Midweek musings

Sunday went well, I think. No one threw anything at me, though there was one famously cantankerous parishioner who wanted to argue with me about how The Passion of the Christ was anti-Semitic.

It was also instructive to experience all three services at Saint Swithin's, thought it was not a typical Sunday, since the Rector was out of town and lots of the parish was away on spring break. The early, said service was a by-the-Book Rite One, my favorite of the day. The middle, "contemporary" service used some unspeakable new service music that I sincerely hope never to hear again, a Marty Haugen atrocity that I remember well from my days playing lots of RC masses, and Eucharistic Prayer C, for which I must confess a strange fondness. The third, choral service had simply wonderful music from start to finish (overlooking, in Christian charity, the choir's massacre of the Psalm setting) and Prayer C again.

Then back in the evening for something new that has developed in the last month. It appears that the Rector got the "young adults" together to ask them what they wanted and the answer was Solemn Evensong. I kid you not. Every Sunday evening at 5:00 there will be Evensong with plainsong settings of the Psalms, canticles, responses, and prayers, plus incense. Afterwards the young adults have dinner together -- one of them cooks for everyone, generally. We were a small crowd (spring break, as I've said), but a few good voices singing the Psalms in a very generous acoustic make for a glorious time of worship.

I took Monday and Tuesday off -- I certainly needed the break -- and today it's back to work. I have to get my house ready to put on the market, and I need to do some serious reading for my book project.