Brother Samuel's seat in choir was empty again at Evening Prayer. He has not been in choir since the prayer service of None yesterday. This means that at every prayer service since then, Vespers, Compline, Vigils this morning, Lauds, Terce, Sext, and None, this afternoon, his seat was empty at the start of the prayer service, and then was filled. The rule is that, if a brother is late to a prayer service, he has up until the end of the opening hymn to get to his seat before the monks "close ranks", that is, move up toward the altar to fill any gaps in the choir. If the brother comes in after that, then he has to take the last place. There was something vaguely disconcerting seeing the "gap" in choir created by Samuel's absence at all those prayer services. There was something more disconcerting about watching that gap disappear as the community drew together after the conclusion of the hymn. When I watched his absence disappear, Samuel seemed to move even farther away — assuming a new kind of distance from us that is hard for my mind to comprehend. Praise of God is the one and only human activity that survives after the world ends. When the monks sing in choir, it is a real participation in the liturgy of heaven that has no beginning or end, and so, we enter, in time, into an eternal "now" beyond the passage of time. Choir is the one place in our life where time cannot contain us. Maybe this is why a brother's absence in choir affects me the way it does. Is it my heart that aches in front of the empty seat or does Jesus' heart ache in me, a member of his body? The choir is his body, but — it looks like there is a wound. Congar said Jesus, who is "alpha and omega", (the beginning and the end), can do the alpha without us. He can't do the omega without us. How does Jesus become "all in all" when there are people missing? Was I being nosey when, after choir, I asked the Prior, "Where is Samuel?"

Father Raphael