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.