Chant is good for you

Monks of the Desert in New Mexico

I had no idea they were using the Chant. And they seem pretty good at it. (Though I noticed at least one harrrrd American "arrr" in the Kyrie that jarrrrred a little...)


It does seem to be all the rage now to record monks chanting. There has been lots of commentary on the irony that though these chants are often still vigorously banned in churches with the word "Catholic" on the door, the CDs always shoot right to the top of the charts. The Le Barroux sisters have one, the Benedictines of Ephesus in Missouri have several. The Norcia monks did one. Every single one rockets to the top as people are desperately trying to fill the hole in their souls that Modernia inevitably burns, including Ecclesia Modernia.

This isn't a new thing, by any means. (The fad for chant recordings, I mean, not the chant itself, obviously.) When I was a kid my mother had an LP of chant that I used to listen to a lot. And of course Hildegarde of Bingen had a huge following in the 80s (nearly all New Age feminists, but still...) The Monks of Silos made an enormous splash in the pop music world in the early 80s, and it was suddenly all the rage to have "spooky medieval stuff" in your nightclub noise.

I know there are "studies" out there that show the chant has a positive material effect on your brain.

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Dr. Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London noted that “the musical structure of chant can have a significant and positive physiological impact,” and that chanting has actually been shown to “lower blood pressure, increase levels of DHEA and also reduce anxiety and depression.” Similar studies also suggest that Gregorian chant can aid in communications between the right and left hemispheres of the brain more effectively, therefore creating new neural brain pathways.

Benedictine nun, Ruth Stanley, head of the complementary medicine program at Minnesota’s St. Cloud Hospitals also says she’s had great success in easing the chronic pain of patients by having them listen to chant. “The body can move to a deeper level of its own inherent, innate healing ability when you play chant. It’s quite remarkable.” In a 1978 documentary called “Chant,” French audiologist, Dr. Alfred Tomatis, related how he was called upon to help the monks of a Benedictine monastery who suffered from fatigue, depression, and physical illness. He found that they usually took part in six to eight hours of chanting per day but due to a new edict, their chanting was halted. When Tomatis succeeded in re-establishing their daily chanting, the monks regained their well-being and were again full of life. His conclusion was that Gregorian chant is capable of charging the central nervous system along with the cortex of the brain thus having a direct effect on the monk’s overall happiness and health.

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That's probably true. Those medievals really knew a thing or two about that integral, holistic human stuff. Other people talk about the relationship between Chant and Math, and this also doesn't surprise me, since the medievals knew some stuff about math too.



I use Chant. I find it's better than Xanax and of course, I think God prefers it. I have a week's worth of the daily psalter; Laudes, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers & Compline, downloaded onto my computer from Le Barroux. I got used to singing very quietly along with the monks in the Basilica and doing that at home is rather a solace in exile. (Even though they're the wrong monks, and the French accents sort of stand out.)

Next step will be buying an Antiphonale. Fr. Basil says that's the one to go with if you want to learn how to read the little squares.



This guy, who I presume is a Chant teacher, has a huge bunch of recordings of the major pieces one uses in the liturgy. There are a lot of Chant recordings out there that are recreational, but this one is the only page I've found set up for serious use to learn the Chant for a liturgical setting.


The problem with these recordings, of course, is that they're set up for male voices. (Buddy above has a few set for female voices, but not many, and nearly all the recordings are of monks and male choirs.) I absolutely can not sing in the tenor range. I can do baritone transposed up an octave perfectly. (Thank you, Stan Rogers.) But when singing along with the men in the highest notes my voice just stops functioning entirely. No sound comes out at all. But bring it down to the monks' lower range and I can't manage it except for the highest bits. (Which is why I say I always sang along with the monks very quietly.)



You have to transpose the whole thing down to the Alto range for me. Which is why I'm going to have to graduate from the recordings to the book eventually. This is a terrible recording but you can certainly hear the difference.

