Church reports

Ah, I'm just in from church, and I'm nibbling on some delectable slices of roast beef. Before I left this morning, I preheated my oven to 450º, then took half of an eye of round roast and jabbed it liberally with little slivvers of garlic here and there, put it in an open cast iron skillet, popped it into the oven and closed the door quickly, then reduced the oven heat to 325º. When I got home, it was black and crusty on the outside and oh-so-moist and juicy on the inside. Mmmmm.

Today is the transferred Feast of the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, so I thought it would be a fine day to pop in to St. Paul's K Street. The humidity is high today, so even after the short three-block walk to the church, I felt the blast of cold, heavily incensed air as I opened the door to the church. They considered this to be a secondary patronal festival, so they had an introit and procession. It was a lovely service, and not quite as stuffy as this church usually is. Of course, I'm sure my opinion was skewed since they sang one of my very favorite anthems for the offertory, Parry's "I Was Glad When They Said unto Me," and the recessional hymn (Lasst uns erfreuen) is also one of my favorites. The Parry was wonderfully done, and I had shivvers in my neck as they concluded. It helps that they have such a splendid organ in their worship space. The other anthems this morning were "Introibo ad Altare Dei" by Mark Dwyer for the introit and "Locus iste" by Anton Bruckner for communion. The Anglican chant for the psalm was by John E. West and the mass setting was the Communion Service in E (Collegium Regale) by Harold Darke. Additional hymns were Gonfalon Royal and Oriel for the processional, Wolvercote for the sequence, and a new hymn "In our day of thanksgiving" (St. Catherine's Court) on a program insert page that I didn't know for post-communion.

The clergy vestments were gorgeous today. Feasts of apostles and martyrs are "red" days, but most parishes don't have festal vestments for each of the liturgical colors, and make due with generic white and gold stuff, but not here. They had the celebrant in an elaborate red and metallic gold brocade cope with a fancy oversized hood and the deacon and subdeacon in red brocade dalmantics, with an assisting priest in a red cope as well. After the procession, they changed the celebrant's vestment, removing the cope and replacing it with a red and gold fiddleback-shaped chasuble (I haven't seen fiddleback-shaped chasubles in ages!).

I wore a blue and white seersucker suit, yellow bow tie, and white bucks to church, and one man (in a blue blazer, grey flannels, and bow tie) said, "My, don't you look Virginian today!" I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I also saw the cutest couple at church, probably both in their early thirties. The wife was wearing a pale khaki two-piece tailored suit with a damask pattern in the weave and some slightly sparkly stuff in the fabric on her top. She looked very elegant with her dark hair pulled back into a high pony tail showing her long neck and her drop earrings with five graduated pearls each. She wore bone high heels and carried a matching handbag. Her husband was in a blue blazer with khaki trousers the exact shade of her suit, and he wore a vest that appeared to be the same damask pattern as her skirt.

I forgot to write in my blog my previous visit to Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown. Grace is an old 1866-vintage church down by the canals and the river, and it's a tiny, historic building. It's also a small parish, with about 50 people in the congregation when I visited. They were very casual (I was the only one in a tie), and very friendly (unusual for an Episcopal parish!)—perhaps a little annoyingly friendly, however, cause during the passing of the peace, they were wandering around all over the church shaking hands with everybody, not just those in their immediate vicinity. When I left after the service, a greeter practically ran after me to welcome me and thank me for coming, and outside, I tried to slip around the priest shaking hands and chatting with another parishioner, and their youth minister ran after me to say hello and welcome.

There was no choir (off for the summer), so we just had organ accompaniment. The hymns were "Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation" (the Prince of Wales' favorite hymn) for the processional, "They cast their nets in Galilee" for the gradual (tune name Georgetown—how appropriate!!), "Where cross the crowded ways of life" (sung to Gardiner) for the offertory, and "The Church's One Foundation" for the recessional. The only service music was a Trisagion setting (S-102) I don't know and the Schubert Sanctus setting. The rector had a rather annoying habit of announcing all the bulletin page numbers, hymns, and explaining what was going to happen. It's not like they didn't have a full text service bulletin, you know, and I don't think anyone in the congregation looked illiterate or dyslexic or anything.

One of the good things about this parish, though, was that it was full of young families and children, and that's always a good sign of a healthy church. They are getting ready to start a three-week-long Bach Festival the end of the month, so I may wander back to listen to some of their guest groups.