Did cloistered nuns always have to schedule secular recreation time throughout the centuries?

[JMatthewA]

Have cloistered nuns always had required recreation time throughout the centuries? It’s sort of like scheduled daily secular time in some places. Was the secular option for recreation time always around? Was it ever a do your own personal devotions time or something like that instead?

 

[YoungTradCath]

Well, I’m pretty sure just about all religious have some sort of recreation time.

 

[JMatthewA]

They might today but did they have that before?

 

[sojo]

I don’t know about all orders but St. Teresa of Avila insisted that her sisters take time off for recreation, and she played the tambourine for them to sing and dance on feast days. This was in the 1500s. So we know the Carmelites set aside time for secular recreation. She was famous for reforming the order and dedicating it to a more serious life of prayer and devotion.

 

[sojo]

Many monastic orders (male and female) were based on the Rule of Saint Benedict in the 400s. And that rule did include time set aside for recreation I believe.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

They might today but did they have that before?

You can look up rules from various order you are interested in and see what schedules were like in the past.

Most rules are very well balanced - and the founders of major orders all talk about balance in life. Life was very difficult in past times so allowing for an hour or so of “recreation” every day doesn’t mean that people in orders were whooping it up, drinking beer and telling off-color jokes.

Recreation time usually allows for each person to “do their own thing”, but there is plenty of devotional time built into the schedule already. In an order that maintains silence for most of the day, where there are always chores to do, and already has prayer time scheduled in, sitting together chatting for a bit doesn’t strike me as an issue.

 

[Theophorus]

Have cloistered nuns always had required recreation time throughout the centuries? It’s sort of like scheduled daily secular time in some places. Was the secular option for recreation time always around? Was it ever a do your own personal devotions time or something like that instead?

The rule of St. Benedict(c.480–547) sets aside time for recreation of the Monks, many of the religious orders(in the Western Church) base in some way their rule and daily life on the Rule of St. Benedict, and so have often included periods of recreation. The content of this recreation is rarely defined, and may be set by the community or may be a free time for the religious depending on the particular order/community.

 

[judynurse]

When I was in a Franciscan Convent, we had one Recreation Period per day, in the evening after supper, and before Night Prayers. We always had a piece of work in hand, such as sewing a seam on a veil, habit or stockings, or repairing an altar cloth. It only lasted an hour, but was devoted to some talk, usually about religious subjects, or a problem with our spiritual times.

When I visited a Carmelite Convent, there were two Recreation periods each day, one in the early afternoon, and one in the evening. Embroidery was not allowed in the Carmelites (except for altar cloths), but knitting, crochet items were common (usually to make a warm neck scarf for outdoor work, or heavy wool stockings for outside work in the cold weather. Conversation was usually about whatever religious readings were done during meals (which were silent, with one Sister reading from a religious book or text), or might be about something more mundane occasionally, such as damage to our vegetable gardens from ice or heavy rain, and how to repair it, or a broken water pipe. Most of the day, and part of the night was devoted to prayer, working alone in our cells, and the Liturgy of the Hours during the day and evening. There was also a lot of laughter and joy in Recreation in both convents, which is a good balance for us during a day devoted primarily to prayer and work!":nun1:

My understanding from what I was taught in the Convents was that the Recreation has always been included, as a balance for life, especially since St. Benedict wrote his Rule.

 

[JReducation]

Recreation has always been an ESSENTIAL part of consecrated life, as essential as mass, LOTH, meals and work. It balances the day.

The idea in religious life is to live a balanced life as Christ lived it. We all know that Christ made use of recreation. Scripture tells us that he attended weddings, dinner parties, went on trips with his parents, and played with children. A life without recreation is not a balanced life.

In addition, recreation serves a spiritual function. It provides an opportunity for religious to strengthen their fraternal bonds. A religious community where there is no intimacy between its members is a dead community. Without intimacy, there is no love. Without love, there vow of chastity makes no sense.

Theologically, recreation is part of chastity. Herein lies the difference between the promise of celibacy made by a diocesan priest and the vow of chastity made by male and female religious or implied in the rule, such as the Rule of St. Benedict.

Through chastity, the religious puts aside all relationships other than Christ and he enters into a intimate relationship with Christ. But that relationship must be nurtured and grace builds on nature.

We encounter Christ through prayer, the sacraments and through man. It’s not enough to be a member of a community, but exist in parallel lives. One must be part of the other person’s life and the others must be part of one’s life. Playing allows us to get closer to each other, to get to know each other and to enjoy the beauty of community life.

Even monastic orders such as the Carmelites, Poor Clares, Cistercians, Benedictines, and Carthusians have community recreation.

Think of a triangle. There are three points on that triangle. Intimacy with Christ takes place through three points: Eucharist, meals and recreation. In other words, intimacy with Christ is mediated by intimacy with our brothers or sister in community.

Play has always been part of the monastic life, long before Benedict ever organized Western monasticism.

 

[TimothyH]

The word recreation means re-creation.

When we recreate we re-create ourselves. We are supposed to come back rested, created new, and ready to work.

