Chanting the Divine Office

Photo taken as I chanted Lauds in the monastery garden.

I lowered the book so you'd have an "unfunny" view of the background.

The path I walk back and forth, in nice weather, to chant the office.

Dear Family and Friends,

Among the many blessings of this past week--one of which was beautiful weather!--I wanted to share with you two in particular.

One is this week's First Friday Mass. Every month I offer the Holy Sacrifice on the first Friday for all of my benefactors--this includes all of you who are donating financially to make my life, apostolate, and studies, possible, as well as all of you who are making my priestly life and apostolate, and studies possible, and hopefully fruitful! by your prayers and sacrifices. Thank you for all that you are doing for me as a priest. As promised, I offer each First Friday's Mass as a way of saying thank you. But for me it is also a particular joy. So many of you are those I have known for years as a priest, and I have so very much to be thankful for in terms of your faith and love for the Lord, your sense of humor, your courage, and so many other blessings. So on the First Friday it is a real joy to think of you and your families, to bring you in Our Lady's Heart to the foot of Calvary, to ask Jesus to pour out His blessings upon you, and to remember you with gratitude.

Another blessing of this week was to begin once again to chant the Divine Office in the monastic form. The past 18 months were quite intense, and so I had largely backed off from this, not feeling I had the energy. However, the past 10 days I began to chant again Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers. It has been really wonderful to dive into those melodies again! I remember reading that at the monastery of Gethsemane, when the monks abandoned the Gregorian chant in the 60's (or 70's) to chant instead in English, their health declined noticeably. I believe it. There is a genius in the different melodies--in fact in the different "modes"--of the psalms. More than genius, there is something particularly holy and inspired. They bring out something wonderful in the human heart and lift it up to God. In some ways I find that the melodies help the heart to speak to God even more than the words of the psalms.

My chanting is rather rusty and it will take me a while to relearn each of the modes, as well as the antiphons (some of which I never learned in the first place), but it is a joyful work. The monastic office definitely takes longer than the diocesan one, but in the end I think the benefits will be well worth it. So, you see in the above photos the little area I like to chant in when the weather is nice.

Nice weather is not always here, so much of the time I will be chanting in the small chapel in the presbytery that the sisters are kindly preparing. Hopefully it will be completed in a few weeks and I can send you a photo.

Oh, and this is the cover story of the UK's major Catholic weekly magazine. I have to agree! http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/september-1st-2017/the-kids-are-old-rite/

I wish you all a very blessed Sunday. May Jesus and Mary watch over you and guide you.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari