The monks Of Gethsemani sing this beautiful Chant based on Psalm 18 from today's Mass for Friday 5th Week of Lent.
Since 1848 the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky, have lived a life of work and prayer.
Each day, seven times a day, they gather to lift their voices to sing the divine office.
Vigils, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline are the seven "hours" of the liturgy of the hours or opus Dei (work of God) as St. Benedict called it in his Rule.
They are common prayer services, the prayer of the Church as well as the prayer of the community. None of these "hours" actually lasts an hour. All seven add up to two and a half or two and three-quarters hours.
The backbone of these services is the 150 psalms, sung or recited according to a two-week cycle. At each hour there is also a hymn, reading from Scripture, prayer of the day and commemoration of Our Lady.
Thomas Merton entered Gethsemani Abbey on 10th December 1941.
Matthew Kelty ( see left), was also a monk at Gethsemani who sadly died last February. The full text of all his homilies are here
I have chosen this particular one written in full below for today as it speaks of human identity and God like identity and works and how we can recognise God.
The gospel for today shows how those who refuse to see beyond their narrow categories cannot recognise the signs in the work Jesus did that proved He was profoundly of God and was truly The Son of God.
It links well with today's Gospel from John although the opening verse is a little farther on.
He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
"In the Beginning God created. So does Scripture open. Creation is by speech, indeed, is a kind of speech: "Let there be light."
Scripture readings for the Mass are here
Since 1848 the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky, have lived a life of work and prayer.
Each day, seven times a day, they gather to lift their voices to sing the divine office.
Vigils, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline are the seven "hours" of the liturgy of the hours or opus Dei (work of God) as St. Benedict called it in his Rule.
They are common prayer services, the prayer of the Church as well as the prayer of the community. None of these "hours" actually lasts an hour. All seven add up to two and a half or two and three-quarters hours.
The backbone of these services is the 150 psalms, sung or recited according to a two-week cycle. At each hour there is also a hymn, reading from Scripture, prayer of the day and commemoration of Our Lady.
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Thomas Merton entered Gethsemani Abbey on 10th December 1941.
Matthew Kelty ( see left), was also a monk at Gethsemani who sadly died last February. The full text of all his homilies are here
I have chosen this particular one written in full below for today as it speaks of human identity and God like identity and works and how we can recognise God.
The gospel for today shows how those who refuse to see beyond their narrow categories cannot recognise the signs in the work Jesus did that proved He was profoundly of God and was truly The Son of God.
It links well with today's Gospel from John although the opening verse is a little farther on.
He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
— Jn 14:9
All Is Symbol
"In the Beginning God created. So does Scripture open. Creation is by speech, indeed, is a kind of speech: "Let there be light."
That is why the Son of the Father is spoken of as
the Divine Word. In the beginning was the Word. Speech is creativity
and creation is a work of God, a sharing in it. In the highest and most
perfect sense, the Word is God.
Can it be a surprise that when God made a human, God should at once teach speech? God showed Adam all the world and bade him name everything. God spoke and so made man : man speaks and so creates with God, for by this word he makes the named thing part of himself.
Can it be a surprise that when God made a human, God should at once teach speech? God showed Adam all the world and bade him name everything. God spoke and so made man : man speaks and so creates with God, for by this word he makes the named thing part of himself.
The nature of the created mind carries creation
a step further and adds word to word in reasoning sequence. So is man
God-like in having the nature of things in himself and by thought
creating a new idea.
The world would be incomplete without the human to
name it, to contemplate it, to fructify it.
God taught the secret of the universe in speech, for it is by speech that we learn that all is symbol and sign. The world is God saying : I am beauty, I am goodness, I am love and light and wisdom. It is the word that reveals this, for with God we create symbol just as he did. And through the word share the mind of God.
When we heard last week [in a book read in our monastic refectory] about the congenitally deaf who can move easily into the realm of the mind through sign language, we were brought face to face with the fact that we are naturally symbolic, taught so, made so, by God.
God taught the secret of the universe in speech, for it is by speech that we learn that all is symbol and sign. The world is God saying : I am beauty, I am goodness, I am love and light and wisdom. It is the word that reveals this, for with God we create symbol just as he did. And through the word share the mind of God.
When we heard last week [in a book read in our monastic refectory] about the congenitally deaf who can move easily into the realm of the mind through sign language, we were brought face to face with the fact that we are naturally symbolic, taught so, made so, by God.
We do not
make love with concepts, but with words, with deeds.
What is in the
mind remains there until I say it or play it or act it or do it or mime
it.
Nothing leaves the mind but by symbol. Nothing enters the mind but
by the same route. How splendid. You smile at the little infant in your
arms and the little infant smiles back. A shattering experience.
