Complin

This is a continuation of my recent posts about resources to help you with your Holy Habits.

When Sue and I were dating she took me to a service in an old Episcopal church in Seattle that she explained as chanting monks. I was intrigued but quite frankly I went because I was in love with Sue not the idea of listening to chanting monks. When we arrived I was quite taken back with the already sizable crowd waiting for the doors to open. It wasn't the size of the crowd that surprised me but who the crowd was made up of. They were mostly teenagers with a lot of tattoo's and piercings. Were they in the wrong place? Certainly they couldn't be here to hear monks chant.

As we entered the sanctuary it was sparsely lighted. There was a huge suspended cross above the altar of the church that was the focal point. People filed in and sat in the pews but they also filled the aisles, sitting on the ground and were all over the altar and the stairs to the platform. At the appropriate time the choir of 8-10 men (they aren't really monks) walked in and stationed themselves behind the crowd and began to sing. The music was absolutely beautiful.

Tune in Sunday evenings at 9:30 PM to hear the live broadcast of one of Seattle's most charming long-standing musical traditions. Here the men's voices of St.Marks Cathedral chant the Office of Compline, the last monastic office of the day. Click here to listen. Let me know what you think.