St. Augustine said, "When you sing, you pray twice".
Clement of Alexandria, and presumably other Christians too, knew the role of temple music which the Christians had kept. He contrasted the music of the Greek temples and the music of the Christians. The latter, he said, was ‘the immortal measure of the new harmony which bears God’s name – the new Levitical song’.
This song drives out demons and brings creation to order. Behold the might of the new song! It has made men out of stones, men out of beasts. Those who were as dead because they did not partake of the true life, have come to life simply by becoming listeners to this song. It also composed the universe into melodious order, and tuned the discord of the elements into harmonious arrangement, so that the whole world might become harmony. It let loose the fluid ocean, and yet has prevented it from encroaching on the land. The earth again, which had been in a state of commotion, it has established and fixed the sea as its boundary. (Barker, Margaret. Temple Mysticism: An Introduction (p. 92). SPCK. Kindle Edition).
So, let us sing our prayers. Our society needs to drive out demons, doesn't it?
Musical Settings of prayers;
- The Litany of Loreto
- The Litany of the Holy Name (in Latin, Gregorian notation, from a Franciscan source)
- The Litany for America
- The Litany of the Saints, from the 1950 Dominican Gradual
- Virgo Maria, Psalm Antiphon for feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dominican use), with instrumental recording.
- Sub Tuum Præsidium, the earliest known Marian prayer, in a Dominican Setting, and instrumental recording.
- Inviolata. Of this, Fr. Augustine Thompson writes: "There are two other processions traditionally attached to Compline. The first, and best known, is the interpolation between the Salve and O Lumen of a Procession to the Holy Rosary Altar or shrine, while singing the Litany of Loreto. This procession is early modern in origin. The Litany concluded with the singing of the prosa Inviolata and the collect. In Easter time, the Inviolata was replaced by the Regina Caeli, sung to a Dominican version of the solemn tone". We also have an instrumental recording.
