This set of beautiful, haunting chants composed by O’hare and sung by Cox had been, of late, a great help to me in focusing myself during the times I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the Catholic Church. This digital version, may be sourced from Apple Music for less than ten bucks (US). I strongly recommend it for those having issues on focusing on The Lord, during their prayer moments.

Together with these chants I also recommend reading the book “The Lord,” written by Romano Guardini, with an Introduction by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In the words of Ratzinger, “Romano Guardini’s book The Lord has helped more than one generation of Christians enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ…As a student Romano Guardini had experienced the drama of liberalism and its collapse, and with a few friends he set out to find a new path for theology. What came to impress him in the course of this search was the experience of the liturgy as the place of encounter with Jesus. It is above all in the liturgy that Jesus is among us, here it is that He speaks to us, here He lives.

Guardini recognized that the liturgy is the true, living environment for the Bible and that the Bible can be properly understood only in this living context within which it first emerged. The texts of the Bible, this great Book of Christ are not to be seen as the literary products of some scribes at their desks but rather as the words of Christ himself delivered in the celebration of the holy Mass.The scriptural texts are thoroughly imbued with the awe of divine worship resulting from the believer’s attentiveness to the living voice of the present Lord. Guardini himself tells us of the way in which these texts have arisen: “We can only reverently pause before this or that word or act, ready to learn, adore, obey.”

The Lord

by Romano Guardini

Introduction by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

The only true and unedited telling of the life of Christ—his life and times, in historical context, but not lacking the psychology behind his physical being and spirit. Unlike other books seeking to strip Jesus’ story to reveal only the human being, Romano Guardini’s The Lord gives the complete story of Jesus Christ—as man, Holy Ghost, and Creator. Pope Benedict XVI lauds Guardini’s work as providing a full understanding of the Son of God, away from the prejudice that rationality engenders. Put long-held myths aside and discover the entire truth about God’s only begotten Son.

Published: September, 1996