Our Church, like most chapels or oratories of monasteries, has two sides to it: the public side and the monastic choir. The top picture is taken from the public side where the lay people are invited to join us for our liturgies. On the other side of the altar is the "choir" where we gather five times each day to chant the Divine Office (the official prayer of the Church), which is also known as the Liturgy of the Hours. The choir is arranged so that we face each other and chant (or recite) the psalms from the Office back and forth (or side to side) - one side responding to the other.
If you look closely, you will notice that the corpus of Jesus on the crucifix has four arms. That's because there is a corpus on each side of the cross so that whether on the public side or the "choir" side of the Church one may see Jesus on the Cross.
One side of the choir is pictured below.