I do rather wish those Benedictine nuns in Missouri would do some serious, less entertainment-oriented, recordings of the Office chants. These nice little songs they do are lovely to listen to but not much use in a practical sense.



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Brewmonks

I ran into Fr. Benedict and Br. Augustine when I was on the way home from town this morning after running some errands. They were on their way up my road and off to the nearest village, Cortigno, to offer Mass, which they said is a very beautiful place. They kindly offered me a quick lift home up the hill, and in the two minutes it took, told me, with a little eye-glimmer, "Go look at NBC.com."

"Is it about the beer?"


It's always about the beer.

For a long time I thought Chimay (red) was the best beer I'd ever had or was likely ever to have again (my mother's home made and heavenly raspberry lager notwithstanding). But this stuff beats it.

The big monastic news of the winter is that they've started shipping it to the US. You can order some here on their website.



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A long, long time ago, the first time I ever visited a cloistered monastery of nuns, the abbess who was leading our retreat told us to let our minds sit gently on the words of the psalms as they were being chanted in the Office. Don't try to grip it too tightly, that is force yourself to concentrate too hard, but let our minds take it in easily, like a cool breeze. She said that at some point during the retreat a phrase or verse might start to occupy our thoughts, and this was what was usually meant by allowing God to "speak to your heart".

Naturally, being young keeners, we three girls enthusiastically set about concentrating very hard on energetically allowing our minds to "float gently," which makes me smile now.

But Dom Calvet, (who once wrote an encouraging note to me) says here that this good abbess was quite right, and it has come about at last, now that I am no longer a young keener, that I also have a single line of the psalms rolling slowly back and forth in my mind, again and again.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at thy altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

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ONE DAY, as we were asking a Carmelite sister to tell us how she made her prayer, her heart to heart with the Lord, she responded that, for thirty-five years, one phrase of the Gospel was enough for her, and she returned to it without ceasing. It seemed to her that drawing on another source would be to be unfaithful to her particular vocation, or at least to the attraction which the Lord had given to her for her time of mental prayer. It is very true that the interior life, more than a response to passing impulses, is chiefly an effort to persevere in the direction of a continuous line flowing from the first grace.

The phrase that our Carmelite was taking in this way was drawn from the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The whole doctrine of salvation is contained in these few words: the divine paternity, the redemptive Incarnation, the role of faith, the drama of reprobation and the perspective of eternal happiness. The ancients gave a name to this verse of the Gospel of Saint John: they called it Evangelium in nuce, the Gospel in a nutshell.

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St. Henry II, co-patron of Benedictine Oblates

Crown of Henry II, Emperor, Oblate, Monk and Patron of Benedictine Oblates

This from Vultus Christi:

Benedictine Oblates living and working in the world have two holy patrons: Saint Francesca of Rome whom we celebrated in March, and today’s Saint Henry, Emperor.

Holy Kings
Saint Henry, whom we keep today, on July 13th, is the first of a series of holy kings who begin to make their appearance in the calendar of the Time after Pentecost, precisely when, at Matins, we begin reading the story of Solomon, Israel’s wise and glorious King, the builder of the Temple.

On August 25th we shall celebrate King Saint Louis of France; on September 28th, the Martyr King Saint Wenceslaus; on October 13th, King Saint Edward; and on October 21st, Blessed Karl of Austria. What do all these kings in the Kingdom of Heaven have in common? With the exception of Saint Wenceslaus who, as a martyr, is honoured with the Mass In Virtute, from the Common of Martyrs, they all have the Mass Os Iusti, from the Common of Confessors.

