Sunday in the snow

Finally got out and made it to church at St. Luke's this morning.  The snowdrift that blocked me in on Christmas Eve was still there on Christmas morning, so it wasn't until afternoon Christmas Day that my dad and I got out and shoveled off the driveway.  We had over half an inch of ice under the snow to try to break up and remove, too.  The streets are still a mess around here.  In the South, municipal governments aren't equipped with snow plows as they are up north, so we wait for the weather to warm up and the limited car traffic there is to wear away the snow.  My parents' house is near the local hospital, so their street usually gets enough traffic to make the road passable after a day or so, but my tires were still spinning on my way up the hill.

Church attendance was light this morning.  I walked in five minutes before Mass was to start, and they were putting everybody up in the choir.  By the time the processional was going, enough more people had wandered in to fill up the first several rows of pews on both sides.  I think a little over 50 ended up finally there (the deacon told me there were only 18 people in church Christmas Eve, mostly people who lived near the church who could walk there).

Hymns this morning were Regent Square (Angels from the realms of glory) for the processional, Puer nobis nascitur (Unto us a boy is born) for the sequence, Venite adoremus (The snow lay on the ground) for the offertory, Antioch (Joy to the world, v. 1) for the fraction anthem, Greensleeves (What child is this) during communion, and In dulci jubilo (Good Christian men rejoice) for the recessional.

The Mass setting included a Taizé setting called "Glory to God" in lieu of the Gloria and Proulx's A Community Mass setting of the Sanctus and Benedictus.

The rector was out on his post-Christmas vacation, so the assistant, a priestess, was the celebrant.  She wore an ungirdled alb with her stole hanging straight down on both sides bishop-style, but at least she put on a chasuble for the consecration and communion.  The deacon preached this morning.  He talked about how God didn't make change in a big "shazam" way, but provided a tiny spark to build up inside us, and analogized that to how scientists believe that during the "big bang" that began the creation of the universe, it all started with a singularity that had no dimension, and yet within a couple of seconds, 75% of the universe was formed.  In case you were wondering, this isn't exactly a parish of Creationists!  LOL  We can get very scientific and rational here, since ConocoPhillips has a research and development center in town, and there are lots of scientists and engineers out there with one or two Ph.D.s.

It's always nice to be back at St. Luke's, since this is the parish where I grew up, and I still know lots of people there.  Sitting in the choir is always fun, too, since that is where I learned to sing as a young choir boy many years ago.

Time to go figure out what to fix for lunch.  Maybe if things clear off tomorrow, we can start running around town, but for now, we're essentially at home in the snow.

Christmas Eve update

Well, it looks like I'm going to be observing midnight Mass in front of the television watching the tape of the Bishop of Rome prancing around St. Peter's and jabbering in Latin or Italian or something. I'm anxious to see the tape. The news reports that during the procession, a woman "who appeared to be mentally unstable" burst out of the crowd and tackled the pope and some miscellaneous cardinal. Will they show it on the tape? Anyway, that's what he gets for moving the start time of the Mass from midnight to 10 p.m. It's supposed to be *midnight* Mass, not "let's-do-it-sooner-so-I-can-get-to-sleep-early" Mass. No wonder he has crazy parishioners in the crowd today.

Why am I here? The Great Oklahoma Blizzard of 2009. This is an historic event. This is the first time in history that the National Weather Service has ever issued a blizzard warning for the Tulsa area. We're not really expecting that much snow, but we're getting 50 m.p.h. winds, so the snow is blowing horizontally and visibility is dismal. The Highway Patrol has closed down the turnpikes and the interstate highways, and the governor has had to call out the Oklahoma National Guard to rescue stranded motorists on the highways.

The prospect of snow and high winds didn't really bother me. I'd planned on going to midnight Mass at the little parish here in Bartlesville tonight. My parents were going to stay home, since we don't want to risk having them fall on the ice and breaking a hip or something, but I wanted to venture out alone. But, I just discovered a problem. Drifting snow. There's a big snowdrift all the way across the driveway, and I can't get the car out of the garage. So, I have to stay home.

Maybe in the morning, the drift will have blown away over night and I'll be able to get to the Christmas morning service. That will be weird, though.....we *always* go to midnight Mass.

Merry Christmas to everyone! Stay warm. Hope you get lots of presents. And, don't forget to go to church!

