Church reports

Ah, I'm just in from church, and I'm nibbling on some delectable slices of roast beef. Before I left this morning, I preheated my oven to 450º, then took half of an eye of round roast and jabbed it liberally with little slivvers of garlic here and there, put it in an open cast iron skillet, popped it into the oven and closed the door quickly, then reduced the oven heat to 325º. When I got home, it was black and crusty on the outside and oh-so-moist and juicy on the inside. Mmmmm.

Today is the transferred Feast of the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, so I thought it would be a fine day to pop in to St. Paul's K Street. The humidity is high today, so even after the short three-block walk to the church, I felt the blast of cold, heavily incensed air as I opened the door to the church. They considered this to be a secondary patronal festival, so they had an introit and procession. It was a lovely service, and not quite as stuffy as this church usually is. Of course, I'm sure my opinion was skewed since they sang one of my very favorite anthems for the offertory, Parry's "I Was Glad When They Said unto Me," and the recessional hymn (Lasst uns erfreuen) is also one of my favorites. The Parry was wonderfully done, and I had shivvers in my neck as they concluded. It helps that they have such a splendid organ in their worship space. The other anthems this morning were "Introibo ad Altare Dei" by Mark Dwyer for the introit and "Locus iste" by Anton Bruckner for communion. The Anglican chant for the psalm was by John E. West and the mass setting was the Communion Service in E (Collegium Regale) by Harold Darke. Additional hymns were Gonfalon Royal and Oriel for the processional, Wolvercote for the sequence, and a new hymn "In our day of thanksgiving" (St. Catherine's Court) on a program insert page that I didn't know for post-communion.

The clergy vestments were gorgeous today. Feasts of apostles and martyrs are "red" days, but most parishes don't have festal vestments for each of the liturgical colors, and make due with generic white and gold stuff, but not here. They had the celebrant in an elaborate red and metallic gold brocade cope with a fancy oversized hood and the deacon and subdeacon in red brocade dalmantics, with an assisting priest in a red cope as well. After the procession, they changed the celebrant's vestment, removing the cope and replacing it with a red and gold fiddleback-shaped chasuble (I haven't seen fiddleback-shaped chasubles in ages!).

I wore a blue and white seersucker suit, yellow bow tie, and white bucks to church, and one man (in a blue blazer, grey flannels, and bow tie) said, "My, don't you look Virginian today!" I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I also saw the cutest couple at church, probably both in their early thirties. The wife was wearing a pale khaki two-piece tailored suit with a damask pattern in the weave and some slightly sparkly stuff in the fabric on her top. She looked very elegant with her dark hair pulled back into a high pony tail showing her long neck and her drop earrings with five graduated pearls each. She wore bone high heels and carried a matching handbag. Her husband was in a blue blazer with khaki trousers the exact shade of her suit, and he wore a vest that appeared to be the same damask pattern as her skirt.

I forgot to write in my blog my previous visit to Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown. Grace is an old 1866-vintage church down by the canals and the river, and it's a tiny, historic building. It's also a small parish, with about 50 people in the congregation when I visited. They were very casual (I was the only one in a tie), and very friendly (unusual for an Episcopal parish!)—perhaps a little annoyingly friendly, however, cause during the passing of the peace, they were wandering around all over the church shaking hands with everybody, not just those in their immediate vicinity. When I left after the service, a greeter practically ran after me to welcome me and thank me for coming, and outside, I tried to slip around the priest shaking hands and chatting with another parishioner, and their youth minister ran after me to say hello and welcome.

There was no choir (off for the summer), so we just had organ accompaniment. The hymns were "Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation" (the Prince of Wales' favorite hymn) for the processional, "They cast their nets in Galilee" for the gradual (tune name Georgetown—how appropriate!!), "Where cross the crowded ways of life" (sung to Gardiner) for the offertory, and "The Church's One Foundation" for the recessional. The only service music was a Trisagion setting (S-102) I don't know and the Schubert Sanctus setting. The rector had a rather annoying habit of announcing all the bulletin page numbers, hymns, and explaining what was going to happen. It's not like they didn't have a full text service bulletin, you know, and I don't think anyone in the congregation looked illiterate or dyslexic or anything.

