Even with the unexpected snow falling this morning, there was a full church at St. Stephen Martyr this morning for the 11 o'clock Mass. Everyone sat there with their hair dripping from melting snow that had fallen on them as they walked into the church.
Today also saw the debut of the new "interim chamber organ" that they have installed where the back few pews were on the right side of the church. It's a ten-rank Casavent Frères in the classical French style, built in Québec, Canada. They purchased it from "the music room of a private residence in Exeter, New Hampshire." It's just an orgue du choeur or "positif" that will be the fill-in instrument until they raise an additional three-quarters of a million dollars for the construction and installation of the big Spanish orchestral instrument they've commissioned from Lively-Fulcher.
I thought the organ sounded very pleasant and had a nice tone. The only time I noticed some shortcomings was when the organist was improvising some fill-ins between the verses of the offertory hymn, when the lower notes of a unidentifiable rank (a low reed like maybe a bassoon??) he was wanting to use as a solo stop sounded airy and unsupported; I assume that's an installation issue that will be corrected with the organ technician soon.
Since this is the first Sunday of Lent, the Mass settings changed for the new season. It's an interesting mix with some old, some new. The Confiteor is from the Liturgy of the Assembly of the Faithful based on Russian chant, the Kyrie is the chant Kyrie XI with choral extensions from Michael Haydn's Missa Tempore Quadragesimae, the Gospel acclamation is the Lenten "Praise to you" chant by Richard Proulx, the Exaudi, Christe chant for the intercessions; the Sanctus, Benedictus, Memorial Acclamation, and Great Amen were all from Howard Hughes' Mass of the Divine Word (a dreadful setting that seems more intended for a guitar Mass than a choir with pipe organ), the Agnus Dei came from David Clarke Isele's Holy Cross Mass, and the Non sum dignus is by André Gouzes.
Today's post-communion motet by the choir was "Hearken unto My Cry" by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672). The choir chanted the introit and communion antiphons (don't know if they'll be doing offertory antiphons as they have in the past). Today's responsorial psalm used an antiphon by the parish's organist/choirmaster.
Hymns were Deus tuorum militum ("Now let us all with one accord") for the procession, Heinlein ("Forty days and forty nights") for the offertory, and Detroit ("Forgive our sins as we forgive") for the recessional. They attempted some responsorial song thingy "The hand of the Lord feeds us" as a communion hymn.
The GWU chaplain was celebrant and homilist. His homily was pretty good today, and was actually focused and on point, discussing Lenten fasting and reminding people that the eucharistic fast (not eating an hour before communion) still exists. Father is giving up meat and fish and becoming vegetarian for Lent this year.
People were unusually chatty and friendly after Mass today....must have been the snow that put everybody in a good mood.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Just a little rain
The great winter storm moving across the northeastern part of the country today was only supposed to give us some light rain/freezing rain mix, according to our trusty, reliable weather readers here in the District.
I made my way to church about three blocks away, and here's what the church looked like before Mass:
and then after Mass:
After Mass, facing an impending unforecast blizzard, I wandered across the street to Trader Joe's to pick up groceries and rations to get us through the storm. Here's a view of the church from across the street.
It's a pretty snow. Now that I'm back home and upstairs, I look out and it's really coming down. It's kind of a nice day for the snow, too, since there's little wind and the temperature is fairly warm. We have more snow today than when we had our "heavy snows" forecast earlier this month. Hope it sticks around for a while.
I made my way to church about three blocks away, and here's what the church looked like before Mass:
and then after Mass:
After Mass, facing an impending unforecast blizzard, I wandered across the street to Trader Joe's to pick up groceries and rations to get us through the storm. Here's a view of the church from across the street.
It's a pretty snow. Now that I'm back home and upstairs, I look out and it's really coming down. It's kind of a nice day for the snow, too, since there's little wind and the temperature is fairly warm. We have more snow today than when we had our "heavy snows" forecast earlier this month. Hope it sticks around for a while.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Starting Lent
The crowd was standing room only to hear the ever-popular, handsome, young Monsignor Filardi say Mass and preach at today's noon Ash Wednesday service at St. Stephen Martyr. The eye candy level at church was "highly distracting." Where did all the gorgeous men taller than me come from? Wow! And—and—and, we were privileged to have the Crazy Lady amongst us! Remember last year for Ash Wednesday when I went to hear Cardinal McCarrick say Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral, and there was this crazy African lady there? Well, she showed up today at St. Stephen's (I wonder if the cathedral people banned her?), and made her way up to the very front pew where she scooted everybody down so she could sit on the center aisle end, much to the consternation and mortification of the white dowagers already there. Crazy Lady still carried around her "crown" on the pillow, and had a bunch of candles she set around the area where she was sitting. And, as before, she loudly said all the congregational responses in her own way at her own tempo. It's always nice to have comic relief at these long and sober services.