Candlelight

121st Candlelight Service
St. George's Episcopal Church, New York
December 20, 2009

Processional chant: Alden Ashforth, "Hodie Christus natus est"
Congregational hymn: "O come all ye faithful"

First Lesson: Genesis 3:9–15
Congregational hymn: "O come, O come Emmanuel"

Second Lesson: Isaiah 9:2, 6–7
Anthem: Matt Veligdan, "O magnum mysterium"
Third Lesson: Micah 5:2–4
Congregational hymn: "O little town of Bethlehem"

Fourth Lesson: Luke 1:26–33
Choir carol: Basque carol (arr. Robert Ross), "The Angel Gabriel"
Anthem: Benjamin Britten, "This little babe" from Ceremony of Carols

Fifth Lesson: Luke 2:1–7
Congregational hymn: "What child is this"
Choir carol: James R. Murray (arr. Jackson Berkey), "Away in a manger"

Sixth Lesson: Luke 2:8–14
Anthem: Kamel Boutros, "Magedooh!"
Anthem: William Mathias, "Alleluya! A new work is come on hand"
Choir carol: Harold Darke, "In the bleak mid-winter"
Congregational hymn: "Angels we have heard on high"
Congregational hymn: "The first nowell"
Choir carol: French trad., "Il es né le Divin enfant"
Choir carol: West Indian carol, "The Virgin Mary had a baby boy"
Anthem: Jester Hairston, "Mary's little boy child"

Offertory: Buddy Greene, "Mary did you know"

Congregational hymn: "Joy to the world"
Congregational hymn: "Hark, the herald angels sing"
Congregational hymn: "Silent night"

Seventh Lesson: John 1:1–12

Homily

Anthem: Adolphe Adam, "O holy night"

Closing prayer and benediction

Choir and congregational chorus: G. F. Handel, "Hallelujah" from Messiah

_______________

St. George's is paired with Calvary Church (where I went for morning Mass) into a single parish that shares a rector and an organist/music director. Ian had met one of the priests and the organist at the Gramercy Park Hanukah party a few days previous, so he decided that we should go to this service to check out the neighborhood Christians. I found it an interesting opportunity to observe the different congregations within a single joined parish, and the differences were quite distinct.

The church building itself at St. George's is much larger than Calvary, and the nave is a big barn of a place that reminds me more of 19th century Catholic architecture than Anglican architecture. The choir was a 32-voice amateur choir that looked very young; they were all dressed in all black, with some of the women wearing colorful mufflers. The organist (who ran back and forth between organ and piano) was supplemented by a dozen instrumentalists.

Much of the evening's music was contemporary. The opening processional chant, for example, was interestingly aggressive, and built from a capella chant to accompaniment including bongos. The congregation got to light and hold individual candles during the procession and opening hymn. All of the arrangements for the choir carols sounded very Christian contemporary. Some of the music was new, too. The music director wrote the "Magedooh!" anthem (which was sung in Arabic) and the choir director of the St. George's portion of the parish wrote the "O magnum mysterium" setting.

The congregational sing-along for the Hallelujah chorus caught me off guard. I've not sung it in several years and I never memorized it, so I really needed a score to sing all of my part correctly, but we all mucked through it successfully.

The service was a fun evening, and it seems the service is a big neighborhood tradition. The music was pretty good, though the traditional repertoire anthems (even the 20th century things like the Mathias and Britten) were, perhaps, a bit over-ambitious for the singers, but they made up for it with enthusiasm on the contemporary Christian things. I found it interesting, though, that this big contemporary congregation was not nearly as friendly as the more traditional congregation at Calvary.

Xmas in New York

Last weekend I went to New York for a Christmas shopping weekend with Ian as well as to escape the "blizzard" that was forecast for Washington that Saturday (as it turned out, D.C. got about 20-24" of snow and, predictably, the whole city shut down, including all buses and above-ground Metro trains, and even on Monday, the federal government closed all offices because of snow).  It was a fun weekend, even considering the 8-10" of snow that made its way to New York City on Saturday night (the original forecast had the snow curving out to sea and missing New York). 

Snow or not, New York is always fun in December.  


