Sometimes I wish I had an ancient stone chapel somewhere near my house. This small prayer chapel would have a well-worn threshold made of granite with grooves worn in it from passionate penitent pilgrims’ knees. The ceiling would be dark with the soot of a thousand years of candles and oil lamps. The air inside with be cool and protected from the heat of day by the stone edifice surrounding it. The acoustics would be crisp and ringing so that a Gregorian chant would fill the hall with a rich full sound of Latin words sung acapella.
This is just a dream for you don’t need a place like this to be close to the divine. You simply have to have a silent moment when you heart can be heard. You need a silent moment when you can hear the small still voice of the holy, when you can experience the precious flash of song or light, or where a calming moment of inspiration can fill your empty mind. Still, sometimes a holy space like an ancient chapel will provide you an opening in the veil that you would not find otherwise.
In many senses the hour of golden light combined with the music of Stile Antico’s Music for Compline is my stone chapel. On an evening of a once humid day now filled will cooling air, the sound of these voices as I sit on an old dining room chair at an old dining room table now cast out upon the back porch, the holy is within my grasp. I guess in the end, there is my prayer chapel.
I offer the translation of the piece offered below:
If I give slumber to my eyes
and to my eyelids drowsiness,
I shall sleep and rest.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
There is a very esoteric and mystical reading on this text that can be found here. https://saintpaulsanglicancatholic.net/the-psalms
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