Even though it was a jammed packed church, there was no choir or organ/keyboard music today. The choirmaster and another chorister cantored the service a capella, sometimes attempting some two-part harmony with varying degrees of success. They tried to lead the Gregorian chant "Have mercy on me Lord" as an opening hymn, but gave up after only one verse. There was no offertory hymn or anthem. While today's service was essentially a low Mass, they did lead a few of the congregational bits from Proulx's A Community Mass. During the imposition of ashes and during communion, they chanted psalms.
Monsignor's homily was blessedly brief and addressed Lenten discipline and private meditations.
The couple sitting beside me had scooted down into my seat, so I left immediately after communion.
Since this is a fast day, I've not yet had to worry about what I'm "giving up" for Lent.
Even though it was a jammed packed church, there was no choir or organ/keyboard music today. The choirmaster and another chorister cantored the service a capella, sometimes attempting some two-part harmony with varying degrees of success. They tried to lead the Gregorian chant "Have mercy on me Lord" as an opening hymn, but gave up after only one verse. There was no offertory hymn or anthem. While today's service was essentially a low Mass, they did lead a few of the congregational bits from Proulx's A Community Mass. During the imposition of ashes and during communion, they chanted psalms.
Monsignor's homily was blessedly brief and addressed Lenten discipline and private meditations.
The couple sitting beside me had scooted down into my seat, so I left immediately after communion.
Since this is a fast day, I've not yet had to worry about what I'm "giving up" for Lent.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
ROFLMAO
Ted Haggard is "Completely Heterosexual"
A minister on the treatment team and oversight board for Ted Haggard told The Denver Post this week that homosexual adulterer Haggard "is completely heterosexual."
Haggard, the flamboyant former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, confidant of the Bush White House, and former leader of Colorado Springs' New Life Church 14,000-member megachurch, was forced out of his jobs last year when the male prostitute he regularly used for both sex and as a source of methamphetamine went public.
The ministerial treatment team is so convinced that Haggard is heterosexual and that his problems were "acting-out" behaviors that "[weren't] a constant thing," that they have recommended that Haggard and his family leave town and they have "strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work."
Sometimes I think I should become an Evangelical. Their communion grape juice must be better than LSD!
A minister on the treatment team and oversight board for Ted Haggard told The Denver Post this week that homosexual adulterer Haggard "is completely heterosexual."
Haggard, the flamboyant former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, confidant of the Bush White House, and former leader of Colorado Springs' New Life Church 14,000-member megachurch, was forced out of his jobs last year when the male prostitute he regularly used for both sex and as a source of methamphetamine went public.
The ministerial treatment team is so convinced that Haggard is heterosexual and that his problems were "acting-out" behaviors that "[weren't] a constant thing," that they have recommended that Haggard and his family leave town and they have "strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work."
Sometimes I think I should become an Evangelical. Their communion grape juice must be better than LSD!
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Church adventures
After the long Candlemas service Friday at St. Paul's, I determined that I should go to church someplace different this morning. I've been bad lately, so I wanted to go someplace with a corporate confession, which ruled out the Catholic parishes. Robert emailed and wanted to go to church before his luncheon engagement in Ballston, so, I decided we should meet at the Church of the Epiphany, which is right by the Metro Center subway stop downtown.
What a beautiful little downtown church!
Epiphany dates back to the 1840s and was one of the main Union soldier hospitals during the Civil War. They are blessed with some absolutely beautiful old, traditional, stained glass windows and there's a precious wrought iron rood screen dividing the chancel from the nave. The pews are divided down the center of each bank, and the old pew numbers are still visibly painted on the ends of the pews.
