Today's Mass

My friend Przemek and I went to the noon Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception today. Nothing special going on, just an ordinary time Mass.

It's been a while since I was last at the basilica, and their music program has gotten significantly better. What with the massive music improvement at the Catholics' cathedral, I have to wonder if the new archbishop hasn't had something to do with the musical and liturgical changes for the better. If so, congratulations to him. I, for one, am greatly appreciative.

There's a new (to me, at least) organist at the basilica called Jeremy Filsell who gets to play their 172-rank toy. He makes a nice noise with it, too, opening the service with Heinrich Scheidemann's "O Gott, wir danken deiner Güt" as a prelude and closing with a postlude of Virgil Fox's arrangement of Bach's "Now Thank We All Our God."

Processional and recessional hymns were solid German hymns, too, being Salzburg and Nun Danket. They did a psalm setting as a communion marching hymn with the antiphon "The hand of the Lord feeds us." Harold Darke's Service in A minor served as the Mass setting for the Kyrie, Gloria, and Agnus Dei, with Hurd's New Plainsong Mass inexplicably filling in for the Sanctus, Benedictus, Memorial Acclamation, and Great Amen (I guess they wanted the congregation to be able to sing that part instead of just listening to the choir).

The nice part of the Mass, though, was hearing the choir sing anthems for the offertory and the post-communion motet. Christopher Tye's "Praise ye the Lord, ye Children" served as the offertory, and then later they did John Tavener's "Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God," which was lovely, but unfortunately marred at the end by a very off-key soprano.

Sitting in the congregation proved to be an interesting experience. First, there was a skinny, nervous woman sitting a couple of rows behind us who apparently fancied herself quite the good singer. She was probably a choir mother or something. Her voice was one of those thin, warbly things with the backwards vibratos that usually was sharp but which went very flat on the high notes. She fashioned her own endings to the last verses of the hymns and I wasn't sure whether to gag or laugh. Second, a South American man sat in front of me who knew his service responses very well, but he had to very loudly ejaculate them considerably faster than the rest of the congregation, and I do believe he finished the Our Father before the rest of us were halfway done. Thirdly, there was an African family taking up the entire row in front of him with three little girls any one of whom could be a poster child for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I'm not sure whether the man was their father or grandfather, but the girls literally climbed all over him the entire Mass. A tall, thin teenager stood and sat there disengaged and nearly motionless except when he had to pry one of the little girls off of him. And, finally, there was a mousey young woman sitting behind us in the throes of a bad cold who sounded positively consumptive. I made sure to wash my hands as soon as I could after Mass.

Since we'd gotten there a bit early, I took a bunch of pictures of the crypt chapel on the lower level underneath the sanctuary. Click on them for a larger view.


The Chapel


Side Chapels


Entrances to the Sacristy and Confessional


Chapel Organ

Neighborhood parish report

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

—Phillipians 4:5–7 (NIV)

Thus was the gist of the prescribed Epistle (second reading) at church yesterday. These things aren't chosen a week at a time, they've been published and standardized years ago. It's purely coincidence (or divine prescience) that we got this passage today, during this time of nationwide—and international—financial instability and anxiety.

We also had a very intelligent and well-reasoned sermon by guest celebrant and preacher Melana Nelson-Amaker. She talked about "the idolatry of greed and growth" today, putting the financial crisis into simple perspective. It's a popular topic this weekend. I also heard someone on BBC talk about how continuing to privatize gain and nationalize debt was not the way to go, if we're to solve the world's money and credit problems. Anyway, the sermon was surprisingly good, it was just twice as long as I'm used to sitting through.

In fact, it was an incredibly long service, for no good reason, too, as there were no crowds of people, no holy day, and no special musical offerings; this is largely because the neighborhood parish, Trinity Episcopal, has become a black church. Historically, black churches have encouraged longer sermons and a lot more music, and many of the members of Trinity are converts to the faith, not cradle Episcopalians, so what gives the parish its own special flavor is their version of black Anglicanism and liturgical formality. And, of all the Episcopal parishes I"ve visited this year, I actually find this place pretty acceptable, because they are fairly traditional and conservative in their liturgical and musical choices, and despite their annoying friendlieness (and emptying out the pews to pass the peace with everyone in the big church), I like them a whole lot better than those confused, ultraliberal, guilty, white parishes I've seen.

Soprano Marilyn Moore, the operatically-trained, voice faculty member from the Levine School of Music in D.C., provided music as a special guest singer. She did Mein glaübiges Herze, frohlocke ("My heart ever faithful") from Bach's Cantata No. 68 for the offertory anthem and, at the beginning of communion, she sang two spirituals, "Were You There" and "Let Us Bread Bread Together." Lovely voice. I also liked her clothing, a tight black skirt suit made of a black-on-black lizard print that looked quite luxe. The organist accompanied her on the piano at the chancel steps.

The rest of the music was just a little excessive, especially since the choir was not of professional calibre. For example, they did an anthem called "I Was Glad" by Albin C. Whitworth as an introit after the collect of purity. The choir sang an uncredited song (two verses of a hymn?) after the sermon. They still do the Doxology at the presentation of gifts. There was something called "the orison" (translates to a "special prayer") sung between the blessing and the dismissal. I would have been happy to have had all of these excised. For hymns, they did Rathisbon (Christ, whose glory fills the skies) as the processional, Restoration (Jesus calls us; o'er the tumult) as the gradual, "Break, Thou, the Bread of Life" and "This Is My Body" at communion, and Marion (Rejoice, ye pure in heart) as the recessional. And, in true Episcopalian fashion, they sang all of the verses, even all seven verses of the recessional hymn.

