After the Deluge

We celebrated the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels last night with a procession and solemn pontifical mass, Bishop Roskam celebrating and preaching. We had a pretty good crowd of mostly visitors and the music was offered by our new ensemble in residence, Tenet, a quartet of singers who did a fine job on the anonymous 14th century French Messe de Tournai and the motet “Factum est silentium” by Alessandro Grandi (ca. 1575–1630). I was subdeacon and got to sing the wonderful passage from Revelation about Michael and the dragon. I was thankful that we have inherited the notated epistle chants from St. Paul's K Street after they decided to switch to the new common lectionary, so I didn't have to write it out myself.

The organ is operating at about one-quarter of its capacity after the organ chamber was soaked a couple of weeks ago by a failed water heater which had inexplicably been installed above it about 20 years ago. It was an accident waiting to happen and in spite of my best efforts to get it removed in recent months, it finally could hold out no longer and burst at the top and bottom, sending about 50 gallons of water down the floorboards and flooding three-quarters of the pipes. Our organist gave me a tour of the damage that evening and it was a sight I had always dreaded to see. I had been aware of the danger for about 8 years since I took over as Building & Grounds chair, and the removal of the water heater had always been on the to-do list, but there was always some more pressing emergency that demanded our attention and money. This spring we finally got the money to do the work but the summer went by with one thing and another stalling the work until finally time ran out. Perhaps it will work to our benefit, making lemonade out of the lemons as the rector put it, and we will actually get enough insurance money to do all of the work on the organ that has been needed for a long time. Let us pray.