Sunday morning, while Ian worshipped at St. Mattress, I walked down the block to Calvary Episcopal Church, the old church on Gramercy Park, for Advent 4 Mass.  It's really a beautiful Victorian Gothic Revival building.  With the overnight snowfall, attendance was down, but they still had about fifty people at the service, and they had a choir of eight with about five or six instrumentalists.  It was also unusually friendly for an Episcopal church; I had several people talk to me as I came in the doors, and after the service, several more people came up to chat while I was walking around looking at the church.

Liturgically it seems like a fairly conservative Rite 2 parish (although they stood for the prayer of consecration), though the music was all over the map.  The priest only wore an alb and stole with no chasuble or cope.  The layreaders were vested in albs and the choir members wore red cassocks.

Hymns included Hyfrydol (Love divine all loves excelling) for the processional, Richmond (Hark! The glad sound) for the gradual, and St. Stephen (The King shall come) for the recessional.  I was surprised to hear an old style doxology to Old Hundredth for the presentation of alms after the offertory anthem.  At the beginning of the service, they lit the Advent wreath, after which they sang a hymn called "Awaken us, God" to the tune of "Away in the Manger" (The day of our hearts is near dawning at last).  Then, at the end of the service after the recessional and dismissal, they sang "The King shall come" to the tune of "Joy to the world" (O brighter than that glorious morn).

My choir used to think I played the hymns fast during Mass. They should come here; even I had to catch my breath and race!

Where things got interesting was with the other music.  For the Mass setting, they used Healy Willan's Rite 1 language Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena, but the organist played the accompaniment on the piano and it was rather a jazzy interpretation.  For the offertory anthem, the choir sang "My soul doth magnify the Lord" by Ford Peace, a mildly contemporary piece.  During communion, the choir sang an absolutely dreadful contemporary Christian song called "Jesus Messiah" by Daniel Carson, Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, and Jesse Reeves.  Now, we're not talking contemporary as in bad Catholic music/Hagen and Haas, but contemporary as in Michael W. Smith and prayer and praise music, and the accompaniment included electric piano, electric bass, and bongos, plus trumpets and strings.

The celebrant preached on the Annunciation and the Magnificat, and he was a very unusual combination of interesting, intellectual, and dynamic—a quality not many Episcopal or Catholic priests share.

This is the pulpit and half of the chancel organ pipes (there were also pipes in the organ loft in the back of the church).

After church, I went back to Ian's apartment to fetch him, then off we went to Central Park.  It was a fun weekend.

Via Facebook

Is it bad that I'm eating large quantities of shrimp on the first night of Hanukkah?

Announcement

I have a message for churchgoers: there are two smells in the Afterworld, incense and brimstone. One should start getting used to one or the other now.

Another feast day

What better place to observe the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary than at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception?

I went to the Basilica at noon today to hear the Archbishop of Washington say Mass and preach. It's a holy day of obligation for Catholics; the jury is still out in the Episcopal Church as to whether or not we believe in this Romish doctrine (my usual parish on K Street observes the day, but there are no special Masses and it's on the calendar as just the "Conception of the BVM;" I guess we like the occasion for a party but we don't want to commit to the doctrine).

Anyway, the basilica—the largest Catholic church in the country—was full and the television cameras were rolling for a national broadcast on the EWTV network (Mother Angelica's network). They had all the bells and smells of a solemn high Mass with full choir and the archbishop being assisted by about a dozen concelebrating priests.

Hymns today were "Come, let us worship" by Anthony Corvaia for the processional (all nine verses—but they needed the time by the time the altar got smoked), "The God whom earth and sea and sky" (Eisenach) at the offertory, a setting of the Magnificat by Leo Nestor during communion, and "Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing" (Lourdes Hymn) for the recessional. For the Ordinary of the Mass, they used Richard Proulx's Mass for the City setting during the Consecration, and both a Gloria and an Agnus Dei by Gerald Near. The Kyrie and Lord's Prayer were Gregorian chant.

The choir did an uncited introit based on Isaiah 61:10 and a communion antiphon that both started off as chant and ended up being interestingly modern in tonality. They also sang two Ave Marias, one by Tomás Luis de Victoria for the offertory anthem and a lovely rendition of Rachmaninoff's setting from the All-Night Vespers as a post-communion motet. The choir sounded fine today, but as always, I am disconcerted by the basilica's tradition of miking the choir, which allows individual voices to stick out and keeps us from enjoying the full ambiance of sound in the highly reverberant marble cavern that is the basilica. I saw my friend Ted up there singing tenor today.

