St. Paul's K Street did their annual Procession and Solemn Pontifical Mass tonight in observance of the Feast of the Epiphany. They got to be pontifical tonight because they pulled in the retired bishop of Chicago, the Right Reverend James Winchester Montgomery, as principal celebrant. It was another full church tonight, and, as usual, they do a good show at St. Paul's.
St. Paul's was the first Episcopal church I visited after moving to the District a little over a year ago, and, interestingly enough, it was for their Epiphany service. I was kind of amused to review my post from last year and my comment wondering if I went back to this parish if anybody would talk to me. Well, I've gone to services at St. Paul's at least once a month for the past year, and all of two people have talked to me, and I think both of them were visitors. And tonight? Just the priests on the way out the door.
The mass setting tonight was Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, sung a capella, a rather ambitious work after all the Christmastide music. It was fine, though there were a couple of noticable (to me at least) rough spots where the men were a bit tentative. The offertory anthem was the Coventry Carol, though not with the standard melody we usually hear for Christmas; they sang a 20th century composition by Kenneth Leighton, which included a soprano solo (I think) that was uncredited in the program. The choir also sang an unannounced communion anthem which was a Palestrinaesque work that sounded like another Agnus Dei. They did the psalm to an Anglican chant by Edwin George Monk, and did plainsong antiphons for the introit, Gospel, offertory, and communion.
Hymns tonight were Puer Nobis, Stuttgart, and Three Kings of Orient all for the formal procession, Dix for the sequence, Was lebet, was schwebet during the post-communion ablutions, and Morning Star for the recessional. The organist played La Nativité by Jean Langlais for the prelude and "Paean on 'Divinum mysterium'" by John Cook for the postlude. As usual at St. Paul's, the Lord's Prayer, Nicene Creed, and Prayers of the People were sung.
They imported a Londoner, Fr. Timothy Pike, vicar of Holy Innocents in Crouch End, to preach tonight. He's a younger priest and a surprisingly good preacher for a Brit. He talked about the new The Chronicles of Narnia movie and about new babies in the family completely changing a family's lifestyle. I rather imagine that he rehashed his Christmas sermon from his London parish, but it was new material to us, so I suppose that's okay.
This parish has a couple of bad habits. During the offertory anthem, they incense the altar, the eucharistic ministers, the choir, and the congregation, which is all well and good, but they do it during the anthem! In fact, when they cense the congregation, everyone has to stand, and that is so incredibly distracting for those of us who want to hear the choir! Were I the organist/choirmaster, I'd pitch a fit. The other bad habit they have here is their mariolatry. They have a shrine to the Virgin Mary (who they call Our Lady of Walsingham, after a similar Marian shrine in Walsingham, England) at a small altar on the front side of the nave. While there's certainly nothing wrong with that, when the parishioners are coming and going to communion, they make a big show of huge reverences to the shrine. Now, Anglicans unlike Catholics are not supposed to be Mary worshippers in the first place, but the bigger problem is reverencing that shrine during communion while Jesus is up there on the altar. This parish claims to be Anglo-Catholic, which means they should believe in the Real Presence (the Anglican equivalent of transsubstantiation) which means they should believe that the communion bread and wine doesn't just memorialize or represent Jesus's Body and Blood, but that it is His Body and Blood. I don't care how deeply they genuflect to their Mary idol outside of Mass, but during Mass and especially during communion they should not be doing that.
I usually have my camera with me when I wonder around town, but I didn't have it with me tonight. Alas, it would have been fun to have photographed the church for you to see their decorations. When one walked into the church tonight, there was a strong scent of cedar and evergreens with that slightly sour edge. Long garlands were strung from the ceililng beams to the pillars in the nave and there were garlands on the organ pipe boxes. The tops of the pillars also had greenery arrangements, as did the ends of the choir pews and the pulpit (big one there). I've always thought that this parish must have a florist on staff, or else they have a huge floral budget. The arrangements were stunning, featuring whole fresh pineapples, whole fresh pomegranites, and magnolia leaves. Two huge sprays hung on the east wall of the sanctuary flanking the altar, and they had the fruit plus lots of flamboyant "rays" of gold-painted grapevine. The high altar was heavily decorated with greenery and a profusion of deep red and pure white roses. A few evergreen wreaths with red and white roses were in the chancel. In the nave, every few pews had poles on the outside aisles topped with three white candles on a base of pine branches with gold-painted pine cones.
Should anyone be interested, the men and boys choir will be singing Epiphany lessons and carols in lieu of Evensong on Sunday evening at six.
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