Participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the pinnacle of Christian prayer. The Church describes it as follows:
"At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the centuries until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 47).
At Saint Louis Abbey it might be said that for both the Mass and the Divine Office we have a blend of the old and the new. We have kept the Latin Gregorian chant for the Ordinary of our festal Masses and First Vespers of all our Solemnities. Recently we have incorporated into our repertoire English versions of the Gregorian Introits and Responsorial psalms that were composed at Ampleforth, our motherhouse in England. There is a mood of prayerfulness and calm in the chant, whether in Latin or in English, that cannot adequately be expressed in words.