The Nuns of Glencairn Record a New CD

The Nuns of St Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn are producing a new CD recording of our community’s celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours for sale in aid of our current building needs.

On Tuesday of this week, we gathered for an all day recording in the Abbey Church of Morning and Evening Prayer under the musical direction of Marjorie Moran, accompanied by organist Tim Fuohy, with Joe O’Dubhgaill as sound engineer. The CD will include the Hours of Lauds, Vespers and Compline. The music for our Liturgy of the Hours was composed by Margaret Daly.

Many of our guests attending the Divine Office at the Abbey over the years have remarked that they would appreciate being able to take home a recording of the community’s prayer as an aid to their own private prayer of the Hours. We hope that this recording will meet their needs and be an encounter with God through the prayer of the Church for many.

St Augustine famously said that “singing is praying twice”. Though not all of us are singers in the community (being able to sing is not a requirement for the monastic life as some discerning their vocation may fear!) nevertheless it is the practice in our Cistercian monastic tradition to sing the entire Liturgy of the Hours every day.

We begin our service of prayer at Glencairn while it is still night with the community assembling for Vigils at 4:10am and return to the Abbey Church for each of the Hours throughout the day: our morning prayer Lauds is followed by the community Eucharist, and the subsequent Hours of prayer in our daily schedule include Terce, Sext, None, Vespers (evening prayer). The monastic day ends with Compline at 7:55pm in the evening. The day closes with the community singing the Salve Regina.

In Praise of Mary, a collection of Marian Hymns and Chant sung by the Nuns of St Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn, directed and produced by Noirin Ni Riain, was recorded in 2007.

We look forward to making our new CD available if possible before Christmas.

Photo: the Sisters together with musical director Marjorie Moran and organist Tim Fuohy