In the 1980s, though, they seem to have had some unfortunate architectural revisions to the worship space that brought the altar out to the crossing and surrounded it on three sides with an altar rail. The former chancel and sanctuary now is largely filled with the organ and organ pipes; their beautiful white marble high altar and reredos has been pulled forward in front of the pipe chests and serves largely as a decorative backdrop these days. The balcony in the back of the nave is so large and deep, I wonder if that used to be the choir loft. There was something through a door to the right of the altar space—a bathroom, perhaps?—that attracted a lot of traffic during the course of the service, but the room design required people to walk all the way up the center aisle to the front of the nave and then cross over. As they did that, I kept thinking that they were going to have some kind of role in the service. It was highly distracting.
As is often the case with inner city parishes, Epiphany is challenged by their ministry to the homeless and the street people of downtown Washington. We saw them on the sidewalk, in the narthex, and quite a number of them scattered about the nave, some sleeping, some talking to themselves, some sitting patiently. Probably about a quarter of the congregation today (including the street people) were African-American; the rest were Anglo. I also noticed it was an older parish, with only three seemingly single mothers there with small children (all white); all the acolytes and choristers were adults.
It was this mix of people that was observing "Black Heritage Month" in February. They were using a different, modern liturgy that they usually use early on Sunday morning with their street person feeding ministry with that experimental language that tries to use "God" or "Christ" instead of masculine pronouns.
The mass setting was all black/gospel sounding stuff, and the service leaflet wasn't clear as to whether or not it was a formal mass setting or just a motley collection of things. The Gloria was replaced by a "song of praise" called "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases," by Carl Haywood (b. 1949), written in the African-American style. I'm not sure if Haywood is responsible for the rest of the music. They sang the Sanctus to similarly styled music. For the Memorial Acclamation, they sang "Jesus Christ has died" to the tune of "We Shall Overcome" that I found oddly inappropriate.
I always find it really strange when white people try to sing/play African-American music in their attempts to prove their inclusiveness. There's all of one African-American in the choir and the organist-choirmaster is a young white man.
Hymns today were Nettleton ("Come, thou fount of every blessing") for the processional, Dillow ("Put down your nets and follow me") for the sequence, New Britain ("Amazing grace") after communion, and Vineyard Haven ("Rejoice, ye pure in heart") for the recessional. A simplified Anglican chant by Robert Knox Kennedy was used for the psalm.
The choir sang "O for a closer walk with God" arranged by Charles Villiers Stanford for the offertory and "Jesus lead the way" by Richard Proulx based on Seelenbräutigam for the communion motet. The choir was only about a dozen, but they sounded fine save for some occasional excess soprano vibrato. The acoustic of the remodeled space, however, is not at all kind to unamplified choral music.
Today we endured a guest preacher from Seattle who found it necessary to give a rambling and unfocused sermon that lasted at least half an hour. Now, that may be normal for many of you non-liturgical Protestants, but in the Episcopal church, the "standard" is for a sermon to be about twelve minutes long. This was excessive. In fact, I was very tempted to going up to the priest after the service and telling him I noticed he didn't have a watch, so I thought I would give him mine. I would have, too, but Robert was being too ebullient and chatty with the clergy on our way out, so it didn't work out for me.
The celebrant today was a large priestess. She looked ethnic, but I couldn't quite place her....was she Maori? Polynesian? Mixed-blood African? What? Even though there were two priests present, they didn't concelebrate and they looked rather bored and inattentive during the consecration, so I wasn't going to take communion, but my curiosity got the better of me. They had this odd communion bread that looked like thick piece of lavosh, but during the Fraction, there was no crisp breaking sound. So, I went ahead and went up. It turned out to be some kind of tough, chewy bread that reminded me a lot of cold Indian fry bread.
I wasn't really excited about their seating plan for the altar party. The choir was seated in the congregational chairs in the south transept facing the side of the altar, and the clergy and acolytes sat in the pews at the very front of the nave. Finally, during the offertory, they all went up to take places behind the altar, but meanwhile, it felt quite awkward.
This is one of those huggy-kissy parishes during the passing of the Peace. Once they greeted their immediate neighbors, instead of sitting down, they emptied out of their pews and wandered around talking to everybody. They also had the annoying tradition during the prayers of the people of encouraging and pushing members of the congregation to add their own prayers and petitions out loud, and that quickly got old.
Robert wrote an interesting account of this morning's service in his blog. You should go look at Robert's blog to hear his diatribe about having to drink from the common chalice, sharing it with those street people, and a little poll he created for people to express their opinions on drinking with the indigent.
I don't know if I'll go back to Epiphany or not. If I do, it will be after they complete their Black Heritage Month observances so I can try to see their "normal" worship.
