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