High Church

The End of the Rainbow

2010-05-03T20:43:00.004-04:00

The picture above does not quite capture the beauty of the rainbow that seemed to come straight down to the hood of the car as I drove along I-80 approaching Roanoke, VA, on my way home from two days in the Cherokee Forest. This was actually the third of four such rainbows that appeared one after another along the highway during a hail and thunder storm that lasted for hours as I drove slowly along, at times barely able to see. I finally pulled over both for safety and to try and capture this third rainbow. The first one was even more dramatic as it appeared to actually touch the ground on the side of the road. I fear that gawking at these awesome spectacles may have helped cause the dreadful tangle of 3 big rigs further up the road that slowed traffic to a crawl for over an hour and it's probably fortunate I pulled over when I did.

The two days I spent with buddies David and Tom in the Cherokee Forest were filled with many other wonders of nature that were a healing balm for city-sore eyes and ears. The first night we were treated to a symphony of forest creatures, frogs, insects and birds, as they wove their voices in and out through the whispering trees. David made us try and guess which voices belonged to which species and how many different tones each family were producing.

We had spent most of the daylight hours driving around and seeing the main attractions of the terrain and then settled in with a nice campfire to enjoy the sounds of the forest accompanied by a spectacular light show of fireflies, the first of the season that David had seen. It was also the first day it was warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirts, and we sat comfortably in the fragrant open air without even the worry of biting insects. Time seemed to stand still and then suddenly it was 3:15 and we decided we had better get some sleep. My tent was cozy and I slept well, not even waking up once, although David and Tom thought I was a sissy for not sleeping out in the open like they did. Maybe next time!

The next day we arose at 8am and went in to Tellico Plains for a hearty country breakfast, then spent most of the day driving around the area, up to the highest peak, and visiting two Indian museums and Fort Loudon, a recreation of the original outpost. I learned alot about the sad history of this region and the former Cherokee nation capital that now sits underwater, flooded for a reservoir after the government moved the Cherokees to a reservation in North Carolina.

It started raining in the late morning and continued raining until the next morning, at times with very high winds and the occasional startling thunderbolt. We came back to camp in the late afternoon and decided we all needed a nap, so we spent a couple of hours each in our own cocoons, listening to the sound of the rain and the increasingly high winds. About 7:o0 we arose and began to prepare for a long rainy night with no campfire, huddled under Tom's tarp with our chairs and David's camping candle and kerosene lantern as our only lights. Just as we were about to start mixing the cocktails a ranger walked into the camp and shone his flashlight around, looking for evidence of alcohol or other illegalities. It was like deja vu all over again, but luck was with us as we had not yet brought the goods to light and we spent a few awkward moments chatting with the ranger about the impending storm. He reassured us that the tornado watch had been canceled, although we could expect high winds and alot of rain, which indeed was the case. We were most afraid of trees falling on us, and discussed which way it was best to run in the event we saw one falling, but fortunately they all stayed put. We told ghost stories and other tall tales as we sipped our forbidden cocktails and tried to keep the tarp from flying away.

The wind and the rain finally got the better of me and I went to my tent around 1:15, more afraid of a flood than anything. I lay awake for quite awhile watching an intense light show on the ceiling of my tent from the constant lightning that was strangely unaccompanied by thunder. It rained so hard for so long that at last I really had to get out to make an outhouse call and prayed that it would stop for just awhile. Finally it did let up for a few moments and I managed to pull on my rain gear and struggle out of the tent, but just as I was making my way out it started raining very hard again. I didn't think I should try to hike the 100 yards uphill to the outhouse, so I must confess I had to just take care of business behind the camp, praying I didn't fall or get washed away before I could get back in the tent. When I finally made it back into the tent I had to change clothes because I was soaked, but I was so worn out I managed to sleep away the rest of the night.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear and this part of the world anyway seemed washed clean as we made our way back into Tellico Plains for a final breakfast before we went our separate ways. It was a wonderful 48 hours that I will long remember and the four rainbows that I witnessed a while later seemed to promise that the good times are not all in the past.

Tom, David and me in Tellico Plains, TN

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
- Paul Williams

Blazing Candles

2010-02-03T21:45:00.004-05:00

“Through the intercession of St. Blase, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from ailments of the throat and from every other evil. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Blessing of St. Blase).

