Keeping Time

Did you know that the first group of people to use clocks were Christian monks? Monks desired the ability to pray around a rigorous and exact prayer schedule. Benedict of Nursia, the great architect of monastic orders, required his followers to hold seven prayer services at specific times throughout the day. The Cistercians, who rose in prominence about 600 years later, required timeliness and order similar to that of the Benedictines.

Their days were regimented into a sequence of activities, tardiness was considered a sin. Innovation being the mother of invention, it was in fact…