Many friends of our community, or those who find us online, know that as nuns we give ourselves completely to God in a life of prayer. Yet what exactly we are doing in our life of prayer is often less clear!
If you attend Holy Mass in our chapel, or happen to come make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament at a time when we were praying the Divine Office, you would realize that a good part of our prayer is expressed through singing the liturgy in chant — in fact, Dominican chant.
Dominican Chant Responsory for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady:
Because of truth, and meekness and justice; and Your right hand shall conduct You wonderfully. Verse: Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, for the king has greatly desired your beauty. – Ps. 44, 5.11.
What Is Dominican Chant?
Most people have a general idea of Gregorian chant, that solemn, somewhat ethereal style of singing Latin liturgical texts that raises the soul to God. Dominican chant is the special Dominican variety of the ancient Gregorian chant, standardized in the mid-1200’s under Blessed Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master of the Order.
When our Holy Father St. Dominic founded the Order of Preachers in the early 1200’s, he kept the community celebration of the liturgy as a central part of the spiritual life of his new Order. While earlier monks had elaborated the chants of the liturgy to great length, the Dominican friars preferred more succinct musical settings in order to set aside additional time for study at the service of their preaching for the salvation of souls.
Our Dominican chant is less ethereal, perhaps, but nonetheless beautiful and elevating. The Dominicans are devoted to contemplating and preaching the Word of God for the salvation of souls, and chanting the Scriptural texts is like lectio divina in song.
Dominican Chant Offertory for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady:
For you are happy, O holy virgin Mary,
and most worthy of all praise, because from you arose
the Sun of Justice, Christ our Lord.
The Liturgy in Our Life (or, Why we Sing Dominican Chant)
The solemn celebration of the liturgy is the heart of our life as Dominican nuns, and the chief source of its unity. The most important action of our life each day take place in the liturgy: offering ourselves to God in union with Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and continuing this praise, intercession, and thanksgiving throughout the day in the Liturgy of the Hours. (The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, consists of Psalms, hymns, Scripture passages, and other chants, which vary according to the day and the liturgical season.) Seven times each day, we return to our monastery chapel to pray the liturgy.
We find that singing our traditional Dominican chant throughout these liturgical celebrations intensifies the unifying effect of the liturgy in our life. As Dominicans, we know that our exterior practices both express and affect our interior devotion. Chant itself, as a musical style, is specifically ordered towards prayer. Singing chant day after day forms our souls in greater stillness and receptivity to the Word of God, mysteriously opening up interior space to contemplate and enter more deeply into the richness of the living Word.
This liturgical life flows into our personal lectio divina, as well as into our devotional life of processions and novenas. Even at recreation, how often will a Sister remark on some connection in the liturgy to the saint of the day, the readings at Mass, or the text or music of the chant itself. “Did you notice the repetition of the text Os justi? Those early monks who elaborated these chants just loved thinking about the ‘just man’ whose mouth continually murmured the Word of God!”
Today’s Examples, and More Dominican Chant
Have you heard chant at Mass recently? Although most parishes use hymns for Sunday Mass, it is still true in the Church today that there are proper Latin chants assigned for each Mass for the Entrance, Responsory (instead of the Responsorial Psalm as usually sung), Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion. The two examples of chant that we shared above (which we also sang at Mass today) are both from the proper chants for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Would you like to listen to more Dominican chant? We only have a few samples of our singing online, but there are two Dominican friars who host an OPChant YouTube channel with recordings of hours of chant.
Their “Introducing OPChant” video by EWTN is also very good.
The only thing better than listening to Dominican chant is singing it, and living a contemplative monastic life dedicated to the ultimate goal of chant: bringing us all into union with God. If you are a young woman drawn to this life immersed, like Our Lady, in the Word of God, please feel free to contact us.