We know that Bishop Blase was martyred in his episcopal city of Sebastea, Armenia, in 316. The legendary Acts of St. Blase were written 400 years later. According to them Blase was a good bishop, working hard to encourage the spiritual and physical health of his people. Although the Edict of Toleration (311), granting freedom of worship in the Roman Empire, was already five years old, persecution still raged in Armenia. Blase was apparently forced to flee to the back country. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but made friends with the wild animals. One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheater stumbled upon Blase’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions and bears.

As the hunters hauled Blase off to prison, the legend has it, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat. At Blase’s command the child was able to cough up the bone.

Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia, tried to persuade Blase to sacrifice to pagan idols. The first time Blase refused, he was beaten. The next time he was suspended from a tree and his flesh torn with iron combs or rakes. (English wool combers, who used similar iron combs, took Blase as their patron. They could easily appreciate the agony the saint underwent.) Finally he was beheaded. (from AmericanCatholic.org)

I always love the Feast of St. Blase, which we usually commemorate after the Candlemas ceremony, with a throat blessing in the chapel with two crossed candles. We have a rather arcane device which holds the candles, and legend has it they used to be lit as in the drawing above, but now we just tie a red ribbon around two beeswax candles (unlit). St. Mary's still uses lit candles held by a very peculiar looking contraption, quite dramatic and rather scary I must say, to have your throat between two blazing candles. This year we will have this rite on Sunday, which will also be the Feast of the Dedication.

Last night we celebrated the Feast of Candlemas in grand High Church style, with newly restored proper ceremonial for the candle blessing and procession. The past few years various MCs and priests had tinkered with the ceremonial to try and streamline things, rushing a service that defies being rushed, to the point that we had lit all the aisle candles and extra altar candles beforehand, which kind of defeated the purpose of lighting all the candles from a single flame. It was wonderful to finally do it right again with the ancient ritual, starting out in semi-darkness, then watching the place gradually fill with light as the choir sang the Antiphons. We processed around with a decent size congo (about 55, mostly visitors) in the semi-darkness (finally got that setting right also, last year it was way too dark). I was subdeacon and got to chant the epistle to the Hebrews in the solemn tone. We were honored to have Bishop Andrew St. John with us, preaching a fine and entertaining sermon that included his Candlemas adventures in Australia where it was the middle of summer and often hot enough to melt the candles before they could get lit. He also gave us a great new term for high church: a "tabby and six" as they say in Oz: a tabernacle and six high altar candles. The choir did a splendid job on the Missa “Ave regina coelorum” of Dufay and the altar party did fine even without a rehearsal with the added pontifical elements of the Mass. All in all a splendid celebration which ended with an auspicious snowfall, which supposedly means there will be an early Spring.

"If Candlemas be fair and bright, Winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, Winter will not come again."

A Deep and Dark December

2009-12-31T19:03:00.000-05:00

It was a cold and gloomy Advent for the most part, with two solemn requiems in the second week, for Alan McClare and Don McCall. Fr. Hitchcock came back for both and preached at Alan's. He and Alan were friends since grade school in Bronxville so it was a very emotional farewell for him especially. I was subdeacon and managed to save my tears for later. It was a white mass of the resurrection, as was Don's, although Don had a real solemn requiem with the Missa pro Defunctis of Victoria. We laid Don to rest in the columbarium right under Murray Kempton and the large crucifix, only about 10 feet from where he used to sit right behind the organ.

Alan's family apparently have a horror of high church and insisted on a streamlined, rather low service, no choir and very minimal music and incense, and no reception afterward so it felt rather unsatisfactory to many of us who knew Alan. His ashes were taken away for a resting place unknown.

I was hobbling during Alan's requiem with a pulled left thigh muscle and it got worse after that. I had to be MC for Don's requiem a few days later and managed to get by with a lot of help and mastering the art of the faux genuflection. It has gradually gotten better and I am relieved it doesn't seem to be permanent arthritis or something quite yet. I must get back to the gym next year and also lose the 10 pounds I've gained.

Christmas Eve I was thurifer and managed to provide some really good smoke but apparently I put a little too much myrrh in the blend as the rector was coughing and said it smelt too much like Lent. Well you have to take the bitter with the sweet I guess. I slept in Christmas morning for the first time in many years, as I wasn't scheduled to serve, then headed out to Forest Hills for a wonderful Christmas with my brother Gene, in from Denver, and Laurie's gang. It was great to see my old Gibson bass restored, courtesy of Gene's friend in Denver, and Evan promising to learn it.