The Mass setting they use, which kicked in after the offertory, is an interesting mix. The Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei came from Schubert's Deutche Messe. The fraction anthem was Gerald Near's. I'm not sure about the Great Amen (and an altar boy rang the sanctus bells thrice during it). They did Malotte's setting of the Lord's Prayer.

They have lengthy prayers of the people and the announcement and introductions segment of the show lasted ad infinitum. Did I mention they took forever passing the peace to everyone?

Liturgically, they used a fairly conservative Rite II, though they did do the Star Trek eucharistic prayer.

Thus was the two-hour-long service. The parish is in easy walking distance of the house, so if they'd shorten things, I could deal with being a regular worshipper there, but I don't know if I'm up to two hours every Sunday.

Red Mass

Yesterday was the 55th annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in anticipation of today being the first day of term for the Supreme Court of the United States. I was privileged to be able to attend and actually got a seat in the cathedral.

Red Masses are a medieval tradition originating in Rome, Paris, and London, marking the official opening of the judicial year. They are intended to bless judges and public officials and to ask God to watch over the wise administration of justice. It's the "lawyers' Mass." I don't think I've ever before seen so many men in suits in a Catholic church!

This year's guests included the Chief Justice of the United States, four associate justices of the Supreme Court (a majority of the Supreme Court is Catholic, by the way), the Secretary of Commerce, some ambassadors, several members of Congress, and quite a large number of members of the federal judiciary. The processions also included law faculties from Catholic and Georgetown Universities dressed in academic regalia.

Eight bishops concelebrated the Mass, including the Archbishop of Washington, the Archbishop of the Military Services, the Bishop of Arlington, and the sometimes-controversial John Patrick Cardinal Foley, now Grand Master of the Equestian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The music at this Mass absolutely blew me away. The cathedral is getting good enough to think of as a musical church in the league with the Episcopalians and Anglicans!

Recently, the cathedral reorganized its music department and took on a new pastoral associate for liturgy and music, and ever since then, there has been an increasing major improvement in the musical literature being performed, and in the past couple of months, there hasn't been a single time I've sat in Mass at the cathedral and cringed, as used to happen so much in the past. Of course, this wasn't without some controversy.....the new music director is the person who was music director for the papal Mass at Nationals Park last April, who I found effective, but some accused of being "vapid." He was a friend of the new archbishop's back when he was in Pittsburgh, so I'm not surprised at all that the archbishop has replaced the music staff at St. Matthew's with his own people.

Anyway, obviously, this was a special event service, but the cathedral does a number of those throughout the year, so with a music staff that has questionable taste, it could still be disastrous. I'm hopeful for what the new team is and will be doing.

The Washington Symphonic Brass and the cathedral organist provided about ten minutes of baroque-sounding prelude music, then the choir sang a five-minute anthem by Anthony Piccolo called "O Come Let Us Sing unto the Lord" as an introit. Prior to all of that, though, those of us who had been seated in the cathedral an hour early had heard the choir rehearsing until about five minutes before the prelude started.


Choir rehearsing before the service.
The empty pews were for people who would process in.

The altar party wasn't quite ready when the introit was over, so after a minute or two of silence, the organist filled in a bit for a couple of minutes until they'd gotten all those judges and bishops out on the steps organized. Finally they gave the signal, and the organ, brass, tympani, choir, and congregation started in with Ralph Vaughn-Williams' arrangement of Old Hundredth "All people that on earth do dwell."

Next four costumed Knights of Columbus brought in the American and D.C. flags, and everyone sang the national anthem. Some woman back in the congregation decided to grace us with her high note, too.

After that, the Mass proceeded fairly normally. Mass setting was the Proulx A Community Mass with brass accompaniment, and Gregorian chant Latin versions of the Gloria (responsorial, from Missa de Angelis) and Agnus Dei (Mass XVIII). At the end of Mass, they sang "America the Beautiful" as the Supreme Court was escorted out by the bishops (the CJ went with the archbishop and Mrs. CJ was with Cardinal Foley). Then for the formal recessional hymn, they sang Thaxted (O Spirit all embracing), one of my very favorite hymn tunes, in a lovely setting with brass and tympani.

In addition to the introit, the choir sang Palestrina's Veni Creator Spirtus for the offertory and a beautiful performance of Friedell's "Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether."

Cardinal Foley gave an 11-minute homily. Rather than ascending the pulpit or even standing at the ambo, he sat in a chair placed in front of the high altar. During the rest of the Mass, instead of concelebrating at the altar he had his own prie dieu on the side.

Mass lasted about 90 minutes, but we'd been in the church at least 45 minutes before that, so it was a long morning. It was a zoo leaving; the Secret Service was everywhere and the people coming in for the 11:30 Mass were standing outside on the steps waiting for our service to get over. Here are some pics:


Secret Service guards the car of one of the justices.


Archbishop Woerl and Cardinal Foley