Monday, August 25, 2008
Ideas for contemporary Catholic services
My friend Linda, a retired organist, found this clip for me on YouTube. If they did this sort of music at Mass at "contemporary Catholic music" parishes, I might actually like it! Of course, this particular piece was written by a Lutheran, but at least it gets at the spirit of what we need. LOL. Do listen for at least 30 seconds.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Are this summer's movies anti-Catholic?
This month I actually got twice to the movie theaters to see new releases, in fact, the first and only movies I've seen in 2008. The lucky productions getting my theater going dollars were The X Files: I Want to Believe and Brideshead Revisited. It just so happens that I am intimately acquainted with the stories behind both of these movie plots, so I can see more in the scripts than many people.
In retrospect, what particularly struck me was the viciously nasty anti-Catholic tone of both movies.
It seems an eternity since The X Files was on television every Sunday night. I watched it religiously, even in its very first season. As the characters developed over the years, we knew that Agent Mulder was an agnostic Protestant and Agent Scully was a devout Catholic. Then we get to this movie, where we find neither as agents anymore, with Mulder in hiding and Scully working as a physician in a Catholic charity hospital. The movie, much like the shows, had two simultaneous plots, both dealing with the Catholic Church.
The major plotline for the movie involves the kidnapping of an FBI agent and what turns out to be a series of murders. A defrocked pedophile Catholic priest claims to have visions regarding the investigation, and appears quite unsympathetically throughout the movie. Dialogue from multiple characters snipes not only at the former priest but also at the Church (are we tired of pedophile priest jokes yet?), and Scully is particularly disrespectful. The secondary plot line involves a child patient of Scully's with some rare, most likely fatal disease, with no known cure. The hospital's administration, led by a particularly sour priest, wants to shuffle the boy off to a hospice-type facility for palliative care, but Scully somehow chooses to defy them and treat the boy with some highly experimental stem cell therapy (stem cell therapy, since it deals with cells from unborn fetuses, is vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church). There are a lot of unlikely scenarios in the plot and it just doesn't quite work when viewed as a free-standing work apart from the culture and tradition of the series.
Then we get to Brideshead Revisited, based on the 1944 novel by former popular British writer Evelyn Waugh. This happens to be one of the very very few novels I've ever read twice, I have seen multiple times the faithful 1981 BBC/Granada six-episode, twelve-hour mini-series, and I worked with many of my students to analyze the work in their papers on early 20th century British novelists. So, being so familiar with the twelve-hour treatment of the novel, I found myself spinning trying to keep up with the instant two-hour long movie. The screenplay writers took so many liberties with the story line, I took the novel with me to brunch today to reread it so I could refresh my memory.
In the "new" version, the entire story has been rewritten to focus on the Catholic faith of the family, giving it sinister and evil overtones, and having it ruin the lives and happiness of its adherents. Meanwhile, Teresa Marchmain (played by Emma Thompson) has become a vindictive and overbearing matriarch in the name of Catholicity, which is totally different from her character in the novel, and the narrator of the story, Charles Ryder, has become a staunch atheist who actively works against the family's Catholic superstitions and practices, again contrary to his novel character (in the novel, there's even a line where someone refers to him as an atheist, and he corrects them, saying he's agnostic, plus, he would have been way too polite to have acted in such ways).
So, what's the deal with all the negative treatment of the Church?
Anyway, let me give a brief analysis of the movies.
The X Files was both satisfying and disappointing. It was little more than a two-part TV episode, and an episode with a weak plot line, at that. Because of the length of time since the television show was in original release, the writers seemed compelled to use a whole lot of expository dialogue to explain the backstory, some of which was rather annoying (like when Skinner made his first appearance on screen, Scully says, "It's Assistant Director of the FBI Walter Skinner!" as if Mulder didn't know who he was). The writing was poor and plot elements weren't connected. The overall series story arc really isn't going in a good direction. The editing felt choppy (and as if much of the important plot development was left on the cutting room floor). The cinematography at times lacked focus while at other times it moved in a way that gave me a headache. The musical score was pretty hideous. But, at the same time, it was The X Files and Mulder and Scully were back together again. With a better storyline and writing staff, I'd be willing to go see another movie. Recommendation? If you're an X Files fan, go see it, you'll enjoy it well enough. If you're not already an established fan, it's okay, and it's certainly better than a lot of the trash movies out this summer.
