This room was the living quarters for the Head Monk of the Mission. Typically, a monk’s room (cell) was used for nothing but prayer, spiritual reading, and sleeping. A monk withdraws to his cell during certain times of the day, for example after mass, in order to be alone with God. The solitude of the cell is so respected that, a very old custom says, if someone knocks on the door of his cell, and a monk is in prayer or spiritual reading, he is not obligated to answer the knock. In order that the cell is a very quiet place, silence was maintained in the close vicinity.