What a beautiful little downtown church!
Epiphany dates back to the 1840s and was one of the main Union soldier hospitals during the Civil War. They are blessed with some absolutely beautiful old, traditional, stained glass windows and there's a precious wrought iron rood screen dividing the chancel from the nave. The pews are divided down the center of each bank, and the old pew numbers are still visibly painted on the ends of the pews.
In the 1980s, though, they seem to have had some unfortunate architectural revisions to the worship space that brought the altar out to the crossing and surrounded it on three sides with an altar rail. The former chancel and sanctuary now is largely filled with the organ and organ pipes; their beautiful white marble high altar and reredos has been pulled forward in front of the pipe chests and serves largely as a decorative backdrop these days. The balcony in the back of the nave is so large and deep, I wonder if that used to be the choir loft. There was something through a door to the right of the altar space—a bathroom, perhaps?—that attracted a lot of traffic during the course of the service, but the room design required people to walk all the way up the center aisle to the front of the nave and then cross over. As they did that, I kept thinking that they were going to have some kind of role in the service. It was highly distracting.
As is often the case with inner city parishes, Epiphany is challenged by their ministry to the homeless and the street people of downtown Washington. We saw them on the sidewalk, in the narthex, and quite a number of them scattered about the nave, some sleeping, some talking to themselves, some sitting patiently. Probably about a quarter of the congregation today (including the street people) were African-American; the rest were Anglo. I also noticed it was an older parish, with only three seemingly single mothers there with small children (all white); all the acolytes and choristers were adults.
It was this mix of people that was observing "Black Heritage Month" in February. They were using a different, modern liturgy that they usually use early on Sunday morning with their street person feeding ministry with that experimental language that tries to use "God" or "Christ" instead of masculine pronouns.
The mass setting was all black/gospel sounding stuff, and the service leaflet wasn't clear as to whether or not it was a formal mass setting or just a motley collection of things. The Gloria was replaced by a "song of praise" called "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases," by Carl Haywood (b. 1949), written in the African-American style. I'm not sure if Haywood is responsible for the rest of the music. They sang the Sanctus to similarly styled music. For the Memorial Acclamation, they sang "Jesus Christ has died" to the tune of "We Shall Overcome" that I found oddly inappropriate.
I always find it really strange when white people try to sing/play African-American music in their attempts to prove their inclusiveness. There's all of one African-American in the choir and the organist-choirmaster is a young white man.
Hymns today were Nettleton ("Come, thou fount of every blessing") for the processional, Dillow ("Put down your nets and follow me") for the sequence, New Britain ("Amazing grace") after communion, and Vineyard Haven ("Rejoice, ye pure in heart") for the recessional. A simplified Anglican chant by Robert Knox Kennedy was used for the psalm.
The choir sang "O for a closer walk with God" arranged by Charles Villiers Stanford for the offertory and "Jesus lead the way" by Richard Proulx based on Seelenbräutigam for the communion motet. The choir was only about a dozen, but they sounded fine save for some occasional excess soprano vibrato. The acoustic of the remodeled space, however, is not at all kind to unamplified choral music.
Today we endured a guest preacher from Seattle who found it necessary to give a rambling and unfocused sermon that lasted at least half an hour. Now, that may be normal for many of you non-liturgical Protestants, but in the Episcopal church, the "standard" is for a sermon to be about twelve minutes long. This was excessive. In fact, I was very tempted to going up to the priest after the service and telling him I noticed he didn't have a watch, so I thought I would give him mine. I would have, too, but Robert was being too ebullient and chatty with the clergy on our way out, so it didn't work out for me.
The celebrant today was a large priestess. She looked ethnic, but I couldn't quite place her....was she Maori? Polynesian? Mixed-blood African? What? Even though there were two priests present, they didn't concelebrate and they looked rather bored and inattentive during the consecration, so I wasn't going to take communion, but my curiosity got the better of me. They had this odd communion bread that looked like thick piece of lavosh, but during the Fraction, there was no crisp breaking sound. So, I went ahead and went up. It turned out to be some kind of tough, chewy bread that reminded me a lot of cold Indian fry bread.
I wasn't really excited about their seating plan for the altar party. The choir was seated in the congregational chairs in the south transept facing the side of the altar, and the clergy and acolytes sat in the pews at the very front of the nave. Finally, during the offertory, they all went up to take places behind the altar, but meanwhile, it felt quite awkward.
