The Feast of St. Ignatius

The Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Tonight was Fr Blume's first mass, a low but spirited celebration in the Lady Chapel on the Feast of St Ignatius, which we will solemnize on Sunday. Fr Blume brought his own wonderful red and gold solemn set which was just stunning to behold and even had a nice appareled amice. It was supposed to be a mass for just the vestry before their first meeting with the new rector, who isn't even on the payroll yet but has done a full month's worth of work already since being chosen. He managed to even transfer the website over today to a new address under the diocese and Fr Blume's wife has graciously accepted the job of webmaster and designer. I am glad to have one less thing to do every week, although I enjoyed learning about web design. I hope to do more of that in the future and will continue to contribute photos and reportage for our site, starting with this Sunday, which should be a very joyous Feast.

Last Sunday I came in a bit late for Solemn Mass, during the first hymn actually, so I missed the mistaken funeral tolling in place of an Angelus. Not sure how that happened, but soon after the hymn ended I saw a lot of scurrying about up at the altar and wondered what on earth could be going on. When the MC asked an acolyte to go back and report something to an usher, I knew there must be trouble. I had just settled into my pew and was looking forward to dozing through our last Sunday in limbo when suddenly I had to spring into action as the acolyte reported that the waters of Babylon were flowing behind the altar. (Interesting, the choir sang a motet about that very subject at the offertory.) I recalled that I had turned the boiler on Saturday as it was a bit nippy and heating season was due to start on Monday. Sunday morning was cool enough to get the boiler churning and suddenly right before the 11:00 Mass a pipe erupted and began spewing hot water from the century old radiator behind the High Altar. I went down to the dungeon, turned off the boiler and went into the kitchen and got a big roasting pan to put under it and the water got collected in there until after Mass. A quick call to our boiler guru made us gulp our coffee and get back to the boiler room to put a hose under it and drain all the water out of the system so the leak finally stopped a little while later. Now we await our master plumber to hopefully repair the leak for now while we ponder replacing the element, a pretty major job I imagine. And just when I was hoping to spend some money to beautify the place, we have to go back to some unseen basics. But I believe we are on the eve of a new and more glorious era at the shrine church. Tonight was a wonderful beginning.