It is really quite spiritual and equally hard to describe. Then I began to notice that each season had a special flavor, a special touch, if you will, to the soul. Gradually, the theme, the spirit, the ebb and flow of our chanting began to permeate my entire day as a kind of background music to my teaching, or typing, or whatever I was currently assigned to do. It’s hard to put this in words, but I’ll try. At first, it seemed I would never get it – when to stand, when to bow, how far down to bow, when to chant recto tono (on one note only) or sung as it is on festive days.
I was enthralled and amazed when I first entered our community as I just soaked in the ebb and flow of the movement of the chanting.
#DIVINE OFFICE CHANTED SERIES#
There is an opening invitatory, a hymn and then a series of psalms (usually 3) and each psalm is preceded and followed by an antiphon.
There are specified roles for the different sisters during the chanting and each week a sign is posted on the bulletin board outside the choir, listing the role we take that week.Įach hour has more or less the same structure. At certain intervals, we keep a prayerful silence at other times, we intercede for our world. Sometimes we stand sometimes we bow sometimes we sit. We have a four-volume set of office books, one book for each of the four liturgical seasons: Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, and two books for what is known as Ordinary Time. It is said that the angels are very close when one prays the Divine Office. This is also known praying the Breviary or the Divine Office. In our community, we chant the Liturgy of the Hours three times daily. Every syllable, every breath, gesture, and movement is prayerful. For many centuries, monks and nuns have literally spent hours in choirs such as ours singing God’s praises. Our choir is a rectangular room, located adjacent to the chapel sanctuary and lined on both sides with two rows of monastic, wooden choir stalls. I love it here, and I especially love our monastic choir adjacent to the sanctuary of our beautiful chapel. During prayers one day, a sudden impulse came upon me as I heard the voices of my Carmelite Sisters chanting the Liturgy of the Hours – an idea welling up within me to share with you about our chanting of the Divine Office in our local Carmel of the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, California.
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