This is one of those huggy-kissy parishes during the passing of the Peace. Once they greeted their immediate neighbors, instead of sitting down, they emptied out of their pews and wandered around talking to everybody. They also had the annoying tradition during the prayers of the people of encouraging and pushing members of the congregation to add their own prayers and petitions out loud, and that quickly got old.
Robert wrote an interesting account of this morning's service in his blog. You should go look at Robert's blog to hear his diatribe about having to drink from the common chalice, sharing it with those street people, and a little poll he created for people to express their opinions on drinking with the indigent.
I don't know if I'll go back to Epiphany or not. If I do, it will be after they complete their Black Heritage Month observances so I can try to see their "normal" worship.
Second performance
Many, many years ago, I went to a national Boy Scout jamboree, where I met a guy from Scotland. We kind of hit it off a bit and had some minor continuing communications over the years. Then, about a decade later when I was up at Oxford, I reconnected with him. Quite unexpectedly since the jamboree, his father, a third son, had acceded to the title of Earl of Lothian (and today my friend, a second son, is now the earl). So, several times, he made me hop on the train and go to to Edinburgh to come visit him and stay at their country manor. His Lordship, being ever the prankster, knew that there were few things in the world I hated more than bagpipe "music," so he arranged that every morning, to wake me up, one of his servants would stand outside my bedroom window playing the bagpipes.
Now, my opinions of the bagpipes have changed little over the years, so you can imagine my chagrin to arrive at the funeral I was playing yesterday to find myself sharing the musical billing with, you guessed it, a bagpiper. The bagpiper in question was actually quite good, from the technical performance stand point and knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, he decided to start piping in the church about half an hour before the service was to start, and with the reverberation of the space, it was making my head throb! Those things have no volume control on them!
Fortunately, we had a brief respite from the cacaphony of the pipes. But, alas, the family had asked him to pipe "Amazing Grace" in the midst of the service, which he obligingly did. And did he do it! I believe he went through every verse of the hymn plus a full verse of introduction and then a full verse reprise at the end!
He was supposed to have played the entire prelude, but he stopped about five minutes beforehand. So, after waiting a bit and determining that he wasn't just taking a brief breather, I grabbed some music to play on the piano, landing upon the middle movement "Andante" of Bach's Concerto in the Italian Style, BMV 971. At the end of the service, I was planning to play the first movement of the concerto for a postlude, but then I saw the piper come back into the nave, and he played and played and played a postlude.....thankfully, we got to leave before he was done!
But, otherwise, I survived the service. This was actually the "second performance" of the funeral for my friend Kevin's grandmother, who I thought we had buried last weekend. Last week we were at the nursing home, and yesterday we were at his aunt's Episcopal church just a few miles away; I've no idea why they had two services in the same neighborhood. I gathered, though, that last week was Kevin's father's service and yesterday was Kevin's aunt's service. Whatever works for the family. They were both at both services and looked civil with one another, so I'm happy they worked out whatever issues they had about the services; I recall in past years seeing some families actually going to court before the funeral to determine who gets to make the funeral and burial arrangements, so it's good this was settled peaceably.
Since we were in a sacred space with a more liturgical service, I wore "choir dress": black cassock, white surplice, and academic hood. I also played altar boy and tended to lighting and later extinguishing the candles, attracting odd looks from the Presbyterians when I genuflected before and after entering the sanctuary space. The MCC minister also vested, wearing an alb and a white stole.
This service was very similar to the one at the nursing home, with me having to play the same two hideous hymns. Kevin's aunt made one addition, though, and added a new third hymn I'd never heard of called "Bye and Bye." I was a little stressed, since I didn't have music for this thing, and I hate having to sightread in front of a congregation! But, they assured me it was in the hymnal at the church. Well, that sounded kind of suspicious to me, since there is no such hymn in the Episcopal hymnal—The Hymnal 1984, that is. It turns out that this parish, which just happens to be located in lily-whitest northwest Washington, actually has Lift Every Voice and Sing II—the African-American hymnal—in the pews. "Bye and Bye" is a traditional Negro spiritual that wasn't hard at all to play. So, we did it. And, you know what? She picked the wrong hymn! LOL! Apparently, she'd wanted some hymn called "Sweet By and By," but she didn't look at the words to this one or listen to the music ahead of time.