Secular society spends its time “Working for the weekend.” Work has no value for secular society except insofar as it provides an opportunity to avoid further work and spend time in leisure.

Christians however, are to view work as a participation in God’s creativity. God is constantly creating, not just at the beginning of time but right now - a seed is germinating, a flower is opening, nuclear fusion is turning a hydrogen atom into a helium atom inside of the sun - all of this is happening right now. God is creating.

God creates an orange seed. The farmer plants it and nurtures it. The truck driver brings the orange to the processing plant. The workers in the processing plant turn it into orange juice. The grocer stocks it and makes it available to us. God allows man to participate in the creation of a glass of orange juice which we have on our breakfast table to nourish us. God created the garden and gave it to the first man as a gift, to minister to it and tend it and nurture it. Like the first man, all the people in the chain who helped bring that orange juice to our table all participated in God’s creativity whether they know it or not.

This is what I learned from Opus Dei, the value of work, and the proper place of re-creation. When we solve problems and create things, play an instrument or drive our kids to school, we are participating in God’s creative life. We create a solution. We create a beautiful song to praise God. We create a productive adult who can go on to repeat the process after we are gone. We create.

God rested on the seventh day, after he created. Rest and re-creation are important.

Secular society however, does not value work this way and has a distorted view of recreation. Secular society tells us that he who dies with the most toys wins. Secular society has it completely out of whack, 100% reversed. Recreation is the end goal for secular society, rather than the means to rest our bodies and refresh our minds so that we can begin again to participate with God in God’s genesis.

Brother’s post is beautiful. See the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia working and playing and praying in this video, living a balanced life, participating in each others lives. It is sublime.

youtube.com/watch?v=UDcC5NaKnAY

-Tim-

 

[JMatthewA]

Okay. Thanks. Do you know which Orders allow independent recreation instead of communal? I am a loner.

 

[CB_Catholic]

How can one be a loner and join a religious community?

Reread what Brother JR wrote.

 

[Cojuanco]

Okay. Thanks. Do you know which Orders allow independent recreation instead of communal? I am a loner.

The religious life by definition is communal. I suppose for a loner, perhaps the Carthusian spirituality might be useful, but even they have collective walks outside from time to time for recreation.

 

[JReducation]

Okay. Thanks. Do you know which Orders allow independent recreation instead of communal? I am a loner.

There is no room in religious life for loners. Religious life is meant for those who can live in community. You may want to try and get out there little by little. I mean tiny baby steps. Even the Carthusians, who are hermits, demand that their men and women be social beings, not loners.

It’s not just a matter of recreation in community. It’s a matter of being one body. In a cloister community life is like living in a dorm with bunk beds. You can’t get too far from each other. You’re rarely alone. In an apostolic community you can go for a walk by yourself. Cloistered nuns and monks don’t leave the campus of their monastery. Alone time is very rare. It happens, it’s just not the norm.

 

[OraLabora]

Cloistered nuns and monks don’t leave the campus of their monastery. Alone time is very rare. It happens, it’s just not the norm.

Monks do. At the abbey I’m associated with they do take excursions away from the monastery. Several monks cycle, and go cycling together. When there are novices, the novice master takes them on excursions outside the monastery; it can often be to visit another religious community, but often they go to museums, cultural events, concerts, etc.

The abbot however, insists that recreational activities are done in community. Perhaps not the entire community together, but for example, on bike rides several monks go together while others may be going for a walk or a swim (the abbey is on a lake) or in winter, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing (for those they don’t need to leave as it’s a huge property with plenty of room for those activities). Occasionally we oblates participate and I’ve been invited on bike rides. Monks are encouraged to do their activities at least in pairs. At our community, Thursday is “recreation day” all year, and Tuesday afternoons in summer as well.

Community of women however are still behind the papal enclosure, men now only behind the simple enclosure. So for women indeed they do not leave the site, except that they usually have one or two external nuns who don’t live in the enclosure, and run errands for the sisters behind the enclosure.

 

[Cojuanco]

The thing is, the whole point of the religious order is that it’s communal.

 

[JReducation]

I think I know what you’re trying to say. We don’t see it that way. The point of a religious order is to follow a way of life that leads to salvation. This way of life is lived in fraternity. Community is not an end, but a means.

The only order in the Church that has community as an end is the Franciscan family. This was built into the Rule by St. Francis. You must perfect the love for your brothers. Failure to do so is one hair short of heresy. That’s because Francis modeled his community on the Trinity. Of course in the Trinity, community is essential. No community = no trinity.

BTW Ora, you’re right. The Benedictine men do go out. I always forget them when I think of monks. I usually thing of the rest of the monastic family: Cistercians, Trappists, Camaldolese, Carthusians and a few others.

On the surface, today’s Benedictines can be easily confused with mendicants. When I was studying theology, my academic advisor was a Benedictine from St. Meinrad. He had not lived in community for 30 years. He had always lived and worked at the university out on the East coast. This always confused us Franciscans. We have very few men who live alone. It’s usually for a few years, not that long.