This morning

Two interesting things from my two masses this morning:

1) I do a 7:30 AM mass (ugh) in a small, rural parish outside of town on Sundays. The pastor is an elderly monsignor who I respect very much. When he worked at our Newman Center last year, he came into into my office once and randomly sing a chant Credo by memory, though he hadn't sang it since seminary (in the 50's!). A great lover of chant . . .

Anyway, this morning he mentioned after mass that he thought it was unfortunate that he couldn't do what he's done for the past how-ever-many years on the 1st Sunday of Advent at his previous parishes. Apparently, he would come in singing "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" from "Godspell", continually adding voices until the whole congregation was singing. Yikes. Praise Jesus he didn't ask me to do that this morning.

2) My organist is down with an illness and I actually had to play the organ for mass today. I was a bit anxious (as he didn't let me know about this until Friday), but I did alright. But I experienced something that I rarely have experienced since I came here a year ago; during the opening hymn ("O Come, O Come Emmanuel"), I heard the congregation singing.

Seems silly, I know, but we're up in the loft, and between my usually-robust choir and my organist opening up the pipes, I can rarely hear what's going on downstairs. Anyway, I had some light settings on for the chant, and the sound emanating from the nave was wonderful. It was good to hear.


BTW, this is post number 300!