Warm Easter services

It was twenty-three degrees at sunrise yesterday morning. I'm glad my church doesn't ever try to do outdoor Easter morning sunrise services!

This is Saint Luke's, the parish where I grew up and was once a chorister and an altar boy. The font and pascal candle are not normally in the middle of the crossing—that's just an Easter thing. I went with my parents to Easter Mass there yesterday, and saw lots and lots of people I've known since childhood.



On the left is the chapel. On the right is the organ. It's an Allen; I've played it; I can't remember the specifications.

About six or seven years ago, I used to work with the priest to try to teach him to chant, since we were doing an Evensong series during Advent. It used to be quite challenging for him. I'm happy to report, though, that yesterday at Mass he chanted during the sursum corda and the prayer of consecration and it actually sounded really good for a priest!

Here's a picture of the acolytes and choir assembling in the narthex for the processional. I was a bit surprised that they were using that crucifix. The crucifix and torches (a/k/a candles) were a memorial to my grandmother, who was buried from this parish, oh, probably twenty years ago. I never really liked the crucifix—it's a Christus Rex on a shiny brass cross—but then, I wasn't consulted, since the family left the choices up to a previous priest.

Hymns for the day were Unser Herrscher (He is risen) for the processional, O filii et filiae (O sons and daughters let us sing) and Alleluia No. 1 during communion, and Easter Hymn (Jesus Christ is risen today) for the recessional (do you know how hard it is for me to sing hymns with big, high Es and not stick out in a congregation?). They also sang an uncredited song that was printed in the service bulletin with an alleluia refrain and a repeated "I am the resurrection, I am the life, all who believe in me shall live" verse a la Taize music....it's possible that it's a composition of the organist/choirmistress. Service music included the William Mathias Gloria and Sanctus and Gerald Near's Christ Our Passover. Interestingly, they monotoned the Nicene Creed, but didn't sing the Lord's Prayer.

The choir sang "Easter Fanfare" by Paul Fetler as the sequence anthem. The offertory anthem was "The Day of Resurrection" by Thomas Matthews. I used to sing this anthem for the late Dr. Matthews, who was organist/choirmaster at Trinity Church in downtown Tulsa for over thirty years. He designed their eighty-some rank, four manual Moller organ, including a brilliant and loud trompette fanfare en chamade over the balcony (click the "Music" tab on the Trinity Web page if you want to see the organ specs). When he wrote "The Day of Resurrection," he used it as a vehicle to show off the Trinity organ, especially the trumpets. This was the first time I'd ever heard this anthem sung by another choir or in a church other than Trinity....and, needless to say, the little Allen electronic organ at St. Luke's was no comparison to the grand instrument at Trinity with those soaring trumpets.

The celebrant processed in cope, but he forgot to put on his chasuble during the offertory and ended up wearing only alb and stole (and no maniple, either, Mattie!). The deacon was similarly clad in alb and stole with no dalmatic.

They did bells and smells, too, but since it's only a "special occcasion" thing there, the altar boys weren't as skilled and flamboyant with the thurible as I used to be when I was an altar boy there. I always liked to do "round the worlds" and I would pre-smoke the sanctuary so I'd get better clouds of smoke hanging in the air around the altar.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter.