Another Contemplative CD

Stefan at Jade Music out in California has sent me another CD; one that could be called 'Sounds for Contemplation.' Jade produced the CD of the soundtrack of the documentary film Into Great Silence by the German film maker Philip Groning which was such a hit last year. This new CD is a recording of Sunday Matins, three Nocturnes and Lauds (Offices of the Liturgy of the Hours). The monks enter the choir at quarter past midnight to chant this Office of the Night. Absent is the sanitized purity of studio recordings. The sound of foot steps, coughs, creaking floor boards, and knees hitting wood are the ambient noises accompanying the other worldly Latin chant of the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse monastery in France. Close your eyes and you are in their midst. It is a sound not just for the souls of contemplative nuns and monks but for those who wish to be transported into another world designed only to support the search for God.

Along with the CD comes a booklet in which all the of Psalms, hymns and readings appear in Latin and English should one wish to pray along. An introduction entitled "Who Is a Monk?" concludes with these words:

Because of his small but significant part, the Carthusian monk

is a canal of life: a very thin artery that has the capacity

to spread the spiritual energy of the divine grace

all over the surface of the earth and even in the whole body of Creation.