After running in to the rector at Marshall's Grill the other night, Ryan and I felt obligated to show up for Mass at St. Paul's K Street this morning, and Ryan actually managed to drag himself out of bed early enough to go to the 11:15. I think it was Ryan's first experience with a high church Anglo-Catholic Episcopal service (he's a recovering Baptist) where most everything is chanted by the celebrant, but last time we went to church together in D.C., we went to a Catholic parish, so he was at least prepared....a little.
The choir sang the Communion Service in F by Herbert Sumsion for the Mass setting, an Anglican chant setting by Herbert Howells for the psalm, and Gregorian chants for the gospel alleluia and the various antiphons for the introit, offertory, and communion. The offertory anthem was "Anthem" (Let my complaint come before thee, O Lord) by Adrian Batten (c. 1585-1637) and the communion motet was "Show us your mercy, O Lord" by Peter Hallock (b. 1924). They still have their paid core choir of sixteen voices around for the summer, so everything sounded fine. The basses were particularly prominent today for some reason, though.
The processional hymn was a new thing I didn't know called Coe Fen with the opening lyric "How shall I sing that majesty which angels doth admire?" by Ken Naylor (1931-1991) they included as a program insert. Other hymns were Melcombe for the sequence, O Welt, ich muss dich lassen at communion, and Lyons for the recessional. The organist played "March for a Pageant" by Eric Harding Thiman for the postlude. We didn't make it in in time to hear it, but he also played Thiman's "On an Irish Air—Elgia" for the prelude.
The associate rector was celebrant and preacher this morning, and he spoke on the gospel reading, mostly about delegation of church duties to others and how Jesus was not well received in Nazareth—"familiarity breeds contempt"—and how that represented Jesus' only "failure" reported in the Bible. I'm pleased to report that the associate rector, who's been with us for about a year now, is finally chanting better.
I was completely out of change and one dollar bills this morning, so I got stuck having to put a $5 into the collection plate today. :(
After Mass, I introduced Ryan to the associate rector, since he's a Yalie, and I don't think the Dartmouth and Yale people particularly get along. :::EG:::
After communion, I asked Ryan if he liked eating Catholic Jesus or Protestant Jesus better (Baptists don't have "real" communion, since they don't have real priests), and he liked the Protestant Jesus better because the wine was better. Well, duh....we were at a Whiskeypalian church, what did he expect?
The picture above is Ryan in the chapel after Mass. He says he doesn't like feeling like a tourist (well, "Japanese" was the word he used), but it think it was more because he was feeling self-conscious around all the gay men in the parish. LOL
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