One of the good things about this parish, though, was that it was full of young families and children, and that's always a good sign of a healthy church. They are getting ready to start a three-week-long Bach Festival the end of the month, so I may wander back to listen to some of their guest groups.

Rooftop view

Wandering up to the rooftop to lay out in the sun seems to be a popular thing to do around here on summer vacation days. This is a picture of the view to the north from the rooftop of my building. You can see the Washington National Cathedral very well from that direction. It's not quite as close to here as it might look.....keep in mind that it's on top of "Mount St. Alban," which is the highest geographic point of D.C., and the cathedral building itself is very very large—they say one could lay the entire Washington Monument down the center aisle of the nave.

Oklahoma Day

Today was Oklahoma Day at the National Cathedral. This wasn't a big deal state day today—states have a "major state day" about once every three or four years (Oklahoma comes up in January 2006)—so there wasn't a special procession or reception or anything. They just include special prayers for the state during the normal liturgy, and that's it.

The church service was a little odd this morning, but I've come to expect that at the cathedral—they always try to be too many things to too many people. This morning's liturgy was taken largely from the new British alternative Book of Common Prayer called Common Worship, with some things from the New Zealand Book thrown in for good measure. As are so many things from Tony Blair's Labour Government, the new prayer book is modern, but lacks grace. The psalm was an Anglican chant based on Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" that just didn't quite work in my mind. Hymns this morning were Es flog ein kleins Waldvogelein, Nettleton, New Britain, Hollingside, and Austria. The offertory was Michael Tippett's "Steal Away" from A Child of Our Time and the communion anthem was Palestrina's "Sicut cervus." Their best choral work, though, was an anthem sung during the post-communion ablutions that wasn't listed in the program, so I've no idea what it was. The Mass setting was from Antonin Dvorak's Mass in D, which was interesting and well done by the cathedral's Choir of Girls and Men, but I always think that making a congregation stand and listen to choral settings of Masses is just bad church business, especially in these days of evangelical churches using rock bands and setting up the church campuses like a religious Disney World. I was even getting bored and wanting to sit down myself in the middle of the Gloria when it occurred to me that they were just then starting the "gratias agimus tibi" section of the Gloria! (for those of you who don't know Latin or the Catholic/Anglican rite, that's the third sentence of a long sung canticle of praise). The preacher was an older priest who kept talking about military history, current politics, foreign policy, and military spending in the Bush Administration, and I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Don't know that he did, either. I was also somewhat chagrined this morning to note that the principal celebrant of the service was a priestess, but, fortunately, one of her concelebrants was a proper male priest, so I was able to take communion.

Here are a couple more pictures from the cathedral. One is the back end of the Chapel of the Resurrection. The sanctuary of the chapel is often photographed in books and postcards because of the striking hemispherical mosaic over the altar, but I thought the back and side walls (which never get photographed!) were equally striking.



You probably can't see enough detail in these tiny blog pics, but several of those tiles are actually metallic gold. The final picture is the fountain in the courtyard outside the cathedral, where I listened to the carilloneur play for quite some time after the service.

Cinco de Mayo

Thursday was Cinco de Mayo.

After our business meetings in Albuquerque, I went out in quest of a Cinco de Mayo celebration. I'd been searching the newspapers and tourist guides, but nothing at all was mentioned, so I headed to the Old Town section of downtown Albuquerque, which includes the original plaza, church and buildings from back when Albuquerque was founded in 1706.

One of the more interesting things on the plaza was St. Felipe de Niri Church, the original church from the early days of Spanish colonization in New Mexico. It's a very small, narrow church, and I found the art and statuary to be particularly interesting. If you look closely at the figures in the reredos behind the altar, you'll see a definite "conquistador" theme with Jesuits and explorers. I gather the parish is more of a tourist attraction than an active parish, since there was only one Mass scheduled for the day, and there was no special Mass observance for Ascension Day, which it also was.....I guess I should have looked for a proper Episcopal church if I'd wanted to observe a holy day of obligation on its proper day, instead of being transferred to a Sunday.

