When we want to speak while praying, we often cannot find the words we want: we think they are inadequate, or the right words simply do not occur to us.
Hence monks pray as a community, largely using the words of the psalms, handed down to them in the Scriptures. The Book of Psalms is a school for prayer. Their prayer also becomes more powerful, in a manner of speaking, when they pray together. They feel that they are not the ones who are praying, but that they are being carried along by the prayer and that - with the word of the Holy Apostle Paul - the Spirit is imploring them “with inexpressible sighs”.
The Book of Psalms provides the most texts for the monks’ prayers. Some psalms are used in prayer every day, others every week, and others every two weeks. The entire Psalm book is in any case gone through during the prayer times every fourteen days. Saying the divine office is called the Opus Dei or ‘God’s Work’.
