says to God media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi, that is, I rose at midnight to praise you. So they got up in the night to praise God in imitation of the psalmist, but after their prayer was finished they went back to sleep. St. Benedict modified things a bit and required his monks to get up very early, towards the end of the night so to speak, but to stay awake afterwards, not to go back to bed. As Benedictines we follow this latter practice and thus rise at 3:40 a.m. for our first prayer at 4:00 which is chanted in the Church (on Sundays and feast days we rise 20 minutes earlier). REGINA: Are your monks Italian? Did your monks know Latin before they entered? Fr. Basil Nixen: Most of the monks in our community are not Italian. We come from all parts of the world, about half of us from the United States. Most of us knew some Latin before we entered but there are a few who have had to learn it here. But this does not pose too great a problem because the language is easier to learn due to the fact that we pray in it and thus use it very frequently.
Regina Magazine
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