Sunday's journey

Sometimes I think the National Cathedral is trying to be high church Methodist. Then I realize the high church Methodists have a better sense of liturgy. These days at the cathedral, they sing a "song of praise" instead of the Gloria; they don't seem to believe in the Kyrie or the Agnus Dei at all. Everything is experimental liturgy and unfamiliar new hymns. None of my Episcopalian friends who come to town to visit can even recognize the liturgy as Anglican—often, they've asked me about it afterwards to confirm that it really is an Episcopal cathedral.

I've come to the conclusion, though, that they've finally gone off the deep end this fall and gotten all huggy-kissy-liberal. Not only have they hung all these bizarre, modern, pastel banners on the pillars in the nave (see the blue and green one on the pillar on the far right in the picture above—that was one of the best and prettiest ones), they've gotten so hippie-liberal they are now advertising a communion station featuring the Body of Christ in the form of gluten-free wafers.

Nevertheless, yesterday was Connecticut Day at the National Cathedral, so Laurent and I went up there to celebrate his home state. There was a big crowd there, so we ended up having to sit in the North Transept, giving us a side view of the crossing altar and pulpit.

The Connecticut people sent a bunch of banners and acolytes to the cathedral for the processions. They also sent their bishopess suffragan, who was the principal celebrant for the Mass. She seemed nice, and Laurent met her after the service.

The Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls sang the service. They started with Healy Willan's "Rise up, my love" as an introit sung a capella from the narthex. They did Ned Rorem's "All glorious God" for an offertory anthem, and I do believe that's the most melodic composition of Rorem's I've ever heard. It was a quiet, almost sweet, piece. The communion motet was a lovely "Cantique de Jean Racine" by Gabriel Fauré, one of my favorites.

Hymns were Abbot's Leigh (God, creator, source of healing) for the processional, Ellers (How like a gentle spirit deep within) for the sequence, Lucerna Laudoniae (God of mercy, God of grace) during post-communion ablutions, and Lobe den Herren (Praise to the Lord, the Almighty) for the recessional. In addition, instead of the Gloria, they sang a congregational hymn text to Lasst uns erfreuen as a "Song of Praise" and they did a text to The Eighth Tune ("Tallis Canon") as some sort of offertory presentation acclamation (where we used to sing the Doxology, before the liturgical reformers told us that was old fashioned and that we should go straight from the offertory to the Sursum corda). There really wasn't a Mass setting. They did the Sanctus from the Proulx A Community Mass and a "Christ our Passover" setting with which I was not familiar (but it sounded like a pretty little setting) and the identity of which is a mystery, since it isn't listed in the copyright notices in the bulletin.

Allein Gott in der Höh sei Herr, BWV 676, by J.S. Bach served as the organ prelude and the postlude was Bach's Praeludium pro Organ pleno, BWV 552.

Liturgically, they only did an Epistle and a Gospel reading (no Old Testament reading), and the prayers of consecration were not from any of the authorized alternatives in the Book of Common Prayer. They did Rite 2 language for everything, and several prayers (such as the Confession) were non-standard; they also changed the "It is right to give Him thanks and praise" to the inclusive language version. The cathedral dean preached a long sermon on reconciliation and forgiveness. Nothing was chanted, so it was almost a low Mass. The congregation also has to stand for everything, since the kneeling cushions were not put on at the chairs.

On the positive side, they've gotten rid of the Zoroastrian fire pots on the altar and replaced them with proper brass candlesticks. They've also put the choir back in the chancel, instead of in chairs behind the crossing porta-altar, but they still are putting chairs in the middle of the aisle for the choristers to sit. It's progress, though. Some day, I hope to get priests and liturgists there the choir can be proud of.

We didn't do much sight-seeing afterwards. Laurent was hungry, and wanted to eat post-haste, so we left in quest of a neighborhood restaurant.

Blessings through paper

We had quite the adventure for church today, starting off with a bus ride across town (it was too pretty out today to go underground) as we went to the noon high Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the Catholic University campus. Laurent had never been to Shrine or CUA before, so we got to play tourist. The Shrine is a fun place. It has quite a nice organ, and the building is beautiful (though acoustically challenged), but the 45 minute travel time discourages me from going often.

Today, the guest celebrant and preacher was the retired bishop of Scranton, who seemed to be a delightful man. He rather reminded me of an Irish Jimmy Stewart. Gave an interesting homily, too, about being buried with a rosary in one hand and a fork in the other.

