God

Sister Teresa

As a member of a monastic choir, I find it disconcerting to notice that it always sounds better in my absence. (Most people experience this.)

But even when I am singing, it can sometimes sound truly inspiring, thanks to our exceptionally good organist and the long-term patience of our choirmistress.

As a bonus one Christmas (but alas not in 2020), a professional choirmaster came for just an hour to help us.

Had I been told beforehand the effect he would have on our singing, I simply would not have believed it.

Saint Benedict says that ‘to sing is to pray twice over’. On that dank winter afternoon, it was as though we were airborne. Very prosaically, this beauty was produced by hard graft and discipline: breathing properly, standing properly and paying attention.

None of us is young, but it was delightful to feel like an enthusiastic schoolgirl all over again because of making such a wonderful sound.

At Midnight Mass, we sang the martyrology – a very solemn moment in monastic liturgy. As the name implies, this consists (but only partly) of a list of martyrs and other saints whose feast days fall on a given date.

It also contains a much-abbreviated history of the world as seen from a medieval perspective.

One of the earliest martyrologies was drawn up by Saint Jerome in the first half of the fifth century; the most recent one contains the names of 7,000 saints who are presented to the faithful as models worthy of imitation. We don’t mention them all.

‘In the 5,199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth; in the 2,957th year after the flood … in the 152nd year from the foundation of the City of Rome; in the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, all the earth being at peace, Jesus Christ was born. LIFT UP YOUR HEADS FOR YOUR SALVATION IS AT HAND.’

Some of these figures are obviously fantastic, but the 42nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus isn’t; nor is the assertion that our salvation is at hand.

There was a candlelit procession of those taking part in the martyrology, accompanied by quiet organ music to encourage a prayerful atmosphere.

Normally, the only carpet in the house (other than a strip of hair-cord which deadens the sound of tramping feet on the ancient and ill-fitting floorboards in the attic) is in place for the singers to stand on.

This Christmas, there was none. I spotted a note stuck on a nearby candle. Expecting a request for prayers from someone in distress, I read it.

It said, ‘No carpet this year: destroyed by dead mice rolled up therein.’