Sabbaths, feasts and ferias

Our life at the monastery can also be seen as an ever-flowing sequence of ferias, feasts, and sabbaths.

A feria is a weekday that is not first or second-class feast. Feasts are every Sunday (each one a feast of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ), first-class and second-class feasts. 

A recent example of a first-class feast was the Feast of the Dedication of our monastery church on October 4. Coming up are All Saints which is a first-class feast and All Souls, the next day, which is a second-class feast. All these feasts warrant a slightly more developed liturgy both in the daily Eucharist and in the Divine Office. Our guests also notice these feasts because the monks come to dinner (the midday meal) in their monastic habit, there is no reading (conversation can be had throughout the meal) and there is dessert on the menu! These are all ways of celebrating the specialness of the day.

Most days of the year are ferias, although there are also a substantial smattering of third-class feasts throughout the year. For example, the celebration of Ignatius of Antioch, this coming Wednesday, October 17. On those days, we sing the office according to a Common form for the kind of person who is celebrated (Common 3 for Martyrs in the case of Ignatius). At mass, a commemoration of the person is marked by the reading of a biographical notice and by a mention in the Eucharistic prayer.

Ferias are sung as an ordinary office. No special antiphon, canticle, hymn or collect applies. Rare are the weeks where there isn't a feast of some kind to break the cycle of ferias. But we had just one such week; ferias all the way to Saturday Vespers when we switched to celebrate the feast that is Sunday.

And then there are sabbath days. They are not "days off" in the sense that we don't stop being praying monks on Mondays (when our weekly sabbath takes place). We still have our own prayer continuing its flow and being our individual form or worship that day. But we don't have our corporate prayer in the church. There are also no work obligations. Actually, working on sabbath days is frowned upon (but sometimes it happens...). On sabbath days, we are supposed to give ourselves to recreation. Merriam-Webster defines recreation as a refreshment of strength and spirits after work. This is not done away from God but with God as a partner in the refreshment.

Sabbath playfulness. From left to right, Sr. Elizabeth humouring me to a game of backgammon. Mr. Vance Greenway, Postulant playing cribbage with Br. Laurence, under the watchful eye of Aspirant Simeon Bruce.

On most weekly sabbath days, I go walking for a couple of hours with Br. Robert James. We like to walk briskly, early in the morning. Most weeks, we go to the Hudson Valley Rail Trail in the village of Highland and walk all the way to the other side of the Hudson River and back over the Walkway over the Hudson. We chat as we walk and it is a refreshing time for the body and the mind.

In the afternoon, I might make phone calls to friends and family in Europe. Or I might watch documentaries. I also do a fair bit of reading sometimes. But other sabbath days I may go out for lunch with a friend.

This past Monday, I went to the Port Ewen Diner with Sr. Elizabeth Broyles, CMA, after the meal she invited me for a game of backgammon at the convent. I seem to remember I won the game (I am infamous for playfully gloating when I win).

The Santa Maria bulker on the Hudson. Santa Maria was the name of one of the three ships that came to this continent with Columbus (Columbus Day was our latest sabbath day). But this bulk carrier registered in Singapore, sailed here from Peru and is going to the port of Coeymans, just south of Albany. Its red hull accorded well with the flaming light of the rising sun this Sunday morning.

One leisure activity that several of us enjoy is river-watching. The Hudson is a beautiful sight on any day, in any weather. I have looked at it every day for over fourteen years and I'm not tired of it yet. The river is beautiful when it is quiet and open but it is also interesting when shipping traffic sails over it - or parks on it.

When a ship stays with us for a while, we enter its name on ship tracking websites and find out where they are from and where they are going. In a way, it is a frequent reminder of how globalized our economies are. I often pray for the crew of those ships. I also often pray for the crew and passengers on the trains that pass on the other side of the river.

On one of his recent sabbaths, Vance Greenway, our Postulant visited the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park on the East side of the river and took this lovely view of our monastery.

Blessings on your week!