I belong to a parish back in Oklahoma City (well, Nichols Hills, actually, but OKC is just across the street!) that has for decades had a special Independence Day service (transferred to a convenient Sunday, of course) with patriotic hymns and the entire Oklahoma City bagpipe and drum band. Episcopalians love a party, and the Fourth of July is as good an excuse as any. It turns out my church selection for this morning was having a transferred Feast of Independence Day celebration today, as well. I wonder if anyone will actually have church tomorrow morning on the actual day?
It was a busy morning at St. John's Lafayette Square. They were welcoming a new assistant rector (yet another priestess—the majority of the clergy at this parish is, distressingly, female) who was celebrating her first Mass here today. The choir is off for July and August, so they have "summer choir" of volunteers for services that rehearses in the nave for most of the hour prior to the service. They had a substitute organist this morning. And, for the "holiday," they had a fifist and a snare drummer.
The hymns were pretty predictable: "God of Our Fathers" for the processional, "O God Our Help in Ages Past" for the sequence, "America" at the presentation, and "America the Beautiful" for the recessional. The one weird thing was after the communion anthem, there was a some dreadful Taize hymn called "Bless the Lord, My Soul" which was intended as a congregational hymn. The congregation, of course, didn't sing it. Most Episcopalians and Catholics in the pews hate Taize music, no matter how much choir directors try to force the trash on them.
The anthems this morning were the spiritual "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" for communion, which was really just the choir singing a hymn with some simple harmonies by itself, and then for the offertory, they did that tired Wilhousky arrangement of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" that everyone has done for years. This is the first time I've heard it with fife and drum, though, so that at least made it a little more interesting. For the final chorus, the choir director made the whole congregation stand up and sing along, which, of course, the congregation loved, and they actually applauded after the offertory! (For you non-Anglicans, non-Catholics reading this, one does not applaud during Mass!) It was fun, though. I decided to be wild and sang the Amens with the choir at the end, even if people did stare. LOL
I found their choice of service music to be rather unusual. The Gloria was a William Mathias setting from the Episcopal hymnal, the psalm was an unaccompanied plainsong chant that was cantored Catholic-style, and the only thing sung during the eucharistic prayer was the Sanctus, for which they chose a setting from Lift Every Voice and Sing that had some big high Fs in the Benedictus (and I noticed that the congregation wasn't the only group of singers that couldn't hit the Fs!).
Should have worn my seersucker suit to church this morning. I saw at least a half dozen of them today, plus a couple of pincord suits and some seersucker blazers. This parish seems a lot more Southern than others in town. That also was apparent in the "coffee hour" out on the plaza in front of the church after the service, from the Southern iced tea they were serving. There were two huge urns of tea, and both of them were sweetened....one was with lemon and the other without lemon. Actually, I've always thought of Southern tea less as tea with sugar and more as tea-flavored syrup. If one is gonna do the sugar, one might as well do the lemon, too.
I may think about going back and joining their summer choir. I always enjoy their rector's preaching. The downside is all the priestesses in the clergy. Fortunately, the rector and the geriatric male assisting priest all stand back behind the altar during the consecration (not quite a formal con-celebration), so I can at least take communion. The church is only two subway stops away, so it's not too hard to get to. We shall see.
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