Meanwhile, Brideshead is a beautiful movie, reminiscent of the Merchant-Ivory type movies. I've heard Emma Thompson has gotten some supporting actress Oscar buzz.
In the past, my alma mater Oxford University (where much of the novel is set) did not allow film crews at the university, so "Oxbridge"-type movies set at Oxford (Chariots of Fire, Oxford Blues, the Brideshead mini-series, et al.) were actually filmed at rival newcomer Cambridge University. I was very pleased to see this movie was actually filmed on location in Oxford, as it brought back many memories. I also thought it highly interesting that they chose to go to Castle Howard as the location site for the scenes of the fictional "Brideshead Castle," the same location where they shot the mini-series. Consequently, all the sets (as well as costumes) were beautiful.
Naturally, adapting a full-length novel to a modern two-hour movie time frame requires a lot of cutting and rearrangement. I realize this. This version, though, I found to take a few too many liberties not only with the plot but with the characters. I've mentioned Lady Marchmain; Rex Mottram's character was so changed, his now-minor character was a particularly nasty cad and opportunist; Anthony Blanche has become a cameo role with biting lines not in the novel.
Casting was also a bit of a problem. The novel spans twenty years, from the time Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) and Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) meet as 19-year-old undergraduates at Oxford, to a point about ten or twelve years after that for Charles and Julia's affair, to Charles' time as a 39-year-old Army officer in World War II. The movie appears to have shortened the intervals so the actors ultimately end up playing their real-life ages. Because of how so much of the story was truncated and compressed, more than half of the movie is devoted to the time when Charles and Sebastian are 19, yet the actors were much too old to convincingly play teenagers, with Goode at 30 and Whishaw at 28. I think I would have found younger actors, especially since—Goode's intensely clear and bright blue eyes notwithstanding—neither of these actors gave particularly memorable performances.
I've been looking for an intelligent, literary person who's never read this novel or seen the mini-series so I can have him or her watch this movie and then tell me how it works for them. If this description fits any of you, go see it and then write a comment. Meanwhile, for Waugh or Brideshead fans, you'll want to go see this movie just because it's Waugh and Oxford and Castle Howard and your unrepentant anglophilia.
In retrospect, what particularly struck me was the viciously nasty anti-Catholic tone of both movies.
It seems an eternity since The X Files was on television every Sunday night. I watched it religiously, even in its very first season. As the characters developed over the years, we knew that Agent Mulder was an agnostic Protestant and Agent Scully was a devout Catholic. Then we get to this movie, where we find neither as agents anymore, with Mulder in hiding and Scully working as a physician in a Catholic charity hospital. The movie, much like the shows, had two simultaneous plots, both dealing with the Catholic Church.
The major plotline for the movie involves the kidnapping of an FBI agent and what turns out to be a series of murders. A defrocked pedophile Catholic priest claims to have visions regarding the investigation, and appears quite unsympathetically throughout the movie. Dialogue from multiple characters snipes not only at the former priest but also at the Church (are we tired of pedophile priest jokes yet?), and Scully is particularly disrespectful. The secondary plot line involves a child patient of Scully's with some rare, most likely fatal disease, with no known cure. The hospital's administration, led by a particularly sour priest, wants to shuffle the boy off to a hospice-type facility for palliative care, but Scully somehow chooses to defy them and treat the boy with some highly experimental stem cell therapy (stem cell therapy, since it deals with cells from unborn fetuses, is vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church). There are a lot of unlikely scenarios in the plot and it just doesn't quite work when viewed as a free-standing work apart from the culture and tradition of the series.
Then we get to Brideshead Revisited, based on the 1944 novel by former popular British writer Evelyn Waugh. This happens to be one of the very very few novels I've ever read twice, I have seen multiple times the faithful 1981 BBC/Granada six-episode, twelve-hour mini-series, and I worked with many of my students to analyze the work in their papers on early 20th century British novelists. So, being so familiar with the twelve-hour treatment of the novel, I found myself spinning trying to keep up with the instant two-hour long movie. The screenplay writers took so many liberties with the story line, I took the novel with me to brunch today to reread it so I could refresh my memory.
