Is there an Easter lily shortage this year???
Went to two Easter Masses this morning at two fairly affluent parishes this morning, and one was decorated mostly in gladioli and spring flowers with all of six spindly-looking lillies in the whole church (and not together!) and the other church was richly decorated with proteas, ginger, tropical flowers and leaves, and tons of potted spring flowers with nary a lilly in the entire church!
I'd actually wanted to go to the National Cathedral, but I discovered too late that one had to have tickets (free, but tickets nonetheless) to attend services there. So, I ended up going to the neighborhood R.C. parish, St. Stephen Martyr for their 11 o'clock. Showed up twenty minutes early and the church was already full, so I had to sit in one of the little mini-pews on the sides. Eventually, the church would be standing room only and packed. The organist and small choir were supplemented this morning with some named Washington string ensemble, the name of which was mentioned only in passing and which did not show up in the service booklet or the parish newsletter. The ensemble had a horn in it, but no trumpets or percussion. Other than a sequence hymn, the music was all pretty much standard hymnal stuff. The choir did "The Heavens Are Telling" from Haydn's The Creation for a communion motet, but only did a hymn with organ improvisation for the offertory. The organist and the string ensemble did Concerto IV, Allegro, by Johann Melchior Molter for the postlude.
On the way back home, I went by St Paul's K Street which is one block south of St. Stephen, so I thought I'd stick my head in and see what they were doing since they'd also had an 11 o'clock, and knowing how much more ceremonial they are than the Romans, I knew they wouldn't be done yet. I wandered into the narthex where they had a few rows of folding chairs set up to supplement pew seating. There was activity going on up at the altar, so I thought they were just finishing up communion and I sat down to hear their closing hymn and postlude. Well, it turned out they weren't finishing up communion, they were just now finishing up the ***offertory*** and the ablutions being done weren't cleaning up after communion, but the celebrant washing his hands! In perusing the program, I see they had a solemn procession with three Easter hymns, but other than them having both an offertory hymn and an anthem (Byrd's "Haec dies quam fecit Dominus," which isn't that long), I can't imagine what took them so long unless Father Rector had a hugely long sermon. Of course, I remember their Epiphany procession back in January, where the acolytes moved around the church one little half step at a time. I'm glad I popped in, though, cause I loved their mass setting today (this is the parish that does a different formal choral mass setting every Sunday). It was a fairly new work called Messe du Jubile by Jean-Ives Daniel-Lesur (1908-2002), and it was interestingly dark and mysterious—somewhat in the Arvo Part mold—for a "festal" mass setting. The communion motet was "Surrexit Pastor bonus," by Roland de Lassus/Part I of an Eastertide Matin responsory. The postlude—which had a large percentage of the already no-doubt rump-sprung congregation stay to hear—was the "Final" from Vierne's Symphonie I, Op. 14. Oh, the program says the prelude had been Vierne as well, but the "Allegro" from Symphonie II, Op. 20. I pretended to be a tourist after the service and snapped a couple of photos.....here's the church:
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