The Second String

I've been very bad this Lent. Not only have I struggled to maintain my self-imposed Lenten food restrictions but I've missed two Sunday Masses in a row. Then, yesterday I went to Mass at the R.C. parish around the corner and took communion.....my last confession? December. :::gasp!::: Oh, well. Fortunately, I'm not Catholic. We Episcopalians take a much more liberal view of such things. What is it they say about the Episcopal Church? It's Catholic Lite—twice the ceremony and half the guilt.

Since I was awake unconscionably early yesterday morning, I went to the 9 o'clock instead of my usual 11 o'clock at St. Stephen's. It was definitely Second String Sunday (is that a purple day or a red day for a feast of martyrs?). The assistant pastor celebrated, the young Vietnamese deacon I can't understand preached, the substitute organist played, and the substitute cantor sang. The 9 o'clock is always a cantor-only Mass, so it's musically non-adventurous. The mass setting was Mass of the Divine Word by Howard Hughes (no, not Leonardo DiCaprio's version) with the Gregorian Pater Noster and Agnus Dei. Hymns were Leoni for the processional, St. Flavian for the offertory, Aurelia for the recessional, and an odd responsorial version of "You satisfy the hungry heart" (does that hymn have a name?) at communion. The congregation never really sings the communion marching song, but I thought they did pretty well with the other three "old standard" hymns, even with timid accompaniment. The wrong antiphon for the psalm got printed in the service leaflet, so the congregation didn't look up the correct one in the hymnal and they just didn't sing, reinforcing my often-stated opinion that the bad Catholic habit of making all the hymns and service music responsorial with the congregation only singing antiphons/choruses and the cantor/choir singing the verses is just a really bad idea cause the congregation won't sing if they don't have the music and words in front of them. Sometimes it can be so hard being a church musician!