The Mass setting today was the Palestrina Missa Aeterna Christi munera sung a capella by the choir (although they omitted the Sanctus and Benedictus, with the congregation singing the Proulx A Community Mass for those, the memorial acclamation, and the great Amen). The choir sang a lovely O Sacrum Convivium by Thomas Tallis as the post-communion motet and a rather short Benedic Anima Mea by Claudin de Sermisy for the offertory. All were a capella, as the nasty echo in the church makes it difficult to do organ and voice together. I only wish they wouldn't mike the choir, because it kills the choral blend and allows voices by the equipment to stick out of the texture. The amplification also detrimentally affects the cantoress, too, I think, since there's never any sense of vocal power from the speakers.

Hymns today were Lubeck (On this day the first of days) for the processional and Christe Sanctorum (Christ is the world's light) for the recessional.

Organ prelude and postlude were from Leon Boëllmann's Suite Gothique, Op. 25, with the "Introduction–choral; menuet" at the beginning and "Toccatta" at the ending.

I don't know why, but they never offer the chalice to the people at this place. For some reason, I always come away from Mass feeling a bit cheated.

After Mass, we had to walk around and look at the place. The Shrine is the largest Catholic church in the country, seaeting over 6,000, and is rather unique and unexpected with its contemporary take on Romanesque and Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture and interior art. In the basilica design tradition, it has a series of small side chapels along the side aisles flanking the nave and another series of chapels and a large crypt chapel (seating 400+) occupies the undercroft.




We ended up in the bookstore and the gift shop, where Laurent picked out a sterling silver Celtic crucifix for him to wear. Then, as we walked through the cafeteria, he espied a table of seminarians in their clerical uniforms and asked them to bless his crucifix for him, but they had to decline, since they hadn't yet been ordained. Then while we were walking through the crypt, another man in clerical garb walked by and Laurent stopped to ask him if he was a seminarian or a priest so he could get his purchase blessed. He was a priest. Well, yeah.....I didn't tell Laurent until after the fact, but the man he stopped was the rector of the basilica! LOL He patiently acquiesced to the request, but, no doubt anxious to move on, stopped Laurent from digging the cross out of the sack and box, saying, "Blessings go through paper, you know."

Sine Nomine procul sanus maximus

Last night was the Procession and Solemn Pontifical Mass in commemoration of All Saints' Day at St. Paul's K Street, and it was, as predicted, glorious.

The church was standing room only and they had to set up folding chairs in the narthex to accommodate the overflow crowd. Parish organist John opened the festivities with a prelude from the Chorale of Louis Vierne's Symphonie No. 2 in E minor. In fact, it turned out to be a big Vierne night, as the new interim choirmaster played the Final from the Symphonie No. 1 in D Major, and the Mass setting was Vierne's Messe Solennelle.

This is the first time I've heard the new interim choirmaster, who was imported from England for a year and started the first of September. He's younger than I had expected. I thought he took most of the music at a very fast clip, and he has an interesting habit of bouncing on his toes as he conducts. I was disappointed he didn't come up to the reception afterwards, as I would have liked to have made his acquaintance. I did see, though, the organist from the National Cathedral up there (the cathedral is very low church under the current dean and transfers the feast to the nearest Sunday, unfortunately).

Once the altar party and choir had taken their places in the sanctuary and chancel, the solemn procession led by an excellent thurifer (I always like guys with the courage to do "round the worlds" with the incense) moved around the nave, singing first Sine Nomine (For all the saints), then Lasst uns erfreuen (Ye watchers and ye holy ones). I liked the way John played the processional hymns, especially his tasteful use of the tuba mirabilis and other ear-blasting stops on the huge organ that expressed the festal nature of the occasion without leaving us in the congregation with tinnitus. Other hymns included Zeuch mich, zeuch mich (Who are these like stars appearing) as the sequence, St. Catherine's Court (In our day of thanksgiving) during the post-communion ablutions, and an obnoxiously high (several long high Fs) All Hallows (O heavenly Jerusalem) for the recessional.

The choir also did an Anglican chant setting by Thomas Attwood for the psalm (Cantate Domino) and the offertory anthem was Basil Harwood's "O how glorious is the Kingdom." To save time, the lengthy Agnus Dei from the Mass setting served as a communion motet.

As is the custom at St. Paul's, all of the versicles and responses, antiphons, Gospel alleluias, collects, Bible readings, consecration prayers, etc., were chanted, and the congregation even chants the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed. It's also a fun church, cause most of the congregation sings parts on the hymns.