The funeral was held at St. Columba's Episcopal Church in the Tenleytown neighborhood. I'd never been there before. It's an older church that's had additions made to it over the years for office and classroom space. And, at some point, they did some very unfortunate architectural modifications to the church itself, pulling the altar and choir out of their proper positions and installing a crossing altar on a wood platform. The organ (an interesting-looking 28-rank tracker) and choir are now in the north transept, the Steinway C I played (and a harpsichord) is in the south transept with overflow seating, and the former chancel and sanctuary are now a bare chapel open to the nave. Alas. Some of those church architectural revisionists need to be drawn and quartered for ruining what was once a very nice liturgical space.
Now, my opinions of the bagpipes have changed little over the years, so you can imagine my chagrin to arrive at the funeral I was playing yesterday to find myself sharing the musical billing with, you guessed it, a bagpiper. The bagpiper in question was actually quite good, from the technical performance stand point and knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, he decided to start piping in the church about half an hour before the service was to start, and with the reverberation of the space, it was making my head throb! Those things have no volume control on them!
Fortunately, we had a brief respite from the cacaphony of the pipes. But, alas, the family had asked him to pipe "Amazing Grace" in the midst of the service, which he obligingly did. And did he do it! I believe he went through every verse of the hymn plus a full verse of introduction and then a full verse reprise at the end!
He was supposed to have played the entire prelude, but he stopped about five minutes beforehand. So, after waiting a bit and determining that he wasn't just taking a brief breather, I grabbed some music to play on the piano, landing upon the middle movement "Andante" of Bach's Concerto in the Italian Style, BMV 971. At the end of the service, I was planning to play the first movement of the concerto for a postlude, but then I saw the piper come back into the nave, and he played and played and played a postlude.....thankfully, we got to leave before he was done!
But, otherwise, I survived the service. This was actually the "second performance" of the funeral for my friend Kevin's grandmother, who I thought we had buried last weekend. Last week we were at the nursing home, and yesterday we were at his aunt's Episcopal church just a few miles away; I've no idea why they had two services in the same neighborhood. I gathered, though, that last week was Kevin's father's service and yesterday was Kevin's aunt's service. Whatever works for the family. They were both at both services and looked civil with one another, so I'm happy they worked out whatever issues they had about the services; I recall in past years seeing some families actually going to court before the funeral to determine who gets to make the funeral and burial arrangements, so it's good this was settled peaceably.
Since we were in a sacred space with a more liturgical service, I wore "choir dress": black cassock, white surplice, and academic hood. I also played altar boy and tended to lighting and later extinguishing the candles, attracting odd looks from the Presbyterians when I genuflected before and after entering the sanctuary space. The MCC minister also vested, wearing an alb and a white stole.
This service was very similar to the one at the nursing home, with me having to play the same two hideous hymns. Kevin's aunt made one addition, though, and added a new third hymn I'd never heard of called "Bye and Bye." I was a little stressed, since I didn't have music for this thing, and I hate having to sightread in front of a congregation! But, they assured me it was in the hymnal at the church. Well, that sounded kind of suspicious to me, since there is no such hymn in the Episcopal hymnal—The Hymnal 1984, that is. It turns out that this parish, which just happens to be located in lily-whitest northwest Washington, actually has Lift Every Voice and Sing II—the African-American hymnal—in the pews. "Bye and Bye" is a traditional Negro spiritual that wasn't hard at all to play. So, we did it. And, you know what? She picked the wrong hymn! LOL! Apparently, she'd wanted some hymn called "Sweet By and By," but she didn't look at the words to this one or listen to the music ahead of time.
The funeral was held at St. Columba's Episcopal Church in the Tenleytown neighborhood. I'd never been there before. It's an older church that's had additions made to it over the years for office and classroom space. And, at some point, they did some very unfortunate architectural modifications to the church itself, pulling the altar and choir out of their proper positions and installing a crossing altar on a wood platform. The organ (an interesting-looking 28-rank tracker) and choir are now in the north transept, the Steinway C I played (and a harpsichord) is in the south transept with overflow seating, and the former chancel and sanctuary are now a bare chapel open to the nave. Alas. Some of those church architectural revisionists need to be drawn and quartered for ruining what was once a very nice liturgical space.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Candlemas at St. Paul's
Well, I came home from church tonight a little tipsy, but I'm going to try to recall the service for you anyway.
