Each 8-by-10-foot cell had a mat and a sleeping bag but no bed. Most had a simple wooden chair and perhaps a small desk and a lamp. The white walls were bare except for a plain wooden crucifix and a window.

Leaving their sandals by the door, the men silently filed barefoot into the sparsely furnished second-floor chapel, many kneeling to kiss the ground as they entered. A breeze drifted in through an open window, bringing with it the twitter of birds and the racket of car horns.

At 5:30, a postulant named Andy Barrie summoned the men to their knees for morning prayer. The men chanted and prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, a collection of hymns, psalms, readings and intercessions that is prayed five times a day by priests, brothers and nuns around the world.

At 5:50, the men broke for an hour of silent meditation. By 6:45 they were back in their seats to pray the next selection from the Liturgy of the Hours. This was followed by the daily celebration of Mass at dawn.

The brothers’ prayer life structures their entire day. They would pray again at noon, observe a holy hour in front of the Eucharist before dinner, and end their day with evening prayer and a rosary. Every Friday is set aside for quiet prayer at the friary. Once a month, each friar spends a day of silent prayer at the order’s hermitage in Monticello, N.Y., and once a year he goes on a weeklong silent retreat.

The brothers appreciate these hours away from the city.

“Trying to pray in our chapel at 142nd Street,” Postulant Andy explained, “you’re hearing car alarms and people pumping music. So to get up there where we can have complete silence and we can really pray, it’s pretty refreshing.”

After Mass, the brothers headed to the refectory for a breakfast of cold cereal, bread, oranges and coffee. The Rev. Luke Fletcher, vocations director for the friars, poured cornflakes into a bowl and found a seat at the long wooden table. As he ate, he explained that every item the order uses, from cars to buildings to dishwashing soap, is donated or purchased with donations. The friars rely particularly on asking for expired food at local supermarkets and on the generosity of a network of donors who call themselves the “friar suppliers,” to whom they are appropriately grateful.