The retired bishop of Bethlehem, Pa., was a special guest, and he served as preacher. He was very good for a bishop—only talked for fifteen minutes, and he was actually interesting.

After Mass, we had a lovely wine and cheese and hors d'oeuvres reception in the parish hall.

Here is a little 15 second clip (as soon as YouTube finishes processing them) of John's prelude:





and a little 30 second clip of Giles's postlude:

Westboro

A jury in Baltimore awarded $10.9 million in damages to the family of a Marine killed in Iraq against the Westboro Baptist Church, its "pastor" Fred Phelps, and two of Phelps' daughters, for their offensive actions in picketing the Marine's funeral in yet another chapter of their nationwide hate speech and pandering for media attention. Westboro is the cult from Topeka, Kansas, composed of various members of Phelps' extended family known for their offensive picketing around the country, more recently at military funerals, and their "God Hates Fags" Web site.

Congratulations to the jury!

Naturally, the Phelpses will appeal (Phelps is a disbarred attorney and most of his fourteen children are law school graduates), but I hope the appeals court will uphold the verdict. It sounds as though the trial judge was very careful to educate the jury about First Amendment issues and when a tortfeasor crosses the line into outrageous, unprotected speech. Now, I hope the soldier's family aggressively pursues collection so that that "church" is drained of assets and its ability to spew its venom around the country.

It's people like the Phelpses that give Christianity a bad name and make me not want to be affiliated with the religion.

Street preaching

It was a beautiful day in Tulsa today! After brunch, we drove around town a bit, stopping in at Oral Roberts University, where I got to preach at the front gate! LOL

These enormous praying hands originally graced the three-skyscraper "City of Faith" complex at ORU, where they used to have a hospital, medical school, and nursing school. When the hospital closed down, they turned the three buildings into general office space and had to move the hands to the main entry gate of the university. I thought I should go by ORU since it's been in the national news so much lately. LOL

I saw Richard Roberts on his television Bible show this week (the ORU stations are on all the local cable lineups), and, wow! he looks old now! Of course, he's 60, but he's still doing his smiley sing-speak routine with all his "deep meaning" and "expressiveness" like he was doing back when he and his first wife were still part of the ORU World Action Singers.

Quickie

Laurent and I went to Mass Sunday morning at St. Stephen. Just a quick in and out. It was kind of an odd Anglican music tribute day—the choir sang Charles Stanford's Beati Quorum Via (very nice) as a communion motet, a Kyrie from the Herbert Howells Mass in Dorian Mode (twas nice—they should sing the whole Mass setting), and the Agnus Dei from Gerald Near's Communion Service.....but then all the other service music was the usual odd mess of various modern Catholic settings. Hymns were Mit Freuden zart (Sing praise to God who reigns above) for the processional, Forest Green (Your hands, O Lord, in days of old) for the offertory, and Leoni (God is my great desire) for the recessional (why do they sing Leoni so often at this parish?).

Mozart on a Sunday morning

Every quarter, St. John's Lafayette Square has a special Sunday morning church service where they bring in an orchestra and they make use of it to enrich their worship experience, typically with Mozart Mass settings. Yesterday was one of those Sundays, so our good friend Max—a longtime St. John's parishioner—invited us to come down and hear the music.

We got there a little late and had to sit in the back row under the balcony. Before we left the apartment, Laurent had to change shirts four times before he was satisfied with his "look," and, still, he refused to wear a tie to match Ryan and me, as well as all of the other gentlemen (and most of their boy children) at the service. Methinks he's spent too much time with Catholics, who are known to wear any old thing to Mass, including shorts and t-shirts. We will eventually I trust, though, get him properly socialized for suitable Episcopalian company and society.

The centerpiece of the service was Mozart's Mass in C, K. 257. The chamber orchestra sounded very nice in the space, only marred a bit because the strings got a little out of tune by the Benedictus. The musicianship of the players was excellent, though, because they used their ears to tune together in ensemble passages. The fourteen-member St. John's choir provided the choral support, and the four soloists were taken from the choir.

They chose to do the Kyrie as a choral prelude and the Agnus Dei as a communion motet. In addition at communion, they did Alma Dei creatoris, The kindly mother of God the Creator, K. 277. Venite populi, Come, O people, K. 260, served as the offertory anthem. Also during the offertory they did Nun danket alle Gott as a congregational hymn. Other hymns included Austria as the processional, Cwm Rhondda as the recessional, and Azmon (O for a thousand tongues to sing) as the sequence (at St. John's, they do half the sequence hymn before and half after the Gospel).