In the "new" version, the entire story has been rewritten to focus on the Catholic faith of the family, giving it sinister and evil overtones, and having it ruin the lives and happiness of its adherents. Meanwhile, Teresa Marchmain (played by Emma Thompson) has become a vindictive and overbearing matriarch in the name of Catholicity, which is totally different from her character in the novel, and the narrator of the story, Charles Ryder, has become a staunch atheist who actively works against the family's Catholic superstitions and practices, again contrary to his novel character (in the novel, there's even a line where someone refers to him as an atheist, and he corrects them, saying he's agnostic, plus, he would have been way too polite to have acted in such ways).
So, what's the deal with all the negative treatment of the Church?
Anyway, let me give a brief analysis of the movies.
The X Files was both satisfying and disappointing. It was little more than a two-part TV episode, and an episode with a weak plot line, at that. Because of the length of time since the television show was in original release, the writers seemed compelled to use a whole lot of expository dialogue to explain the backstory, some of which was rather annoying (like when Skinner made his first appearance on screen, Scully says, "It's Assistant Director of the FBI Walter Skinner!" as if Mulder didn't know who he was). The writing was poor and plot elements weren't connected. The overall series story arc really isn't going in a good direction. The editing felt choppy (and as if much of the important plot development was left on the cutting room floor). The cinematography at times lacked focus while at other times it moved in a way that gave me a headache. The musical score was pretty hideous. But, at the same time, it was The X Files and Mulder and Scully were back together again. With a better storyline and writing staff, I'd be willing to go see another movie. Recommendation? If you're an X Files fan, go see it, you'll enjoy it well enough. If you're not already an established fan, it's okay, and it's certainly better than a lot of the trash movies out this summer.
Meanwhile, Brideshead is a beautiful movie, reminiscent of the Merchant-Ivory type movies. I've heard Emma Thompson has gotten some supporting actress Oscar buzz.
In the past, my alma mater Oxford University (where much of the novel is set) did not allow film crews at the university, so "Oxbridge"-type movies set at Oxford (Chariots of Fire, Oxford Blues, the Brideshead mini-series, et al.) were actually filmed at rival newcomer Cambridge University. I was very pleased to see this movie was actually filmed on location in Oxford, as it brought back many memories. I also thought it highly interesting that they chose to go to Castle Howard as the location site for the scenes of the fictional "Brideshead Castle," the same location where they shot the mini-series. Consequently, all the sets (as well as costumes) were beautiful.
Naturally, adapting a full-length novel to a modern two-hour movie time frame requires a lot of cutting and rearrangement. I realize this. This version, though, I found to take a few too many liberties not only with the plot but with the characters. I've mentioned Lady Marchmain; Rex Mottram's character was so changed, his now-minor character was a particularly nasty cad and opportunist; Anthony Blanche has become a cameo role with biting lines not in the novel.
Casting was also a bit of a problem. The novel spans twenty years, from the time Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) and Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) meet as 19-year-old undergraduates at Oxford, to a point about ten or twelve years after that for Charles and Julia's affair, to Charles' time as a 39-year-old Army officer in World War II. The movie appears to have shortened the intervals so the actors ultimately end up playing their real-life ages. Because of how so much of the story was truncated and compressed, more than half of the movie is devoted to the time when Charles and Sebastian are 19, yet the actors were much too old to convincingly play teenagers, with Goode at 30 and Whishaw at 28. I think I would have found younger actors, especially since—Goode's intensely clear and bright blue eyes notwithstanding—neither of these actors gave particularly memorable performances.
I've been looking for an intelligent, literary person who's never read this novel or seen the mini-series so I can have him or her watch this movie and then tell me how it works for them. If this description fits any of you, go see it and then write a comment. Meanwhile, for Waugh or Brideshead fans, you'll want to go see this movie just because it's Waugh and Oxford and Castle Howard and your unrepentant anglophilia.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Diving into the den of liberal Protestantism
Do you have adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? If so, I've found the perfect church for you!
