A busy work schedule
By Judy Evans
@JudyEv (361012)
Rockingham, Australia
August 17, 2025 8:19am CST
In the photo, you can see the work schedule of one of the monks from New Norcia, West Australia’s monastic town. Among other things, it says that once a monk was trained in a profession/job, he stayed in that role for the rest of his life.
Dom Paulino Gutierrez was the miller but this only took up a few weeks a year so he was also the baker (50 years), the shoe-maker (47 years) and infirmarian (12 years). You can see that his days were long and broken up with prayer periods and religious duties.
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8 responses
@Juliaacv (54395)
• Canada
9h
He had such long days.
I recall that my Dad also had long days.
And the length of them depended on the season.
When he was farming he was up, out of the house and in the field for sunrise, which was as early as 5:30 and he remained there, only coming home for the noon dinner, until sunset, which was 9pm generally. That season was long and hard, but he was a lone farmer and his sons were too young in those days to help much.
During the winter months, when he wasn't in the fields, he was up early and in the barn.
He had to feed and water the chickens in the upstairs part of the barn, and collect the eggs, then when he went downstairs, the cattle needed to be tended to. He would climb the ladder to the loft, throw down some bales of hay and straw, stack them, and feed the cattle.
That was the 'easy' time of the year for him, although the cattle were fed twice a day as I recall.
1 person likes this
@wolfgirl569 (120931)
• Marion, Ohio
10h
They do keep busy. I would not want to get up that early
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@moffittjc (125336)
• Gainesville, Florida
7h
It wasn't just monks who had long days back then. Without the modern conveniences we enjoy today, everybody had to work long, hard hours just to get by.
