Cloistered/Monastic Resources
A Right to Be Merry
A Glimpse Inside a Poor Clare Cloister
- Author:
- Mother Mary Francis, PCC
- Length:
- 232 pages
- Edition:
- Paperback
- Your Price:
- $12.95
- Click to order
Can life really be “merry” inside a Poor Clare cloister? This happy book reveals the challenges, cares and joys of that cloistered life from an “insiders” view. The poet’s cry, “O world, I cannot hold you close enough!” is the heart’s cry of the enclosed contemplative.No one who has not lived in a cloister can fully understand just how intertwined are the lives of cloistered nuns. Their hearts may be wide as the universe and bottomless as eternity, but the practical details of their living are boxed up into the small area within the enclosure walls. Cloistered nuns rub souls as well as elbows all their lives, and if they do not step out of themselves to get a true perspective, they can become small- souled and petty and remain immature children all their lives long. But, as Mother Mary Francis points out, they also have “as great a right to be merry as any lady in the world.”
Nor is merriment all. “Hidden away from the glare and noise of worldly living,” Mother Mary Francis writes, “we are enclosed in the womb of holy Church. I walk down the cloisters, and my heart moves to a single tune: Lord, it is good, so good to be here!”
Into Great Silence
The Director’s Two-Disc DVD Special Edition
In this contemplative documentary from filmmaker Philip Gröning, the Grande Chartreuse monastery opens its doors to the public for the first time since being founded by St. Bruno in 1084 to offer an intimate look at a lifestyle rarely experienced by those outside of the brotherhood. Located in the remote regions of the French Alps, near the Dauphiné Alps, the Grande Chartreuse is the top monastery of the Carthusian order. In this documentary, the lives of the pious monks of Grande Chartreuse are captured on film as director Groening adapts to their ascetic lifestyle for six months and captures their daily life without the intrusion of voice-over, musical score, interviews, or archival footage. This transcendent film is one of the most mesmerizing and poetic chronicles of spirituality ever created. It is more meditation than documentary — it is a rare transformative experience for all.
DVD Features:
DISC ONE, THE FILM:
- Breathtaking 16:9 anamorphic transfer, created from hi-def elements
- U.S. theatrical trailer
- Minimal French with optional English subtitles
- Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
DISC TWO, SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Making-of dossier, with behind-the-scenes footage and handwritten notes from the monks
- Additional scenes, including a piece on the Carthusian’s world-famous Chartreuse liqueur
- Night Office: A 53-minute excerpt of the monks’ nightly ritual of psalms, lauds and matins
- The Carthusians: An informative guide to the history, rules, architecture, art and daily schedules of the monks and the monasteries
- Extensive photo and audio galleries
- Essays by the director on the film, its genesis and the Night Office
Mother Benedict
Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis
- Author:
- Antoinette Bosco
- Length:
- 375 pages
- Your Price:
- $19.95
- Click to order
This is the inspiring story of Mother Benedict Duss and the famous Benedictine monastery she founded in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the Abbey of Regina Laudis, a large flourishing community of contemplative Benedictine nuns.The Abbey is home to many accomplished women from all walks of life and fields of study. Perhaps the most famous is former Hollywood film star, Dolores Hart, who shocked the film world when she left a successful movie career at the age of 25 to become a contemplative Benedictine.
The heart of this book is the amazing story of Mother Benedict Duss, who was born in America but went to France and became a medical doctor in Paris, but left that profession to become a Benedictine contemplative. Through the liberating efforts from Hitler’s Nazi regime by Patton’s army in France, she felt an overwhelming interior call to return to America to found the first community of contemplative Benedictine nuns. At the young age of 35, with incredible faith, courage and the help of Popes, politicians, famous writers, and many others, she persevered in her call. Lavishly illustrated with photos.
Chant: Music for the Soul
This new chant album is from an ancient Cistercian monastery (1133) in Vienna, Austria, which happens to be a favorite abbey of Pope Benedict XVI. The album has become an international sensation, and it presents the deep spiritual beauty of the monk’s chants that is very peaceful, poignant, and connects heaven and earth. An abbey flourishing with young vocations, their chant music has a wide appeal that opens our hearts to God in meditation and prayer as we listen to their selections from Compline, Requiem, Mass hymns and more. Includes In Paradisum, Requiem Aeternam, Kyrie, Sanctus, Lux Aeterna, Salve Regina, Veni Creator Spiritus, various Pslams, and much more. 29 hymns in total, with collectors booklet.
Track Listing
2. Response Subvenite
3. Response Libera Me
4. Stift Heiligenkreuz Bells
5. Introitus Requiem æternam 
6. Kyrie
7. Graduale Requiem æternam
8. Tractus Absolve Domine
9. Offertorium Domine Jesu Christe
10. Sanctus
11. Pie Jesu Domine
12. Agnus Dei
13. Communio Lux æterna
14. Deus in adiutorium
15. Hymn Te lucis ante terminum
16. Psalm 4
17. Psalm 90 (91)
18. Psalm 133
19. Lectio brevis
20. Responsorium breve
21. Canticum Simeonis “Nunc dimittis”
22. Ad Completorium: Kyrie
23. As Completorium: Oratio conclusive
24. Salve Regina