This morning I went to St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood. In some ways, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared it would be, but in others, I was shocked and confounded. As expected, they are a Rite 2 (contemporary English) parish, and I wasn't surprised that they use that awful inclusive language liturgy stuff (avoiding references to God as "He" or "Lord" or with masculine pronouns). I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the liturgy was basically standard and non-experimental (unlike the dreadful services at the National Cathedral), that much of the Mass was sung (even with a priestess who actually sang well and sounded good!), and that incense was used appropriately. Oddly, though, they have a lay member of the congregation "preside" over the service, with the priestess only doing those things that require sacerdotal participation. Only the priestess was vested, and all of the other service participants were very casually attired (lots of shorts!) and wearing earth tones and natural fibers.
I was also pleasantly surprised that, while their music was contemporary and heavy on the African themes (I always find that odd at 98% white parishes) and not exactly to my personal tastes, it was of higher than expected compositional quality and what they did they did well. That's a big plus in my book. They have their small choir sitting in the congregation in the middle of the nave amidst the people, and that seemed to encourage more congregational singing. They also did a lot of the service music a capella and in harmony. My one big complaint is that a lot of the service music was known to the choir and much of the congregation, but there was no indication of hymn numbers or melody lines in the printed service bulletin, and I was unable to participate in that part of the worship because they were very much non-standard musical settings (and, keep in mind that I know what's in the Hymnal 1982 so when it's not one of those, I flip through the Lift Every Voice and Sing book while they sing trying to find the settings).
Architecturally, the church isn't quite as successful. They've taken an old traditional church structure and gutted the interior. The remnants of the old Incarnation Church and its traditional stained glass windows, paintings, and furnishings are in a side chapel, while on the opposite side of the nave, the former St. Stephen's people have a starkly contemporary open space with merely geometric colored glass windows, lots of modern art on the walls (I understand that the art rotates, just like at an art gallery), and at the end, a small grouping of chairs around a coffee table that forms a modern meditation and worship space.
There is a less-than-adequate modern treatment of the nave and sanctuary itself that looks inexpensive and very much just plopped down in the midst of a former traditional worship space. Instead of the high altar being the focal point of the nave, they have installed a large podium/ambo right in the center of the crossing from which most of the service is conducted and the sermon preached.
There's an unused balcony in the back of the nave with large plain colored glass windows. No evidence of a pipe organ is apparent. Up in the front part of the nave, they have a grand piano and a three-manual electronic theater organ side by side. During the service, the organist went back and forth between the organ and piano, plus, as mentioned, several things were sung a capella.
Unusually for a D.C. church, they started their service early! I walked in at 10:31 a.m. (according to both my cell phone and my Naval Observatory atomic clock-synchronized watch), and they'd already finished the opening hymn and were in the midst of the Collect for Purity.
Hymns today were Lucerna Laudoniae for the processional, Barker and Ladd's "Give thanks to the Lord" for the sequence, Land of Rest for pre-consecration marching music (more on that later), General Seminary for post-communion ablutions, and St. Joan for the "dismissal hymn." A female soloist sang the hymn "Balm in Gilead" as the offertory anthem.
Service music was all unfamiliar to me. They did a Trisagion in lieu of Kyrie and Gloria that was printed in the bulletin but unattributed. The psalm was chanted by the congregation to pointed Gregorian chant. The Sanctus was from Betty Pulkingham's Freedom Mass, and was printed in the bulletin. The Memorial Acclamation, Great Amen, Lord's Prayer, and Agnus Dei were also sung (all a capella) and seemed familiar to the regulars, but were not printed, attributed, or otherwise noted or explained in the bulletin. I was lost.
A non-priest wearing an unbleached alb and an odd cap gave the sermon. He mentioned he was formerly a Methodist minister, which may account for his very, very long talk. While he preached on the Gospel reading (Matt. 15:21-28), somehow he got around to spending a lot of time talking about Original Sin. He said, "Original Sin is not about sex," despite the "voyeuristic interest of some of the Christian community." Meanwhile, sermon time was the opportunity for people to be up and down and up and down, presumably to go to the bathroom, stretch their legs, or go to the concessions stand or something.
