Keep Winding the Clock

This may seem a strange title for a chant blog. However, I have been thinking recently about two aspects of the daily and weekly repetition of chanting: the effect that it has on my daily life and what it teaches me about simply “keeping at it.”

Living in a Benedictine community, we are privileged to chant the Divine Office multiple times a day. Catch me on a different day and I might say we have the discipline of chanting the Offices daily. Find me yet another day and I would say, “I can’t believe it’s already time to do the next Office – I can’t possible get there at this moment!”

When St. Benedict states in his rule to “prefer nothing to the work of God”–which in his case, Opus Dei referred to the Divine Office–I believe he knew all too well that at any given moment we might really feel inspired to get to the service and, in the next breath, not! However, regardless of feelings, he also knew how much we need repetition to stay focused on God.

Chant has the most wonderful and gentle way of reminding me that no matter the circumstances of the moment and their accompanying feelings for either good or ill, God is eternally present right now. Listening to the opening antiphon for Lauds, I am reminded that this has been the same sound heard at Lauds around the world, throughout this Easter season and for centuries! There are thousands of people today with all kinds of circumstances who are opening their mouths and chanting these words.

All of a sudden, I am not so focused on myself! Chant has the inherent ability to raise me out of myself and unite with others in this process of staying focused on God.

I can’t think of a better reason to “keep winding the clock!”

So Much Color!

We find ourselves today in a “liturgical waiting period” between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. The chants for both of these feasts always strike me with the extraordinary musical coloring of their respective texts!

Have any of you ever played the game where you stand and look up into the sky, and wait for others to stop and see what it is you are looking at? Well, the chants for Ascension do exactly this with each of us! For example, look at the opening of the Introit for Ascension – Viri Galilaei (O Men of Galilee) – in which angels ask the disciples why they are looking up. Instantly, your eyes will be led in an upward direction as will your voice, chanting from the bottom to the top of the mode on just the first two words!

The chants for Pentecost are equally descriptive but in a rather more “fiery” way. The Communion antiphon for Pentecost – Factus est repente (A mighty sound from Heaven) – opens with a dramatic horn-call motive that gives an almost operatic quality to the opening words.

These are but two examples of the incredible ways which the sound of the chant is really the “sound of the words.” If you have a moment, take time during this wonderful period of anticipation between Ascension and Pentecost to learn and chant these two works I mentioned and enjoy the “discovery process!”