Takin' It To The Streets

Since I had to work late at the salt mine on the "real" Corpus Christi, last Thursday, and missed the festivities at the Shrine Church, I decided to check out St. Mary's version with the procession through Times Square on Sunday. Gilberto joined me and Fishngrl and a good crowd at "the other Shrine Church" I used to call home for a few years. I'm just now able to go back there on occasion and not feel annoyed at how things have changed. They certainly have totally reinvented the High Mass with a modern Roman ceremonial but after all this time it no longer bothers me the way it did. Maybe I'm just preparing myself for the perhaps inevitable changes that lie in wait for us with the new rector, who will join us by Michaelmas, we pray. Until then I am off the rota and plan to spend some much needed time away visiting some of the other prayer shacks in town. This was the first Corpus Christi in several years that I was not MC, so it was nice to be able to just enjoy it without being exhausted from spending the whole day setting up and cleaning up.

The procession of the Blessed Sacrament through Times Square was quite brisk, with the wonderful but seldom seen "Electric Fan" monstrance causing New Yorkers and tourists alike to scarcely bat an eye it seemed. We started out with two thurifers but in the picture above there is only one so I'm not sure what happened to the other one along the way. I would love to get some of those outdoor torches and have our own procession around the block next year. This year I hear they didn't even have enough people for a canopy at home, and a top of one of the poles broke off anyway on Good Friday and needs to be (hopefully) resoldered. The fabric of the canopy is also on its very last legs so perhaps we will finally decide (as they did this year) that Jesus can take care of Himself and dispense with the thing. And no, we will not look for an ombrelino to replace it, please!

It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Eileen Whittle, an oldtimer of St. Mary's who died on May 28. I helped her with the altar linens for a couple of years and she was the sweetest lady I met there, unlike her cohort Marian (God rest her soul also), who was a real terror with the altar linens. I lived in fear of her finding any wrinkles or scorch marks, but life as a sacristy laundress was so much easier there with the laundromat in the basement and that huge altar-sized ironing board. I loved going out in the courtyard while I waited for the laundry and feeling like I was really in the heart of New York yet totally alone in that little concrete space. Oh well, someday perhaps we'll make space for our very own laundromat, in the dungeon no doubt.

My favorite moment (aka moment closest to Christ) was at the offertory hymn. Mr. McCormick just wailed so magnificently on that glorious organ during the improv on Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor, as the thurifer ran down and back up the aisle censing the congo. I always want to laugh at that wonderful bit of theater added by the current rector, but I can see that it makes "cense" in that large space. As always, Kenny's incense was just superb and far surpassing my feeble efforts. I really must somehow plant a spycam down there and find out how he does it.

Here our humblest homage pay we, here in loving reverence bow; here for faith's discernment pray we, lest we fail to know thee now. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Thou art here, we ask not how. Thou art here, we ask not how.

The Way We Were

On the first day of June I went out to Coney Island with five of my old friends from Texas who were up here for a few days. Believe it or not it is our 35th anniversary of graduation from high school! They come up every couple of years and we always have a great time getting into some exotic New York scenes. I heard they are planning to take down most of what constitutes America's Playground and build some condos in its place after Labor Day, so I thought it would be good to go once more and see if it had changed since my first summer in New York, the summer of Sam, the blackout and Elvis' departure. It hasn't changed too much in 30 years that I can tell, although it seemed much cleaner than I remember. The gals loved Nathan's and the Sweet Shoppe, and we rode the Wonder Wheel (86 years without an accident!), although the Cyclone was unfortunately closed to a private party. Luckily the Wheel and Cyclone are landmarked so they at least will remain, whatever development may sprout beside them. We left Coney and rode the F back to DUMBO, walked around and over the Brooklyn Bridge, over to St. Paul's Chapel and viewed the developments at the Freedom Tower before heading back to freshen up before Moon for the Misbegotten. Another Belton gal, now an attorney at the DOJ, flew up from DC to join us for dinner at Kellari and then the play. Of course they had to wait for Kevin Spacey to come out after and get their picture taken with him. He did a great job in a very long and emotionally exhausting play. I felt like I had been to the moon and back before it finally ended. We went over to Sardi's for a nightcap or two and ended up closing them down. I haven't laughed that much in a long time, reminiscing about all the crazy stuff we used to get up to in Belton, Texas, things you could never think of doing these days.

Trinity Sunday we had a rare and especially welcome visit from Fr. Howard Stowe, the seventh rector (1977-1994) as celebrant and preacher. It was great to hear him sing the mass again, still in wonderful voice. I got to sit in the Zabriskie pew undisturbed and the service was just transcendent, from the rousing Procession to the Rood singing St. Patrick's Breastplate to the ethereal Anerio mass setting. We seemed to all resonate as one again as the solemn mass hit the old Howard groove. I remembered fondly how consistent the sacristy was in those years under Fr. Stowe, things always done the same way and a yearly refresher course in how we always do it. No constant attempts to improve things, to question why things have to be done a certain way. No bad judgment calls on high feast days to have a verger instead of two torchbearers just because someone likes to stuff his pompous arse into that ridiculous verger costume and then insist on carrying the mace the wrong way. But let me not get started.

Fr. Stowe preached a marvelous sermon that actually made me almost understand the Trinity. At the end he recapped his last sermon as rector in January 1995 and urged us to "Remember who you are", as Lisa Simpson is told in one rare, very touching Simpsons episode. Indeed, we really did need to hear that at this time in our parish life. We are not St. Mary's, we're not St. Clement's and we're not St. Paul's K Street. We are our own special creation and I pray that the ninth rector will regain the running of the sacristy and the ceremonial from all the recent aberrations and acrimony. Until then I am going back on sabbatical from serving in order to preserve what sanity I have left.

After coffee hour Fr. Stowe led several of us around the church to once again give us all the history he knew about the various architectural details. I learned quite a few things myself. I think he was more than a little upset to see the Children's Altar unrestored after the work we had done last year (it had serious structural problems) and the plaque he had put up in the Chantry removed (not naming names), but otherwise things haven't changed very much. He was very impressed with the new Electric Room.

Then I had to rush down to meet the Texas gals for a matinee of The Pirate Queen, which was pretty entertaining. They had picked me up a hot pastrami sandwich from Katz's on the way so that was a most welcome treat since I spent coffee hour talking and taking pictures rather than eating. After the play we went down to John's Pizza on Bleecker Street and let me tell you, that really is great pizza. It was raining cats and dogs so after coffee and dessert at Cafe Figaro we went down the way to Marie's Crisis and sang the rest of the night away with a couple of wonderful piano men and a boisterous crowd belting out all the lyrics to every Broadway tune ever written (almost). Then a couple from Scotland showed up and we tried to carry on a conversation but the brogue was just impossible to decipher after 3 white russians and even before I'm sure. I did get a business card when I managed to understand that they run a restaurant called The Grail in Rosslyn! Somehow we got out of there way after midnight and laughed all the way to Penn Station where the gals got out for the Herald Square Hotel, a wonderful little hotel that used to be the Life Magazine headquarters. I was still laughing when I got to 86th Street. The next day we met for a final repast at Junior's in Grand Central before they waltzed back to the Lone Star State. Dream on, Texas ladies!