May Day

Tis May Day today, and nobody sent me flowers. :(

Went to church at St. John's Lafayette Square this morning. This is the little crackerbox place that's just north of the White House known as the "church of the presidents." There are many things I like about this parish. The rector, Fr. Luis Leon, is a particularly effective leader and preacher, and they have a twelve member professional choir that does a fine job. The parish is friendly without being pushy, and they have strong youth and Hispanic programs. They're also involved in the community—this morning, they were seeking volunteers to help make 1,000 sandwiches to give away to the street people.

On the downside, the church is an old, cramped thing with very uncomfortable, ancient pews—the kind that has a central barrier running down the middle. It's located nearly a mile from home (not a big deal if one had a car, but in the district, since there's no direct bus or subway, that's a long walk). And, the most disturbing thing is their assisting clergy. This morning, the celebrant was a pregnant priestess. If that weren't bad enough, she kept changing the words of the litury, refusing to refer to "God" with masculine pronouns or calling Him "Father." I thought the only people who were in to that inclusive language litury crap were lesbians and feminists. What was particularly amusing during her "inclusive" liturgy was after one of the more egregious examples, a bit of plaster from the cupola above where I was sitting "dripped" down on me, making a splash mark on my blue blazer. Was that a sign of His displeasure?

Anyway, it was a pleasant walk to the church this morning. The ushers were all very chatty, and I found a seat in the "President's Pew"—George wasn't coming today, so it was available for common use—right at the Gerald R. Ford kneeler pillow. The hymns today were Creation, Sloane, Royal Oak, and a weird-word version of Forest Green. The mass setting was a hodge-podge, with a Rutter version of the Gloria (significant because John Rutter is a well-known, self-avowed atheist). They do Anglican chant for the psalms with a congregational antiphon. Offertory anthem was a Magnificat setting by Bryan Kelly that kind of reminded me of a French or English "Broadway" musical chorus with its cadence and modern chords, and the communion motet was a pleasant "I Am the Vine" by Linda Hoffer. They filled in the post-motet time with a Taize chant that the congregation didn't sing along to (I hate Taize) as requested. The postlude was Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster," and I forgot what the prelude was. On the steps outside the church after the service, the rector actually recognized that I wasn't a parishioner and introduced himself!

Don't know where I'll go to church in Albuquerque this week....Thursday is Ascension Day. And, it's also Cinco de Mayo, which may be a more fun thing to observe in Albuquerque! This will probably be my last post until I return Friday night.

Tartan kirking

This afternoon we attended the annual Kirkin' of the Tartans service sponsored by the St. Andrew's Society of Washington, D.C. at the National Cathedral. Our 3:10 bus never bothered to show up, so our 3:25 bus got us to Mount St. Alban's about 3:50. Since this service took the place of Sunday Evensong, I didn't know if it would take place in the Great Quire or if it would be big enough to overflow into the nave, but once we walked into the nave, my questions were answered. It was packed. The main nave seating was full of lads in kilts and obnoxiously bold tartan plaid sportcoats, and their womenfolk, some of whom had tartan skirts and sashes of their own. Even the side aisle seating was filling up, but I didn't want to sit in the aisles, since one can't see either the chancel or the crossing from there due to the enormous pillars. So, we wandered up to the North Transcept, which turned out to be reserved seating for the Society. I "innocently" asked an usher woman if all the seats in this section were reserved, and as she was explaining the section reservation, a male usher came up to us and said to her in a classic Scottish brogue, "Look at his tie, woman! Of course he can sit here!" I quite fortuitously had worn my family tartan tie this afternoon. So, we got prime seats. :-)

You haven't heard a racket until you've heard an entire bagpipe band with drums playing "Over the Sea to Skye" full tilt in a limestone pillared, marble floored, stained glass windowed cathedral. They processed in from the narthex, and stopped at the crossing, where they played for quite some time whilst the Society members, clan representatives, choirs, and clergy all processed.