It's always a pleasure to visit St. John's. They have an excellent music program, the rector is an engaging preacher, and the congregation is unusually friendly for an Episcopal church. But, sitting through a service always reminds me why I've never joined the parish: liturgy. They are a very low church parish, the clergy wears only albs and stoles during Mass (no copes or chasubles), they don't chant, they do that quasi-inclusive language liturgy nonsense (things like during the sursum corda saying "It is right to give God thanks and praise" instead of the correct phrase "It is right to give Him thanks and praise), and they abridge and rush through the actual prayers of consecration. They also have an unfortunate penchant for allowing priestesses to celebrate Mass; fortunately, the rector and one of the assistants were concelebrating, so the Elements were validily consecrated and we were able to receive.

Here's a picture of Laurent sitting in the "President's Pew" after Mass.

Umberto Eco on personal computers

Umberto Eco, the Italian novelist, medievalist, semiologist, and philosopher, compares Macs and PCs to the two main branches of the Christian faith: Catholics and Protestants.

The Mac is Catholic, he wrote in his back-page column of the Italian news weekly, Espresso, in September 1994. It is "cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach—if not the Kingdom of Heaven—the moment in which their document is printed."

The Windows PC, on the other hand, is Protestant. It demands "difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: A long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment."

Patron saints

Today is the feast day of two of the patron saints of homosexuals, SS. Sergius and Bacchus (the other patron saint, at least in some circles, is St. Sebastian, who is honored on January 20, or, for those Episcopalians who belong to Integrity, St. Aelred of Rievaulx, who's honored on January 12). I suppose that since this is a Sunday, the feast observance will be transferred to tomorrow, but October 7 is the official, traditional date.

In the early fourth century, Sergius (sometimes called Serge) and Bacchus were high-ranking Roman soldiers and Christians in charge of training young recruits, who were martyred because they refused to worship traditional Roman gods. They were apparently known as homosexuals and lovers (in the Middle Ages, it was believed that they had been joined in a union, much like marriage), because in their disgrace, they were stripped of their military uniforms and forced to ride through town dressed as women, in an early example of Army gay bashing. They were both beaten and tortured until Bacchus died. Sergius was then marched to another location in nail-studded shoes, and the night before he was executed, Bacchus appeared to him in a vision attired as an angel.

SS. Sergius and Bacchus are often cited these days in same sex marriages and union ceremonies. They are considered patron saints, not only for homosexuals, but for the persecuted or marginalized who dare to follow their heart and conscience in opposition to established authority.

Piccolo Mass

Finally made it to church for a change. We've been bad the last few Sundays. Ryan slept in, of course, but Laurent and I wandered over to St. Stephen for the 11 o'clock.

The choir sounded unusually nice today. They were doing portions (Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei) of a setting called Canterbury Mass by Anthony Piccolo. Piccolo is on staff at New York City Opera and has ties to D.C., having formerly studied at Peabody in Baltimore and having worked with the National Symphony and composed a number of works premiered at the Washington National Cathedral. I thought the composition sounded quite contemporary Anglican, and the choir at St. Stephen always sounds best when it does Anglican literature.

The rest of the mass setting was an odd hodge-podge with the standard Proulx Sanctus, and a new (for this parish) Memorial Acclamation and Amen by Leo Nestor, the director of choral activities at Catholic University here in town.

Hymns today were a rousing St. Anne for the processional, We nur den lieben Gott at the offertory (with the improvised accompaniment much more interesting than the hymn itself), and the well-known Wesley Aurelia, but instead of the standard "The Church's one foundation" words, they used one of those weird sets of Catholic words "O Christ the great foundation." Oh, and for the communion marching music the congregation never sings, they did "O blessed Savior now behold," one of those dreadful GIA songs that doesn't resolve at the end.

Communion motet was "Hear My Prayer, O Lord" by Henry Purcell.

This month, the parish is encouraging re-devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to the Rosary, with comments during the homily trying to tie our increased devotion to Mary to decreasing the horrendous, violent crime in parts of the world. I'm not quite sure how that's supposed to work. I was never very good at mariolatry, though.

I want to go to Mass here next week, cause they are singing parts of the Rachmaninoff Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but, alas, I think I'm stuck going to St. John's Lafayette Square next week with a bunch of friends to hear Mozart's Missa Brevis in F (with orchestra), followed by brunch. I just hope they have a real priest there to celebrate instead of one of their gaggle of priestesses.