The monastery teaches us this, much as God taught Adam. It is all symbol. That is why we meet in this handsome church. After all, a barn would do, a hall, an auditorium, an aula. We wear symbolic clothes, do symbolic actions, our song is symbolic, our gestures—not to say the words themselves.
We have not a corridor, or a hallway : no, a cloister. Our refectory is the place where monks eat. It is not a lunch room or a cafeteria or a restaurant or a buffet or even a dining room. It is the refectory. We gather in chapter; it is no board room, no conference room, no community room. As chapter it is a very special symbol. Our scriptorium is no lounge room or living room or sitting room or reading room. It is a symbol of its own.
So the monastery says "monk" to the monk all day. It is what he is, what he should be, what he wants to be. That is the symbol he is, the word he utters unceasingly.
The monastery teaches us this, much as God taught Adam. It is all symbol. That is why we meet in this handsome church. After all, a barn would do, a hall, an auditorium, an aula. We wear symbolic clothes, do symbolic actions, our song is symbolic, our gestures—not to say the words themselves.
We have not a corridor, or a hallway : no, a cloister. Our refectory is the place where monks eat. It is not a lunch room or a cafeteria or a restaurant or a buffet or even a dining room. It is the refectory. We gather in chapter; it is no board room, no conference room, no community room. As chapter it is a very special symbol. Our scriptorium is no lounge room or living room or sitting room or reading room. It is a symbol of its own.
So the monastery says "monk" to the monk all day. It is what he is, what he should be, what he wants to be. That is the symbol he is, the word he utters unceasingly.
All the neighborhood knows this
: for miles around we are known not
as the abbey, not as the monastery, not as Gethsemani, but directly: we are "the monks."
The futility of saying, "What good is it? What use? Who needs it? Who needs incense? Who needs bells? Can't you get yourself a watch? Who needs cowls and choir stalls and cloister and abbot?" No one, really, if that is your approach.
The futility of saying, "What good is it? What use? Who needs it? Who needs incense? Who needs bells? Can't you get yourself a watch? Who needs cowls and choir stalls and cloister and abbot?" No one, really, if that is your approach.
Who needs daffodils? Or blue skies? Or
whippoorwills? Who needs song and dance? Who needs processions and
icons and candles? Candles? All these lights on—39 of them, 12,000
watts—and you light candles! You are mad!
Yes. The way God is mad. He made the world for the joy of it, not the need of it.
Yes. The way God is mad. He made the world for the joy of it, not the need of it.
It is full of His glory—still.
Despite what we have done
to it.
Kentucky was once magnificent forest-land of mighty trees,
giants rising from a clean floor. Look at it now. Skimpy woods full of
undergrowth.
Yet, for all that, it is glorious with God—still. The
symbols may not be all they were, but they still speak loud and clear.
Even the deaf hear them. And they reply, whom God loves more than miles
of woods.
My brothers, my sisters, how splendid is God in creation. Infinite wisdom in the smallest insect, in the remote planet.
My brothers, my sisters, how splendid is God in creation. Infinite wisdom in the smallest insect, in the remote planet.
Yet, most
magnificent of all, in the human.
For he can do, she can do, what
nothing else of earth can do
:
make the world their own. By word the human creates anew in the marvel
of symbol-making. We are like God.
We are not always conscious of all that. As if that matters. We may use few words in a day. But we use symbols all day and all night. And every one of them is of God ; they are God speaking.
We are not always conscious of all that. As if that matters. We may use few words in a day. But we use symbols all day and all night. And every one of them is of God ; they are God speaking.
And since only a modest part of our mind is conscious and
a massive part unconscious, it is this unconscious part, which is
still mind, that feeds us, nourishes us, sustains us. It would be
difficult to live as monks in the Holiday Inn down the road.
Not
because the Inn is ugly or tacky or plastic. It could provide all we
need: but it speaks the wrong
words, that's all.
It is not a monastic symbol. And the word that the
Inn is,
would be at work on us all the time, unconsciously unsaying what we are
trying to say.
Even though this monastery too is an Inn. And we are
passing guests, here but for a while, and then gone to another country.
It may not be as comfortable as the Inn down the road, but you get more
for your money.
God is explicit in the night at this Inn.
We are each and all a symbol. We are saying something all the time. All of us preach.
We are each and all a symbol. We are saying something all the time. All of us preach.
Spread a cause. Take a stand. All the time. Everywhere.
The world God created is full of God and his glory.
We aim, each of us,
to be just like that
: God-like,
God-ly, radiant in his glory.
After God had fashioned you and finished you, he stood you upright, smiled at you, touched you lightly and said :
Speak. Tell me ... that you love me!"
After God had fashioned you and finished you, he stood you upright, smiled at you, touched you lightly and said :
Speak. Tell me ... that you love me!"
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