It was long! It lasted 2.25 hours! I expected on the low side of 1.5 to 2 hours....the bishop who was principal celebrant and preacher talked unusually long so that's probably what bumped up the time.
Tonight they had the Blessing of Candles, Procession of Lights, and Solemn Pontifical Mass for Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. Principal celebrant was the Rt. Rev'd E. Don Taylor, Bishop Vicar of New York and the former Bishop of the Virgin Islands.
The St. Paul's orchestra played tonight, so it and the combined choirs were set up in the narthex. The orchestral Mass setting tonight was Mozart's Mass in C Major "Orgelsolo," K. 259. It was a nice Mass since Mozart got down to business and went straight through the text without a lot of repetition. Soloists were Rebecca Littig, soprano; Naomi Pomerantz, mezzo-soprano; Gerald Stacy, tenor; and William Heim, baritone.
During the blessing of the candles, the choir did an introit antiphon, a Nunc dimittis sung to Mode VIII, and Charles Wood's "Hail, Gladdening Light." The video clip above is the Wood. The offertory was "Senex puerum portabat" by Tomás Luis de Victoria. During the Solemn Procession, the choir and congregation sang four hymns, Edmonton (O Zion, open wide thy gates), Iste Confessor (That which the Prophet's reverend assembly), Regent Square (In his Temple now behold him), and Old 120th (Hail to the Lord who comes). Other hymns tonight included Pleading Savior (Sing of Mary, pure and lowly) for the post-communion ablutions and all eight verses of Daily, daily (Ye who own the faith of Jesus) for the recessional. The Anglican chant for the Psalm was by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry.
The organ prelude was Fugue et Choral by Arthur Honegger and the postlude was Movement VI. Final from Symphonie I, Op. 14 by Louis Vierne.
His Grace the Bishop, aside from talking two or three times longer than he should have, was a very engaging speaker. He made a lot of observations about modern society and behavior and our crises of faith. He talked about how the biggest issues and questions he gets deal with how people in modern American society suffer from great loneliness and constantly question their faith and the existence of God. He spoke about how God does things in His own time, and then he managed to tie together his talk with the theme of Candlemas, that being how Jesus was presented in the temple and to the world and became the Light.
After Mass, they had a little reception up in the parish hall. It was a little different than usual. In past receptions there has been a huge variety of foods and part of the fun was traveling around from table to table looking for the various unique treats and goodies. Tonight, though, it was very standardized, with each table having a liver paté, cornichons, a cream cheese-based dip, firm and soft cheeses, red grapes, and slices of stollen-like cake. And, of course, at the far end of the hall, they had lots and lots of wine.
I ended up running in to John Bohl, organist at Old St. Paul's Baltimore, and Brian Harlow, organist at St. Paul's Morristown, N.J., (it was a Pauline night at St. Paul's!) both of whom were there to hear the service. We had a long chat, and it was nearly ten before we left the church. Here's a pic of the two of them:
Candlemas
This is Candlemas Day! This is the church feast day when candles for the church traditionally are blessed for the year. Some people think of today as the Solemnity of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary while others call it the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. Either way, it's Candlemas, and it's time for a party! At 6:30 tonight, they are having a Blessing of the Candles, Procession, and Solemn Pontifical Mass at St. Paul's K Street, plus a "reception" (read "light supper of heavy hors d'oeuvres with lots of wine") following in the parish hall, so I'll be popping in over there.
Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Blaize, the patron saint of throats. This is an important day for singers and speakers! The priests will lay their hands upon and bless the throats of any who care to go up for the ritual. I'm not sure how I'll work out my schedule on the morrow.....I have some other engagements that conflict with the service at St. Stephen, and I don't know that I want to go to St. Matthew's Cathedral, since the archbishop is also going to be dedicating a statue in the cathedral of the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (formerly known as Mother Teresa) and then leading the Rosary and Benediction after Mass, which translates into LONG SERVICE.
Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Blaize, the patron saint of throats. This is an important day for singers and speakers! The priests will lay their hands upon and bless the throats of any who care to go up for the ritual. I'm not sure how I'll work out my schedule on the morrow.....I have some other engagements that conflict with the service at St. Stephen, and I don't know that I want to go to St. Matthew's Cathedral, since the archbishop is also going to be dedicating a statue in the cathedral of the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (formerly known as Mother Teresa) and then leading the Rosary and Benediction after Mass, which translates into LONG SERVICE.