This is part two of a super-long post. Why did I break it into three parts? Purely for psychological reasons! If you are anything like me (a pity if true), coming across a 17 page, 4400 word blog post, your brain will shut down before even making it through the first paragraph. But coming across three, shorter blog posts, you are probably more likely to read them. I guess. I have no real data to back up my claim, but gut feelings count as empirical evidence, right?
Anyway, you can find part one by clicking this elegant and finely-crafted link. Now, onwards to part two!
Saturday, 1 June
Saturday held in store for me a very busy morning, necessitating me to forego serving at St. Mary of Victories Chapel. Instead, I heard an 8:00 Mass locally at St. Henry's Catholic Church. Whilst my usual manner is to show up three minutes before Mass starts, quickly vest, and serve, this morning I showed up an entire eight minutes early. Quite an accomplishment, right? Well, it's a good thing I did, because the lector had not shown up, compelling me to take both positions, and to spend time pre-reading the Epistle and Psalm.
From there, after a (regrettably short) time of thanksgiving after Mass, I hurried home to eat before having to head down to St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church (different than the one shown in the blog header) for 9:30
altar server training for the Sunday Corpus Christi procession. Being
senior altar server of the parish, M.C. for the Mass, and person in
charge of arranging the entire event, I had to be there not merely to iron out details of what we were doing, but to tell people what we were doing! As happens yearly, we were only able to scrounge up a bare minimum number of servers, so part of the time was spent reassigning and nixing roles and ideas. Alas. Training went relatively smoothly, but due to my tight schedule I had to leave early for my next destination, trusting that Father would fill me in on any significant changes to our plan.
My next destination was St. Francis de Sales Oratory, where I was scheduled as thurifer for an 11:00 Missa Cantata pro sponso et
sponsa — i.e. a wedding. My ornate, antique altar cards still being
in my car from the previous evening, and not wanting to leave them
there during Mass, I carried them into the sacristy with me, pretending
it was a totally normal thing for an altar server to do. (Though from
me I doubt much surprises them, anymore.) From here I must regrettably
say that my memory has largely faded due to the delay in writing this,
except that our organist decided to play an amazing postlude,
which went on for quite some time and required two assistants (not that I
stopped to watch him or anything as I was cleaning up . . . ahem), and
that I was called upon to help distribute Holy Communion after Mass to
people who had missed it the first time (during which the postlude may
or may not have still been going on). Alas, such vague memories give me
little opportunity for humour or commentary!
In the
evening, however, preparing for the morrow's procession, I spent a
significant amount of time shaving and modifying uncooperative
processional candles, including having to fabricating wicks for them out
of truncated toothpicks. Tedious, but fun times!
Sunday, 2 June
Now, for the big event! With much to do, I started the day early with 7:00 Mass at St. Teresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church, at which (in accordance with my normal practice of "showing up and serving however needed, and if not needed suggesting extra roles so that I can be needed") I was thurifer. After Mass I made a quick stop in the choir loft, and then hurried home to repeat the previous day's schedule ("eating before having to head down to St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church by 9:30"). Arriving before the end of the 8:30 Mass, I vested whilst happily singing along with Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus (K. 618) (which pleased me greatly to hear it being used) and then hovered in the back of church awaiting Father's blessing.
When the 8:30 Mass ended, it was straight to work preparing! Lots to do, coordinate and arrange. When the thurifer arrived, I pulled her aside (and outside) to walk through the rest of the training I had missed the day prior. As thurifer, she was the "next in command", so we needed to have our signals straight.
Compared to other years things actually went smoothly, and we were not
rushing until the last moment to prepare. Additionally, all of the
scheduled people actually showed up! In fact, right before Mass a
second flower girl even appeared, solving our dilemma of having an
overabundance of rose petals. One thing which was not resolved, however, was the processional music. In the end, it fell upon me to do all of the chanting myself. Thankfully I had anticipated this though, and brought multiple books of chant along with me.
So the 10:30 Mass begins, and all is going well. Being the standard Ordinary Form, there is not as much for a Master of Ceremonies to do, so I largely just stood to the side, doing the little which I could (e.g. opening the Missal before the server brought it to Father, rather than him having to do it himself). During the homily I snuck over to the organist to discuss the chants, and then into the choir practice room to match my pitch to his sheet music.
Now, the plan was for all of the extra people for the procession (baldachino bearers, flower girls, etc.) to congregate in the ambulatory after receiving Communion, where they could prepare for the procession. At the same time, the thurifer and I were to carry candelabra to the altar. Candelabra perfectly positioned, returning to the ambulatory I came across a sight which will strike fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned Masters of Ceremonies:
A liturgical dancer.
Immediately, a wave of panic came over me. "What the heck is going on here? What did they decide yesterday after I left? Do I really want to be here anymore?!" Thinking it out rationally, I soon realised that they intended to have her carry a banner in the procession, and she simply decided to . . . dress in a leotard and skirt. I suppose that's okay . . . relatively speaking.
Now
came time for the procession, and naturally things fell apart as we
tried to coordinate the servers, flower girls, et al. But we eventually
got underway, processing as we sang O Salutaris Hostia until leaving the church, at which point it fell upon me to cantor whilst simultaneously being M.C.
This year our procession route had two Stations, giving me three legs during which I needed to cantor. For the first leg, I went with Father Frederick Faber's classic and beautiful hymn, Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All.
However, I noticed the people in procession were instead saying the
Rosary and ignoring the hymn, so for the second leg I opted instead to
stay quiet and let them pray. However for the final leg, I had
pre-arranged with the organist to sing Pange Lingua, repeating
versus 2–4 until reaching the church, at which point he would pick up
with accompanying the chant and we would incense the Blessed Sacrament
during verses 5 and 6. After 10 verses we finally made it back, and
amazingly I had stayed on pitch the whole time! However, the organist
informed me that whilst I was in the right key, I was singing an entire
octave higher than the music was scored. Gotta love being an alto!
Arriving back at church we had Benediction, along with the standard prayers and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name. No one fainted, nothing was damaged, and we had a good turnout. So all together, it was a success!
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Enjoying a nice afternoon with my family and friends, then I made my way to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis
to serve at their 17:00 Mass and procession, as I have done in previous
years. However this year, showing up in the sacristy, I found a sea of
altar servers and was informed that they did not need me, so turning
around, I went back home. Oh well! A wonderful day, regardless.
You can find part three by clicking this elegant and finely-crafted link.
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Datum S. Ludovici, die VII mensis Iulii, in festo Ss. Cyrilli et Methodii Pont. et Conf., anno MMXIII.
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