I found the service music to be interestingly unusual for a Scottish service. Of course, it was, essentially, a Presbyterian rite, but still, I thought there'd be Scottish music. The three hymns were the English Lauda Anima, the Irish Slane, and the Russian Russia. And, every time I hear a hymn sung to Russia, I can't help but remember back to my youth and all those Order of the Arrow conclaves and ceremonies at Boy Scout camp. The usual cathedral choir and organists did not perform this afternoon. The choir was an all-girls' ensemble from West Potomac High, a snooty prep school in Alexandria, Virginia. The choir sang Mendelssohn's "Laudate Pueri Domimum" for a Gradual anthem and for the offertory a Psalm 23 setting by Z. Randall Stroope, a living composer who is neither a Scot nor a Presbyterian. After the sermon and offertory, the pipers returned in procession with the presenters of the tartans to "Highland Cathedral," and they all actually landed in the Great Quire, where the organ joined in, and I can't imagine the deafening noise there must have been in there! After the Necrology, the pipe major played a solo verse of "Flowers of the Forest." The recessional for the pipers and the Society members was "Scotland the Brave," followed by an organ postlude of the Toccata from Symphony No. 5 by the French composer Charles-Marie Widor.

My friend Michael from the Solicitor's office at work lives across the street, and he popped over and managed to find us sitting in the area where he usually sits for "normal" church. Here's a picture of Michael with me:



After the service, we kinda played tourist—I haven't been there since the last time I sang there, which was about 1985 or '86. One of the interesting things we found was a children's chapel, where all of the chairs, the altar, and the organette are "child-sized."



Here's the high altar, way up in the front, and also an exterior shot of the building.

Enthroning

Well, the papal enthronement is over. Turns out I was wrong about the date....it was this morning instead of yesterday. So, I watched it, at least from 4:30 on. It was interesting trying to figure out what the service was supposed to be called. CNN called it the "Inaugural Service" on their picture frame (was it recycled from Bush's two church services last January?), but when they cut away to other national news services, the other countries were using various forms of the words enthronement and coronation. When I looked at the Order of Service I got from Rome, it was written in Italian, and only said, "CELEBRAZIONE EUCARISTICA PER L’INIZIO DEL MINISTERO PETRINO DEL VESCOVO DI ROMA," which means "eucharistic celebration for the beginning/start of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome" ("Petrine Ministry" refers to St. Peter's work as the first pope). The Italian word for "inaugurate" is "inaugurale," while "inizio" comes from the verb "iniziare," which means "to begin." I guess the American networks are just trying to be anti-monarchial and democratic in their terminology, however inaccurate.

Anyway, it was a more interesting service than JP2's funeral. I think they had enough people complain about putting that long litany of saints after communion at the funeral, so they started the service this morning with it! And I was so glad they let just one representative of the College of Cardinals come up and kiss his ring instead of parading all 182 living cardinals down to do obeisance. His Holiness gave a very nice sermon, though my Italian sucks and I couldn't follow it all. It seemed very interestingly educational and historic, though. The only "policy" cue he gave was a good sign, and that is his wish for Christian and religious unity. He also invited representatives of the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church to attend, as well as some Jewish representatives. He gave homage to Jews and their role as God's chosen people. So, things are looking good for Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican/Jewish relations. I think he may have missed an opportunity to include Muslims, though. After all, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God and share the same Abramaic tradition, regardless of how poorly everyone is playing with others today. But, at least he's making initial overtures to other faiths, especially after the paper he wrote a few years ago as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and I've been encouraged in the past week that he's seeming to be more pastoral and consultative on issues, rather than taking a hard line on everything.

I think I figured out what's wrong with the Sistine Chapel choir and why I think they have been so unimpressive this month (other than the fact that the men sing flat and the boys don't stay together). One of my Catholic musician friends commented this morning that they are boring and sing everything the same way. Yes, that's true. But, what's behind that is the tradition of Gregorian chant in monastic worship. Remember a few years back when that Spanish monastery did an album called Chant that was on the top of the classical crossover chart for months? Remember how its beauty was in the tranquility of its musical worship? Chant is not supposed to be splendid, broad, emotional, and dynamic music. It is an aid to meditation and religious contemplation. And herein is where the fault lies. The musical directors of the choir have no flair, no style, no sense of selecting music appropriate to either an occasion or a location. Neither JP2's funeral nor this morning's enthronement took place in a monastic setting. Neither did they occur in the Sistine Chapel. They were outdoors in St. Peter's Square. Now, the choir and that awful, rinky-dink, portable, electronic organ they used were on the porch of the chapel, but still, they were outside. The resonance, echo, and reverberation of the chapel in which they are used to singing was not there. That is why they sounded so thin, and maybe even why they had pitch and intonation problems. So, for what they were doing, they were ok. They just shouldn't have been doing it. The problem was one of musical leadership and their boring, inappropriate, musical selections. This is a television age, and major international services need to have more of a sense of grandeur and even "Hollywood" excitement in the "soundtrack."