Some of the service was rather eccentric. During the intercessions, the congregational response was an unusual "Lord, have pity on us." Then, after the presiding laywoman did the standard prayers, she took the wireless microphone and walked around the nave, offering the mike to anyone who wanted to offer up their own prayer request or special thanksgiving. We got everything from thanks for a safe return from a luxurious international vacation to praying to evict bad tenants to prayers for dead or needy people known by people not actually known by the prayer offerer. And, of course, a lot of women had to offer way, way too much back story for their prayer requests, with the standard feminist choking up with emotion for the last few verklempt words of their request. People got the attention of the microphone lady by jumping up and down in their pews waiving their arm in the air. Once we were finished enduring the prayers of the people, we got to a standard confession and absolution followed by the exchanging of the Peace.
Well, I don't suppose I'm surprised at this ADHD crowd, but they emptied out of their pews to bounce all around the nave shaking hands with everybody. I did my duty and shook hands with the four people in my immediate vicinity, but then I sat and tried to appear intent at looking down reading the prayer book in private meditation, hoping this dreadful period would be over soon. Yet, many of these people felt compelled to intrude upon my personal space and come up and thrust their hand out in front of my prayer book to chirp "Peace!" before trotting off to assail some other innocent.
During the announcements (led by the senior minister—they intentionally don't use the traditional title "rector"—who'd been sitting unvested out in the congregation), we had more overly excited women waiving their arm in the air for recognition so they could dash up to the podium to give an announcement (one of whom, clad in shorts and Birkenstocks, later turned out to be a priestess).
After the offertory anthem, they began singing a hymn, and then I was bewildered to observe the congregation emptying out of their pews and heading up to stand around the high altar. They all stood up there for the entire prayer of consecration and didn't return until after being communicated. Even up there during the holiest moments of the Mass, there was still a lot of wandering around and coming and going. I couldn't really tell, but it looked like they had slices of rye bread instead of communion wafers. Naturally, I did not go up, but remained in my pew to stand and kneel at the appropriate times. I didn't opt to go up later for communion, since there seemed to be no established procedure for communicating people who weren't already standing in the altar gaggle, and also because there weren't any male priest concelebrants to make the transsubstantiation valid (In my old parish back in Oklahoma, we were taught that women do not receive the Holy Spirit in ordination. Interestingly, some of those priests ended up in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, where I understand the bishop has been having talks this month with Rome about leaving Canterbury to become papists. Knowing the priests involved, I really don't see that successfully happening, since discipline and following the doctrinal authority of their superiors was never their strong suit.). What surprised me more about the communion business, though, is that no one sought to guide me up to the sanctuary or to explain to me what was going on.
At the end of the service, they did a "dismissal hymn" prior to the blessing and dismissal, and then once that was over with, there was no formal recessional or departure. People just sort of chatted amongst themselves and milled about. After an unexplained delay, the organist eventually began to play a postlude.
Meanwhile, I wandered about playing tourist and taking pictures. While I was in the contemporary space looking at the art, the usher who'd given me my service bulletin when I came in chatted with me briefly about the paintings. He was the only one who talked to me at this parish. Even when I left the church, there was no priest back there at the door to shake my hand, and I left, feeling as though at this parish—so noted for its support of all sorts of radical liberal causes and outreach—I had been merely invisible.
This morning I went to St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood. In some ways, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared it would be, but in others, I was shocked and confounded. As expected, they are a Rite 2 (contemporary English) parish, and I wasn't surprised that they use that awful inclusive language liturgy stuff (avoiding references to God as "He" or "Lord" or with masculine pronouns). I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the liturgy was basically standard and non-experimental (unlike the dreadful services at the National Cathedral), that much of the Mass was sung (even with a priestess who actually sang well and sounded good!), and that incense was used appropriately. Oddly, though, they have a lay member of the congregation "preside" over the service, with the priestess only doing those things that require sacerdotal participation. Only the priestess was vested, and all of the other service participants were very casually attired (lots of shorts!) and wearing earth tones and natural fibers.
