“Something That God Has Allowed To Happen:” NPR Interviews The Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles

This “Morning Edition” piece on Missouri’s singing nuns is almost impossibly charming.

Almost.

When the sisters of Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles aren’t hard at work on the monastery grounds, they’re topping the charts with albums of sacred music. The group’s Angels and Saints at Epheseus topped the Billboard classical charts, and now it’s releasing its latest, Lent at Epheseus.

…

“The CDs are something that God has allowed to happen,” Mother Cecilia says. “It’s a wonderful thing insofar as it brings souls closer to God, and in the meantime helps us pay our debt, but other than that, life just flows along at the priory just the same way it did before. And that’s the way we love it; that’s the way we want. No tours, no concerts, you know? Just simple monastic life.”

“Discovered almost by chance…” Riiiight.

The peacefulness and joy in Mother Cecilia’s voice is palpable, isn’t it?

Seems like a long ways from “a top seat in the French Horn section of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra” all the way out to rural Missouri. But the sisters sound pretty happy just where they are. What a wonderful witness.

The music’s not bad, either.

(HT to NPR’s “Deceptive Cadence” blog. Also, wait: “The album’s “celebrating the season of Lent?” Wow. We’re there again already? Man, how time flies. But then, we knew that, didn’t we?)