The organist offered Ave maris stella by Girolamo Frescobaldi as the prelude and Magnificat en Sol Majeur by Jean-François Dandrieu as the postlude.

Today also happens to be the patronal feast day of the basilica parish. They also make a big deal out of it because the Immaculate Conception of Mary is the patron saint of the United States of America. Each year, the basilica, in conjunction with the Catholic University of America, presents a patronal medal award to someone for the "advancement of Marian devotion." After communion, they presented this year's award to Msgr. Paul Lenz, the retired former national director of the church's Black and Indian Mission Office. He also served as vice-postulator for the canonization cause of Blessed Kateri Tekawitha to become the first Catholic American Indian saint. What a coincidence that they would honor an Indian missionary on this day; as I was walking in to the church, my Blackberry was buzzing with the news alerts that the longstanding Cobell v. Salazar Indian trust litigation case had been settled this morning.

So, I'm good for another holy day. That should cover me til Christmas.

Advent 2

Yesterday I felt adventurous, so I decided to try a new church. Well, the church was new to me; the parish was founded in 1712, and their current building has portions dating back to both 1721 and 1775. As far as I can tell, this is the oldest Episcopal parish in what is now the District of Columbia (keeping in mind that the District wasn't created until 1790!).

St. Paul's Rock Creek Parish is a small colonial building in the midst of a large cemetery. The cemetery fills up most of the original glebe of the parish (in colonial times, a "glebe" was land given to a church to support the minister through rents or agricultural bounty). Being one of the oldest cemeteries in the District, it is the final resting place of a number of interesting notables including author Upton Sinclair, the inventor of Wonderbread, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice, the Duchess of Windsor's mother, Alexander Graham Bell's father, Douglas McArthur's grandfather, Edgar Allen Poe's sister, and numerous Supreme Court justices and Cabinet secretaries.

The remaining colonial aspect of the church seems to be limited mainly to external walls, the bell tower, and the interior layout. Due to a fire in the 1920s, the stained glass windows, pews, and ecclessiastical furnishings are all contemporary. In fact, I was struck by how shiny and new everything inside the building looks. Current refurbishments have created a colonial meeting house-style worship space that is essentially a wide rectangle with a small apse containing the altar and organ on the long side opposite the entry doors. A tiny chapel for the reserved sacrament is to the left of the sanctuary area. To the right is a wide passageway to the sacristy. Illumination is accomplished with tall stained glass windows and very large early American design brass chandeliers. The walls are whitewashed and the floors are white marble.

Music and liturgy for the service were quite euphonious. While they are exclusively a Rite 2 parish, the liturgy was dignified and done in a moderately high church style. The celebrant processed in a lovely deep blue chasuble with an assisting priest in alb and (turquoise!) stole serving as deacon and a layreader in girdled alb serving as subdeacon. The choir wore red cassocks with surplices. A verger led the processions.

Given the Rite 2 wording and use of eucharistic prayer D, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Healy Willan's well-known setting for the Ordinary of the Mass. The congregation sang standard Advent hymns from The Hymnal 1982, including "Blest be the King" (Valet will ich geben), "On Jordan's bank" (Winchester New), "There's a voice in the wilderness crying" (Ascension), and "Prepare the way, O Zion" (Bereden väg för Herran). The choir did Canticle 16 to Anglican chant in lieu of a Psalm.

The choir, an octet, sang three anthems. For the introit, they did Palestrina's "I look from afar;" at the offertory, "And the glory of the Lord" from Handel's Messiah; and as a communion motet, Thomas Campion's "Never weather-beaten sail." When the choir processed in, I had to do a double-take, because one of the tenors looks just like my friend Brian in New York.

As all too frequently happens with D.C. smaller parishes, they got way too chummy during the passing of the peace, and many people wandered around greeting people on the opposite side of the room from where they'd been sitting. I greeted those in my immediate vicinity and sat down; strangers kept coming up to me to chat, though, and I kept having to stand up again.

The parish offers gluten-free wafers upon request during Communion. For some reason, that struck me as quite humorous. The communion wine tasted like Gallo port.

The rectoress preached about twelve minutes. The entire service lasted about seventy-five minutes.

All in all, it was a very reasonable worship experience, and I would not be averse to visiting them again.