An Authentic Spiritual Portrait
The first place to look for an authentic spiritual portrait of any saint is in the liturgical texts appointed for his feastday. From the Mass Os Iusti, we learn that Saint Henry meditated the revelation of Divine Wisdom, he spoke rightly, and held the Word of God ever in his heart (Introit, Psalm 36:30–31). He was not obsessed with the accumulation of wealth; he used his goods to distribute alms to the poor (Epistle, Ecclesiasticus 31:8–11); he flourished like the palm tree with its thousands of luxuriant blossoms (Gradual, Psalm 91:13–14). (A single palm tree bears multiple clusters of flowers; each cluster contains as many as 10,000 flowers.) He stood fast in the face of temptation (Alleluia, James 1:12) and relied on the truth and mercy of God when confronted with the lies and hardheartedness of men (Offertory, Psalm 88:25). Finally, when the Lord came for his good earthly king, he found him keeping watch; in the kingdom of heaven, he has placed him over all his goods (Communion, Matthew 14:46–47).

Keeping Watch
One of the things related about Saint Henry is that, on arriving in any town, he would spend his entire first night there in a vigil of prayer in a church dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. When he arrived in Rome in 1014, he spent the night in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, Rome’s Bethlehem. While keeping vigil, he saw the “Sovereign and Eternal Priest-Child Jesus” enter to celebrate the Holy Mysteries. Saints Lawrence and Vincent assisted Our Lord as deacons. A throng of saints filled the basilica; Angels chanted in choir. It is noteworthy that in Henry’s vision Christ the Priest is a Child. One wonders if he was not keeping vigil before the altar of the Crib of the Infant Jesus in Saint Mary Major, a place of grace for countess souls through the ages.

Touched by the Book of the Gospels
Henry’s vision is very much like those of Saint Gertrude the Great: a pulling back of the veil, a glimpse of “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Corinthians 2:9). After the Gospel, an Angel bearing the book of the Gospels was sent to Henry by the Mother of God. Normally, one kisses the book of the Gospels. Instead the Angel touched Saint Henry’s thigh with it, saying, “Accept this sign of God’s love for your chastity and justice.” From that moment on, Henry limped like Jacob after his night vigil spent wrestling with the angel (cf. Genesis 32:24-25). How fascinating — and how consistent with God’s dealings with men — that a mark of weakness should be the sign of a special grace!

The Oblate EmperorHenry was crowned Emperor in Saint Peter’s Basilica by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. Henry cherished Benedictine life, spending time in monasteries whenever he could. His greatest joy was to occupy a stall in choir and join the monks in singing the Divine Office. Henry founded monasteries throughout the Empire and endowed them liberally. While detained at Monte Cassino by illness, he was miraculously cured through the intercession of Saint Benedict. Saint Henry’s feast, falling within the Octave of Saint Benedict, is a reminder of the special bond that united him with our glorious Patriarch. Saint Henry became an oblate of the Abbey of Cluny and then asked to make profession as monk at the Abbey of Saint-Vanne. The abbot received him as a monk, and then ordered him, in the name of obedience, to take his place again on the imperial throne.

Set Your Mind on Things That Are AboveLiving in virginity with his wife Saint Cunegonda, Saint Henry preserved the heart of a monk. Limping through life, because of his thigh touched by the Angel bearing the Book of the Gospels, Saint Henry represents every man who, while living in the world, is not entirely at home in it. “Set your minds on things that are above,” says the Apostle, “not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:3)

Oblation
In what way was Saint Henry a monk in the midst of the world? He understood that his basic task as a Christian was to seek the Face of Christ. The Face of the Child Christ was shown him in that mysterious dream by night in Saint Mary Major. The Child Christ he saw was also the High Priest ascending the altar for the Holy Sacrifice. As an Oblate, Saint Henry surely knew that, in every Mass, his place was on the corporal, close by the bread and the chalice. The Child-Priest, in raising the paten and the chalice heavenward was lifting up Henry’s life, making it an oblation to the Father. He will do the same for us today. We have only to seek His Face and abandon ourselves into His hands.

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Why chant?