I was also pleasantly surprised that, while their music was contemporary and heavy on the African themes (I always find that odd at 98% white parishes) and not exactly to my personal tastes, it was of higher than expected compositional quality and what they did they did well. That's a big plus in my book. They have their small choir sitting in the congregation in the middle of the nave amidst the people, and that seemed to encourage more congregational singing. They also did a lot of the service music a capella and in harmony. My one big complaint is that a lot of the service music was known to the choir and much of the congregation, but there was no indication of hymn numbers or melody lines in the printed service bulletin, and I was unable to participate in that part of the worship because they were very much non-standard musical settings (and, keep in mind that I know what's in the Hymnal 1982 so when it's not one of those, I flip through the Lift Every Voice and Sing book while they sing trying to find the settings).
Architecturally, the church isn't quite as successful. They've taken an old traditional church structure and gutted the interior. The remnants of the old Incarnation Church and its traditional stained glass windows, paintings, and furnishings are in a side chapel, while on the opposite side of the nave, the former St. Stephen's people have a starkly contemporary open space with merely geometric colored glass windows, lots of modern art on the walls (I understand that the art rotates, just like at an art gallery), and at the end, a small grouping of chairs around a coffee table that forms a modern meditation and worship space.There is a less-than-adequate modern treatment of the nave and sanctuary itself that looks inexpensive and very much just plopped down in the midst of a former traditional worship space. Instead of the high altar being the focal point of the nave, they have installed a large podium/ambo right in the center of the crossing from which most of the service is conducted and the sermon preached.There's an unused balcony in the back of the nave with large plain colored glass windows. No evidence of a pipe organ is apparent. Up in the front part of the nave, they have a grand piano and a three-manual electronic theater organ side by side. During the service, the organist went back and forth between the organ and piano, plus, as mentioned, several things were sung a capella.
Unusually for a D.C. church, they started their service early! I walked in at 10:31 a.m. (according to both my cell phone and my Naval Observatory atomic clock-synchronized watch), and they'd already finished the opening hymn and were in the midst of the Collect for Purity.
Hymns today were Lucerna Laudoniae for the processional, Barker and Ladd's "Give thanks to the Lord" for the sequence, Land of Rest for pre-consecration marching music (more on that later), General Seminary for post-communion ablutions, and St. Joan for the "dismissal hymn." A female soloist sang the hymn "Balm in Gilead" as the offertory anthem.
Service music was all unfamiliar to me. They did a Trisagion in lieu of Kyrie and Gloria that was printed in the bulletin but unattributed. The psalm was chanted by the congregation to pointed Gregorian chant. The Sanctus was from Betty Pulkingham's Freedom Mass, and was printed in the bulletin. The Memorial Acclamation, Great Amen, Lord's Prayer, and Agnus Dei were also sung (all a capella) and seemed familiar to the regulars, but were not printed, attributed, or otherwise noted or explained in the bulletin. I was lost.
A non-priest wearing an unbleached alb and an odd cap gave the sermon. He mentioned he was formerly a Methodist minister, which may account for his very, very long talk. While he preached on the Gospel reading (Matt. 15:21-28), somehow he got around to spending a lot of time talking about Original Sin. He said, "Original Sin is not about sex," despite the "voyeuristic interest of some of the Christian community." Meanwhile, sermon time was the opportunity for people to be up and down and up and down, presumably to go to the bathroom, stretch their legs, or go to the concessions stand or something.
Some of the service was rather eccentric. During the intercessions, the congregational response was an unusual "Lord, have pity on us." Then, after the presiding laywoman did the standard prayers, she took the wireless microphone and walked around the nave, offering the mike to anyone who wanted to offer up their own prayer request or special thanksgiving. We got everything from thanks for a safe return from a luxurious international vacation to praying to evict bad tenants to prayers for dead or needy people known by people not actually known by the prayer offerer. And, of course, a lot of women had to offer way, way too much back story for their prayer requests, with the standard feminist choking up with emotion for the last few verklempt words of their request. People got the attention of the microphone lady by jumping up and down in their pews waiving their arm in the air. Once we were finished enduring the prayers of the people, we got to a standard confession and absolution followed by the exchanging of the Peace.
