Sunday Mass

The new GWU students are moving in to the dorms this weekend and there were dozens of new freshmen and their parents at Mass at St. Stephen's this morning. I suppose by design, the university chaplain (who's also posted on staff at St. Stephen) was the celebrant for the 11 o'clock, so naturally, given the high percentage of government, public affairs, and international affairs students at GW, he devoted his homily to talking about public responsibility and the role of the "righteous" and the Catholic/Christian public servant. Twas one of his better homilies, since he's wont to be too academic and to wander in his thoughts.

The organ is still broken, so the organist is playing an electronic keyboard. He had it cranked today, though, and his improvisations between hymn verses were quite inspiring and entertaining. Speaking of which, the hymns were Leoni for the processional, Sharpthorne for the offertory, and Rustington for the recessional. They did a responsorial "My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord, my God" during communion. Also during communion, the summer schola (a quartet, including the cantoress) sang "Sing praise to God who reigns above" by Don McAfee as a motet. The Mass setting was a confusing hodgepodge with each element being pulled from a completely different Mass setting.

After communion, some little lady went up and knelt in the middle of the aisle just below the chancel step and stayed there. The departing altar party had to walk around her, and she was still kneeling there when I left the church. I've no idea what she was doing. Catholicism does end up with a lot of odd expressions of faith when they blend the Church with local religions in the Third World.