Now, how am I supposed to help local Catholic parishes have exciting, inspirational, religious music if their ultimate example—the Vatican—is boring, too?

Did anyone notice the organ postlude at the conclusion of the service? It was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, also known as the music from the movies Phantom of the Opera and Rollerball. I thought that very odd. Were they trying to scare us? Did Halloween come early in Rome? Was that a tribute to the Pope's German ancestry? Very odd. Very, very odd, especially when the Pope as cardinal was quoted as having said he preferred Mozart.

Saturday A.M.

Meant to get up early this morning to watch the papal enthronement, but I forgot to set an alarm, and I slept til 7, which is late for me. The ceremonies have lost a bit of their charm, though, since Paul VI sold the three-tiered papal tiara to raise money for feeding the poor and making the token gesture that "monarchial symbolism" for the papacy was no longer appropriate for the modern age, and since they no longer bear the new pope in on a litter chair. Since all they do is give the pope a new mitre, that's like no big deal, since Pope Rat already had a mitre ever since he became a bishop decades ago.

Pope Rat

Habemus papam, Josphus Cardinale Ratzinger, age 78, former archbishop of Munich, former dean of the College of Cardinals, former Hitler Youth, and former Nazi soldier. This guy is from Germany, a country where Catholic churches are down to half-empty pews on Sunday mornings, and still slipping. This is one of the two guys voting in the papal conclave who was not given his red hat by John Paul II. He is the guy who was the doctrinal disciplinarian of the Church as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (of Inquisition fame), and who succeeeded in squealching all discussion of religious topics in favor of "education" and stiffling "dissidents" who were trying to be progressive thinkers (kind of like Galileo was a dissident when he argued to the Church that the earth is round, not flat). This is the guy who blamed the pedophile priest scandal in the United States on the fact that some priests are homosexual (if you look at the evidence, not all of the pedophiles were gay and not all of the molested children were boys), who has publically stated that homosexuals are "objectively disordered and intrinsically evil," and who doesn't even think that the sexual abuse scandal is a problem. He is considered to be an archconservative, and even more conservative than was John Paul II. This is the guy who came up with the concept of "papal fundamentalism." This is the Vatican official who is so against the ordination of women to the priesthood that he even forbade the discussion of the topic. In fact, women may even lose their current roles as readers and eucharistic ministers, even altar girls—just last year, he wrote a letter to all the bishops of the church affirming the subordinate role of women and attacking feminism. And, this is the guy who, when faced with questions from Africa about halting the spread of AIDS, insisted that the Church's prohibition on birth control included a prohibition on condoms for HIV prevention.

So much for the adage, "He who goes into conclave a pope comes out a cardinal." The press reported (how do they know these things?) that he went in with forty-four committed votes. Sounds like he wanted it badly. Oh, well. The Catholics will do what the Catholics will do.

All I can say is Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Royal....um, wedding?

Well, I was going to do a blog post last night, but I was tired after dinner and after staying up most of the previous night to watch the papal funeral and fell asleep early. Just as well, I guess, since this gives me the opportunity this morning to watch that silliness over in Windsor Castle where HRH The Prince of Wales is having his civil union to the Royal Adulteress blessed by the Church of England. MSNBC was replaying the Charles and Diana wedding tape a little earlier, which I thought an odd decision on their part. Right now CNN is showing the blessing service guests arriving at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, and I daresay British millinery fashion is particularly hideous this spring.

"Jeeves" (Stephen Fry) has just arrived at the castle wearing a top hat and a bright yellow tie with his grey morning suit. The commentator said Jeeves is to be a reader at the service.

You know, I think Prince William is starting to lose his hair back on the crown of his head, just like his father.