Friday 24 May 2013

Ember Friday Missa Solemnis

Believe it or not, in all of my years of serving at St. Francis de Sales Oratory, I have never had the opportunity to be Master of Ceremonies for Mass.  For Adoration, yes.  At other churches, yes.  But there?  Not even once.

Today, however, an opportunity presented itself.  For a dear friend who is moving away, the parish came together to have a private, send-off Mass for her, with organ, choir, eight servers and four priests.  (Did I mention this was a private Mass?)

A week or so prior, she had asked me if I could "help organize the altar boys", but then provided me with an already-organised list of servers.  So, did that mean she wanted me to be M.C.?  I decided to seize the opportunity and went for it, using her request as my justification!

The Mass itself was liturgically interesting (albeit exactly as prescribed), in that it was Ember Friday in the Octave of Pentecost.  It is a penitential feast, but the octave compels a Gloria and Credo, as well as a sequence, and the Alleluia verse requires a genuflection.  (A nice, easy set of rubrics for a first-time M.C.!)  Being a first class feast, it could not be displaced, so we had no choice but to use it for her Mass.  For the commemoration we used the Missa Pro Papa, as is the custom of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.

Other than that, I do not think there was a single person who knew the full details of exactly what we were doing, and of them all I may have been the one with the most knowledge.  The goal was to have a Missa Cantata, with chants provided by some of her friends.  The sacristan, however, was unaware of this and, had I not informed him otherwise ahead of time, was intending to set us up at a side altar for a Missa Lecta.  To further complicate things, less than three hours before Mass was to begin, I received a call informing me that the celebrant had rounded up two other priests, and was intending to celebrate a Missa Solemnis.  Talk about progressive solemnity!

The choir itself presented more confusion.  As we prepared for Mass in the sacristy, the obvious question arose: which Mass setting as we using?  Ten minutes before Mass, no one had informed us!  The sacristan suggested simply using the intonations of Mass VIII (Missa de Angelis), but a server informed us that they might instead be using Mass XVIII (Missa "Deus Genitor alme"), prompting a quick exchange of quizzical looks between us all.  In an attempt to resolve this we called the choir loft, but to no avail.  So the sacristan again suggested Mass VIII, and this is what we used.

However, they were, in fact, using Mass XVIII.  In and of itself this might not have been a big problem, since even with the wrong intonation they could have recovered and used their intended setting.  Another issue arose, though: Mass XVIII is for penitential Masses and contains no Gloria.  None of the choir members (seemingly) having consulted the rubrics for the Mass, they were unaware that there even was a Gloria!  So Father intones from Mass VIII, "Gloria in excelsis Deo".  You could hear the crickets.  And then the pins dropping.  After a very long delay (during which I can only imagine what looks were exchanged, and conversations transpired, in the choir loft) a Gloria finally emerges.  Mass IV (Missa "Cunctipotens Genitor Deus").  Well, okay.  It works!

Now, I was not without blame in the mess as well, since it was my first Missa Solemnis.  Having been prepared for a Missa Cantata, I was given a very quick run-through of the rubrics, and the entire time was only about ten seconds ahead of everything, mentally.  Amazingly I made only a few, minor mistakes, but the biggest of them was certainly with the birettas.  Oh, the birettas.  With no practice, attempting to hold three birettas in one hand whilst still retaining the ability to give signals.  I found a way, but in the shuffle lost track of which belonged to whom!  Thus ensued a rousing game of "Musical Birettas", wherein each time the clerics donned them, they had different ones.  This might not have been too bad, except for the fact that they all had widely varying hat sizes, resulting in birettas either forming a brim over their foreheads, or having to simply balance on top of their hair.

In addition to this, I was also requested to make handouts with the propers for the Mass, which I was all-too-happy to fulfil.  It took some effort with the formatting, but I think it came out well.


In the end, despite many glitches, the Mass went well.  Excellent servers, a beautiful choir, a wonderful organist, and a truly caring parish.  For such a dear friend, she deserved no less.

(Other recountings of this Mass may be found on the Soul and Soil and The Greatest Tragedy blogs, the former of which is run by my aforementioned dear friend.)

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Mass heard: 07:30, St. Clare of Assisi; 19:00, St. Francis de Sales
Serving streak: 1 day

Datum S. Ludovici, die XXVII mensis Maii, in festo S. Bedae Venerabilis Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, anno MMXIII.

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