Fr. Cassian Folsom, Prior of the Monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia, on why this particular form of music is ideal for the spiritual life:

Why do we sing? St. Augustine says: Cantare amantis est: a good paraphrase might be: "only the lover sings." Our singing is the expression of our love-longing for God. Now the texts we sing are primarily Scriptural, and the melodies are very ancient, some of them technically demanding. The result is that there is plenty of material both for the intellect and the heart. We pray with our lips, with our bodies, with our emotions and with our minds...

The music is sacred music, which means it doesn't resemble secular musical forms. So worshipers encounter a kind of music -- with its specific melodies, rhythms and tonalities -- that removes them from the ordinary and places them in the realm of the holy. Our monastery has chosen the classical repertoire of Gregorian chant because of its extraordinary beauty and its capacity to draw the listener into prayer.

And on religious life:

What do you think it is about your monastery that attracts Young Monks?

I think it's always been the case that young people tend to be idealistic, enthusiastic, generous, critical of the status-quo, and eager to change the world. Our way of life offers a concrete proposal: "Do you want to give your life to God in a radical way? Here's a great way to do it." Ours is a young community (the average age is 33) and like attracts like.

For those that do not understand the life of a Monk can you give some
insight into your world?

The Gospel of John interprets the actions of Jesus by referring to a saying of Jeremiah the prophet: "Zeal for thy house consumes me!" (Jn 2:17). That's what motivates the monk: zeal for God, desire for God, love-longing you might say. All the tools of monastic prayer and asceticism flow from this passion for God. The monastic charism of hospitality inspires us to share this zeal with others. People flock to the monastery from far and wide. They're not looking for us monks, they're looking for God. So our task is to become transparent, so that our own weakness and sins don't get in the way of God's powerful action in the world.

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Reading like a monk

I'm in Horrible Old Rome for a few days running errands and getting a few big city things done. It's horrible. 30+ degrees all weekend (and of course, for the rest of the summer) and the centro is filled with filthy, skanky, party-animal tourists..."I have a right to listen to my music..." ugh...

And I just checked weather in Norcia and it's a lovely 24, with exciting and cooling thundershowers on the way. Sigh... Home again on Wednesday...

Anyway, at least we're off to the seaside for a day, which, for various reasons, I was unable to accomplish last month. And it is always nice to visit the gang.

Meanwhile, I'm finding that the City Desert blog is becoming my daily transport into the better world of monastic thought.

"Reading like Monks"

While scholastic “lectio” (reading) was typically oriented towards “quaestio” (inquiry) and “disputatio” (discussion), or knowledge and science, monastic reading aspired to “meditation” and “oratio” (prayer), or wisdom and appreciation. The relation of the monastic reader to the text was not detached and analytic, but close and rather physical, even muscular. It is often described with the word rumination: “It meant assimilating the content of a text by means of kind of mastication which releases its full flavour”.

In pulling back from news reporting, I'm finding I have to completely reorient the way my brain works. I've become so used to a reductionist way of reading, and even thinking... scanning for the basic facts for reporting purposes, digging under these facts to find other facts. All for the purpose of translating it into journalese, quick declarative sentences that convey these facts with no more depth than a dictionary entry. With my brain having spent 15 years of reading and thinking like a reporter it is going to be difficult to retrain it to go back to the old way of reading.

I remember it. I remember reading books to let whatever it said, whether it was information or a novel or poetry, catch my imagination, and allow me to be absorbed into the thoughts of the writer and in a sense mentally exit this world. To forget I was sitting reading, and to float into another person's thoughts.

More from a (rather overly optimistic) scholarly essay on the history of reading:

A striking example is the antagonism between the scholastic way of read- ing and monastic reading in the Late Middle Ages. Scholars and students in the scholastic universities that were developing the Late Middle Ages – from the beginning of the second millennium onwards – typically read compilations, i.e., collections of text snippets from the church fathers, Aristotle and other authoritative authors. Reading whole texts from beginning to end was rare in the scholarly world. There was no need for a love of reading; the important thing was to analyse the text and use it for critical discussions. (Hamesse 1999)

But the love of reading existed elsewhere, in the monasteries. Monks, often hermits, were engrossed in the reading of the Bible, the writings of the church fathers, and other spiritual books. They chewed, swallowed, digested, and recited the texts. They had an emotional relationship with the texts, and they had a love of reading.

