Christus Dominus

Today is Christ the King Sunday. Ended up going to St. Stephen's by myself this morning, since everybody was still asleep or nearly so. Church attendance was surprisingly light today. Even when you account for all the GWU students who were probably still gone for Thanksgiving break, I expected a few more in the pews.

It was so nice to hear the choir do a proper offertory anthem for a change! They sang Flor Peeters' "Jubilate Deo," and that took up almost all the necessary time. By the time the anthem was over, the thurifer hadn't quite finished the clergy and congregational incensations, so the organist tried to squeeze in two quick verses of King's Weston, which I thought unfortunate, as it sort of spoiled the splendid mood after the Peeters.

He sort of made a similar mistake with the communion music. They did the Fauré "Cantique de Jean Racine," which would have been a lovely communion motet, but they did a stupid marching music responsorial hymn first (nobody ever sings it), so by the time the hymn was done, communion was over and the priest was starting the ablutions, so, naturally, the Fauré was much, much too long and we had to sit (impatiently) and wait for the choir to finish.

I don't care what some church musicians say about offertory and communion hymns and anthems/motets all being important parts of the "liturgy" and worship experience, the simple fact of the matter is that the music in those positions is merely filler designed to cover "boring" things like collecting the money and preparing the bread and wine, or like giving communion to everybody and then cleaning up the mess. Once the "boring" stuff is done, the choir needs to stop, or it becomes boring, unappreciated, and unwanted in its own right. It's sad when nice things like the Fauré are allowed to get into that unappreciated category. And, right or wrong, parishioners complain when Mass lasts longer than an hour (today was 1.3 hours).

There was another bit of unusual procedure this morning. There is an old tradition observed in some parishes that the Te Deum is sung on Christ the King Sunday. Back when I used to cantor, I used to chant it as a post-communion ablutions anthem. I've also heard it chanted after the final prayer and before the blessing in some parishes. Here, though, we got to the recessional hymn (Nettleton), sang the first verse, then the men of the choir chanted the Te Deum, then we got back to finishing the recessional hymn. That was odd.

The processional hymn today was Diademata, with festive interpolated interludes.

The Mass setting used miscellaneous works by Leo Nestor for the Kyrie and Gloria, then the Memorial Acclamation and Great Amen from his Mass for the Parishes. The Sanctus and Benedictus came from Proulx's A Community Mass and the Agnus Dei came from Isele's Holy Cross Mass.

I actually paid attention to the homily today. Aren't you proud of me? Monsignor was wrapping it up when I remembered I hadn't read the parish newsletter yet, so I had to look at it during the creed. LOL