Well, I don't suppose I'm surprised at this ADHD crowd, but they emptied out of their pews to bounce all around the nave shaking hands with everybody. I did my duty and shook hands with the four people in my immediate vicinity, but then I sat and tried to appear intent at looking down reading the prayer book in private meditation, hoping this dreadful period would be over soon. Yet, many of these people felt compelled to intrude upon my personal space and come up and thrust their hand out in front of my prayer book to chirp "Peace!" before trotting off to assail some other innocent.
During the announcements (led by the senior minister—they intentionally don't use the traditional title "rector"—who'd been sitting unvested out in the congregation), we had more overly excited women waiving their arm in the air for recognition so they could dash up to the podium to give an announcement (one of whom, clad in shorts and Birkenstocks, later turned out to be a priestess).
After the offertory anthem, they began singing a hymn, and then I was bewildered to observe the congregation emptying out of their pews and heading up to stand around the high altar. They all stood up there for the entire prayer of consecration and didn't return until after being communicated. Even up there during the holiest moments of the Mass, there was still a lot of wandering around and coming and going. I couldn't really tell, but it looked like they had slices of rye bread instead of communion wafers. Naturally, I did not go up, but remained in my pew to stand and kneel at the appropriate times. I didn't opt to go up later for communion, since there seemed to be no established procedure for communicating people who weren't already standing in the altar gaggle, and also because there weren't any male priest concelebrants to make the transsubstantiation valid (In my old parish back in Oklahoma, we were taught that women do not receive the Holy Spirit in ordination. Interestingly, some of those priests ended up in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, where I understand the bishop has been having talks this month with Rome about leaving Canterbury to become papists. Knowing the priests involved, I really don't see that successfully happening, since discipline and following the doctrinal authority of their superiors was never their strong suit.). What surprised me more about the communion business, though, is that no one sought to guide me up to the sanctuary or to explain to me what was going on.
At the end of the service, they did a "dismissal hymn" prior to the blessing and dismissal, and then once that was over with, there was no formal recessional or departure. People just sort of chatted amongst themselves and milled about. After an unexplained delay, the organist eventually began to play a postlude.
Meanwhile, I wandered about playing tourist and taking pictures. While I was in the contemporary space looking at the art, the usher who'd given me my service bulletin when I came in chatted with me briefly about the paintings. He was the only one who talked to me at this parish. Even when I left the church, there was no priest back there at the door to shake my hand, and I left, feeling as though at this parish—so noted for its support of all sorts of radical liberal causes and outreach—I had been merely invisible.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Churches on Capitol Hill
The church has a pretty big presence on Capitol Hill. The Presbyterians have a big place called Capitol Hill Presbyterians and the Episcopalians have St. Mark's, plus a couple of other parishes are nearby in Eastern Market.
The Catholics, though, really cover the Hill with a big parish on each side of the Capitol. St. Joseph's is on the Senate side and St. Peter's is on the House side. Both are major parishes, though I think St. Joseph's is a little larger. They are the more visible church, being over by Union Station and the Supreme Court, and this is where Senator Kennedy goes to church in D.C. (there's also a plaque in the narthex commemorating Sen. Robert Kennedy, who used to worship and serve at this parish). St. Peter's, though, seems a warmer church to me, and it's over by the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress. They're both pretty churches, so I snapped a few pictures earlier this month.
The Catholics, though, really cover the Hill with a big parish on each side of the Capitol. St. Joseph's is on the Senate side and St. Peter's is on the House side. Both are major parishes, though I think St. Joseph's is a little larger. They are the more visible church, being over by Union Station and the Supreme Court, and this is where Senator Kennedy goes to church in D.C. (there's also a plaque in the narthex commemorating Sen. Robert Kennedy, who used to worship and serve at this parish). St. Peter's, though, seems a warmer church to me, and it's over by the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress. They're both pretty churches, so I snapped a few pictures earlier this month.
 | This is the view of the high altar of St. Joseph's from the nave. |
| There's a big organ in the balcony organ loft, and the pipes and ceiling are all colorfully painted. |  |
 | Here is the altar at St. Peter's as seen from the nave. The nave is actually quite visually stunning, but a photograph can't quite communicate the 3D effect of the gold leaf lettering around the room. |
| Here's the organ, again, up in the loft. The cabinetry is all dark wood, so it doesn't show up well. |  |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)