Jacqueline Hamesse says, “In the Age of Scholasticism, the acquisition of knowledge became more important than the spiritual dimension of reading.” (Hamesse 1999, 118). One could rephrase this as follows: The strictly utilitarian aspect of reading was preferred to more adventurous reading styles. If one only reads to find exactly what one is seeking, there is no need for a love of reading. In fact, the goal of rational reading is to read as little as possible. Once you have found what you’re looking for, you can stop reading.

"In this case, reading is a function of information retrieval. The important thing is what we do with the acquired information in discussions and social media."

It is precisely this utilitarian, information-retrieval, kind of reading (and subsequent writing) that I think is harming us right now, restricting our ability to understand deeply what we do read, and discouraging further efforts to delve deeply into the written word.



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How it was done

Back when a book was a precious work of art.

In monasteries, novices were never allowed near a psalter book. Part of the training of a young monk was to memorise the entire psalter. Once he could recite it all from memory (in Latin, of course) he was taught to translate it. He learned the chant by rote.


Only a small group of monks in any monastery were chosen to form a "schola" in which they would learn the difficult parts of the Office, the hymns and complicated antiphons for the big feasts. In the schola, the single large song book would be placed on a tall lectern and the monks would gather 'round and all sing from the same book, with one monk given the task of turning the pages as they went along.

This is what our monks do here in Norcia, though of course, novices are no longer required to memorize the entire 150 Psalms.



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I live here

Sometimes I have to say it out loud, because otherwise it's really hard to believe.



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Quid Petis?

Santa Scolastica,
ora pro nobis


Well, I did it. Honestly, I kind of went kicking and screaming. Or at least, sort of moaning and complaining and fretting. But I did it.

On Easter Tuesday, after Vespers, my friend Maria and I were received by the Monastery of San Benedetto as Oblates, after a year mainly spent being a slacker. I told Br. Oblate Master that I was a slacker, and presented credible evidence, but he kept just smiling and saying encouraging things like, "Oh, you can't wait to be perfect before you dive in and make a commitment. If I'd waited until I was ready, I'd still not be a monk," ... and stuff like that.

Even when we realised that in the last year we hadn't even really read the entire Rule... Well yes, bits of it, of course, but the whole thing? Ermmm... well... I meant to...I really did... Then when we got the little booklet of the ceremony, and read, "You have already sufficiently learned the rule under which you wish to serve, not only by reading but also by much practice during the time that has elapsed since becoming an Oblate novice..." I figured we would need to cram a bit.

Fortunately, our friend Julie - who is clearly much holier than either of us useless lay-abouts - read the entire thing to us out loud on Monday. It took more or less the whole day, but we got it all. We looked things up we didn't know, and everything.

I tried to convince them of my complete suckitude, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I guess they'll just take pretty much anyone.

Anyway, it was Tuesday, and I had to go back to work that day, so I spent the morning after Mass working, and when I was done, Julie helped me reorganise all my book shelves, and then it was time to go to Vespers... I think the book-reorganising was a distraction on Julie's part to keep me from getting cold feet.

Off we went down the hill, and into destiny. Or something.

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The ceremony was rather cool, and though I had hoped we could be down in the nice quiet crypt, it was upstairs in the Basilica and there happened to be a humungous whack of people there. Mainly priests, seminarians and religious who had come for the Triduum and were staying for retreats.

First there was a bunch of stuff in Latin, invoking the Holy Spirit and whatnot... I don't have translations...

And then,

Prior: "Quid Petis?"

Us: "Misericordiam Dei, et participationem Oblatorum Sancti Benedicti."

Then the bit about how well we've already been living the Rule, then...

