A Long Goodbye

September 29 we celebrated the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels with a solemn mass preceded by a procession. Bp. Roskam was in attendance so we entered from the narthex after two entrance motets, during which I ran out of smoke for the actual entrance down the aisle. We put on more at the throne before the actual procession and it was the first of five trips up the steps, kneeling down and praying I could get back up without tripping. Luckily I had a boat girl who was actually helpful even while constantly asking how much longer it was going to be. Apparently she had other plans for the evening so I kept telling her "another 45 minutes or so" until we finally got through with the consecration, then I remembered we had to have smoke for the recessional. After 2 and a half hours we were back in the sacristy for the final blessing by Fr. Hitchcock as eighth rector. He seemed a little annoyed that the MC asked for a final blessing, since he had already given one at the altar.

We had a good crowd of about 150 with about 20 attending clergy. It was great to have Fr. Hoke as Deacon, substituting for Fr. Pyles, who suddenly had other commitments. Fr. Alan Chisholm gave the sermon, which began with a discussion of angels and ended with a tribute to Fr. Hitchcock's 35 years of ministry.

The reception afterward was fairly grand and we presented Fr. Hitchcock with a Romanian icon of St. Ignatius along with a velvet purse containing a certain amount of cash. He leaves to pursue a retirement phase that will contain interim ministry training and service and we wish him all the best and many thanks for 10 years of faithful ministry.