Norbertine Chant
“The plain-chant is, before all, the cry of the soul in the prayer, the vibration of the heart under the breath of God. The chant repeats the intimate disposition; it completes the word in translating what the words cannot convey.”Mère Marie de la Croix, 19th-Century Norbertine Canoness
As Norbertine canonesses, our daily life is centered on the laus Deo in choro, the chanted praise of God in choir. In our liturgical prayer, Latin and our Order's distinctive Premonstratensian Gregorian chant hold pride of place, as we carry out the Church's praise night and day before the altar of God.
WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US AS WE PRAISE GOD IN THE LITURGY
Subscribe (no cost) to receive an email each month sharing a chant piece from the Sacred Liturgy recorded by the entire community of Norbertine Canonesses of the Bethlehem Priory, with a link to the downloadable audio file and a written reflection on the chant.
Until the Day Dawns
Click on each month's entry to view the chant notation, translation, and a reflection for the chant piece shared.
Subscribe to A Year of Chant with the Norbertine Canonesses
Why "Until the Day Dawns"?
"We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with Him on the holy mountain. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."(2 Peter 1:18-19)
As Norbertine Canonesses, we are dedicated to the solemn and public celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, chanting the Church's own prayer day and night on behalf of all her members, and welcoming the lay faithful to come and participate in this sacred action.
Yet, although every baptized soul is consecrated to divine worship, the Liturgy (with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at its center, radiating throughout the entire day in the Liturgy of the Hours, and through the cycle of the liturgical year drawing us progressively into each of Christ's mysteries), so often is not understood or appreciated. And, while we await the building of our monastery church, the arrangement of our current lay chapel makes it difficult for visitors to hear and follow our choir as we chant.
Our present chant series seeks to bridge this gap and invite others to experience the richness and beauty that the Liturgy brings to one's spiritual life, as it has done for so many Christians over the centuries. Our hope is that, through this small opening, those who may not be so familiar with the Liturgy may glimpse the mystery and wonder that can be found there.
But why call the series "Until the Day Dawns"?
Pope Benedict XVI once likened the Liturgy to “playing at heaven,” for in the Liturgy heaven and earth meet. The whole Christ, the whole Church — suffering, militant and triumphant — is present in a very real way whenever the Liturgy is celebrated, and we rehearse in time, as it were, that which we will be occupied with in eternity: the praise of the Triune God. In this meeting of heaven and earth, we are invisibly surrounded by the choirs of angels and saints, and we are caught up, even now, into the glory of the eternal heavenly Liturgy.
So we echo here below the "voice come from heaven," singing in the Liturgy texts and lessons given us by God Himself in the Holy Scriptures. And we know in faith that if we are "attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place," pondering in our hearts the words that are on our lips, God will speak to us there, and will guide us through our journey here below,
"until the day dawns and the morning star rises in [our] hearts."
"The Office, with the various chants and melodies known and associated in memory with their accompanying feasts, [becomes] a musical liberation of the spirit to pure and lofty prayer..."
– Fr. François Petit, O. Praem.