Prior: "If then, you are ready and willing to observe the salutary teachings of our holy father Benedict, according as your state in in life permits, and are resolved to persevere in your holy resolution, you may now make your Final Oblation.

Then one at a time we went through the promises and statement:

Prior: "Do you renounce the vanities and pomps of the world?"

Us: "I do."

Prior: "Will you undertake the reformation of your life according to the spirit of the Rule of our holy father Benedict?"

Us: "I will."

Prior: "will you persevere in your holy resolution until death?"

Us: "With the help of God's grace, I will."

Prior: "Thanks be to God. Since God has given you the good will, and you trust in His help, you may now make your act of Final Oblation."

Then we each read aloud the charter we'd copied out by hand and which the monastery will keep in their archives for all eternity.

"In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

I ____, of (your home town) ____, offer myself to Almighty God, to Mary Seat of wisdom, to our holy father Benedict, for the Monastery of San Benedetto in Norcia, and I do promise before God and all the Saints, the reformation of my life according to the spirit of the Rule of the same most holy father, Benedict, as an Oblate of this monastery.

In testimony of which, I have written this oblation chart with my own hand and now sign it, on this ____ day of _____, in the year of Our Lord, 2015.

Then there was a bit of Gregorian which we did rather badly, some nice liturgical concluding prayers, all in Latin, and a general "Amen."

All the monks came and gave us the Pax, and there was generally glowy feeling all 'round, many congratulations, and lots of grilled pork and beer after.

Of course, now the marriage starts, and the reality of it hasn't quite sunk in.

I haven't belonged to anything in anything approaching an ontological, familial way since I was 15. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I suppose I'll figure it out. With the help of God's grace...



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Palm Sunday procession

My very first upload to Youtube. A 1 minute 46 second video took nearly two hours to load, so I figure I must be doing it wrong. But it's not bad, I thought.



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In Norcia

Writing from an enoteca on St. Benedict's Piazza. Just been to Compline. Will be here a week.

Modernia, the Asteroid 2.0, the War and the Apocalypse can all just get on without me for a few days.

Working, but no posts.

Go pray the Rosary or something.



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Book bleg bump-up

So, my friend and I are enjoying our monastic karaoke experiments, but we've got a problem.

The kindly nuns at Rosano gave me a nice old copy of the Monastic Diurnal they weren't using, and it just happens to be exactly the book the monks at Norcia recommend for use by oblates. It's the 1962 edition translated by the monks at Collegeville (the translations into English are terrible. I mean REALLY bad, occasionally entirely changing the sense of the original Latin... but it just serves to keep us on our toes.)

Br. Anthony, the oblate director at Norcia, told us that it does pretty much exactly reproduce their own Divine Office.

Trouble is, it's a little awkward only having one book between the two of us, and I've checked around and the things are rare as hen's teeth, and considerably more expensive. Yowch! I thought that Baronius does them, but it turns out not. They do a three-volume M. Breviary, but not the single-volume Diurnal.

I am therefore making a little book-bleg.

If anyone has a spare Farnborough Monastic Diurnal lying around they're not using, we can guarantee it will be given a good home and be put to good use.

Drop a note if so...


(btw: I'm getting more and more confused about books. I just found the St. Michael's Abbey Press shop, where they purport to sell a thing called the Monastic Diurnal, that has the right hours in L. and Eng. But from the pic, it looks about twice the size of mine. Any of you liturgy nerds out there know why this would be? Is there maybe music in that one? Any other differences?)



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Monastic Karaoke

Here's a bit of fun you can have with the internet and any decent edition of the Monastic Divine Office in Latin.

Every day, the good and holy monks of St. Benedict's monastery in Norcia post their Lauds and Vespers on their blog.

Go to today's spot in your Monastic Diurnal, Liber or D. Office, or whatever you're using, and click play.

Sing along with the monks!

Hours of monastic fun!

(Try the archives.... which don't work in Chrome for some reason, where you will find Compline. Compline is a good one to start with since it is the same every day.)



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