I resigned as chair of Building and Grounds during Advent, after 8 years on the case. It seemed like a good time to move on at the end of this old decade of leaks, floods, infestations, upgrades and restorations. We got alot done but much remains to be done and very little money to do anything at the moment. I look forward to going back on the vestry next month and trying to move some things along and help out in other ways, but someone else needs to have some fun now trying to keep up with this old house. I'm sure I will still be prone to noticing every lightbulb that needs changing but I hope to depend on someone else to go get the ladder.

Autumn Leaves

2009-11-30T21:52:00.001-05:00

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Cor. 15:51)

November always makes me shiver and the autumn leaves this year around St. Ignatius seemed to remind me more than usual of things past and things gone forever. We commemorated All Souls on November 2 with a solemn requiem (Victoria's Missa pro Defunctis) and absolution at the catafalque (the so-called absolution at the catafalque, as Fr Weatherby always added). I was subdeacon, a role I had seldom played in requiems, and I got to sing the wonderful epistle from Corinthians about death and resurrection, which always makes me feel better in spite of how illogical it all seems.

After Alan McClare's tragic death (his solemn requiem will finally be on December 12) we had hoped that would be enough death for a season, but sadly we only had a couple of more weeks until Don McCall fell and cracked his head and died 10 days later. Somehow Don's death hit me very hard even though I could see it was perhaps the only rest the poor man would ever know in his ill-fated life. He had been around the church for over 20 years, having been baptised one Easter Vigil, an event that he always mentioned whenever he spoke to me, and I sensed that it was truly the most wonderful event of his life. He had so many physical and mental problems, but he was always cheerful, always had something funny to tell, and always forgave my temper tantrums that he sometimes evoked, such as the times when he felt the need to take home the bathroom soap, not realizing it left other people stranded. After I found out it was him and explained it to him, it never happened again. He had a bit of a drinking problem also, which made it often necessary to ask him to leave the soup kitchen, where he always helped out as best he could on Saturday afternoons, in spite of only having one semi-workable hand. He would sometimes get unruly in concerts, which he loved to attend, and last year had to be taken away in an ambulance after he fell over on his pew and couldn't be roused. But he always came back and we always welcomed him and several of us tried our best to help him. St. Ignatius was a stable environment that he felt safe in and the past year he had also been attending the City's outreach program run in our undercroft, The Other Place. He had been making a lot of progress in recent months and the last time I saw him he seemed like alot of healing had taken place. But sometime around Nov. 19 he fell and cracked open his head. He never regained consciousness and died on Nov. 29. Fr Blume and a few others from church went and last rites were given. He will be buried in the columbarium in a niche donated by the church. May his soul and those of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

Strangers and Pilgrims

2009-10-31T23:19:00.004-04:00

These stones that have echoed their praises are holy,
And dear is the ground where their feet have once trod;
Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims,
And still they were seeking the city of God.

Remembering George Blackshire, who died October 5 at the age of 85. He had been a trustee of St. Mary the Virgin for many years and was in his latter prime when I was there. He was also the head of the Brother Lawrence Guild and for many years was in charge of the hospitality after services. Although he disapproved heartily when St. Mary's went to Rite II, he remained loyal when others fled to more traditional parishes. As expected, he had requested a solemn requiem with black vestments and the Faure Requiem. I'm sure he would have been happier with a true solemn requiem with subdeacon instead of the missing man formation now in effect at St. Mary's, but the Faure was divine and the reception afterward adequate, although I missed the sherry and jalapeno jack that were regular staples of George's receptions.

We were also notified of a sudden farewell by Alan McClare yesterday, of as yet unknown causes. Alan was a longtime vestryman and warden of St. Ignatius who had in recent years been absent from our midst. In keeping with recent history of male wardens, he had disappeared soon after being relieved of warden duty, for reasons still unclear. I wish now I had made more of an effort to keep in touch, as he was such a constant figure in our parish life for so many years and did so much for so long. I was just thinking of him rather vividly the day before and wondering what had caused him to suddenly disappear. Now I guess we'll never know.

After the Deluge

2009-09-30T21:05:00.006-04:00

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.

At the Shrine of the Muse Divine

2009-08-28T21:41:00.007-04:00

O Sound the call to dear old Interlochen
Land of the stately pine
Where stalwart hands and loyal ever greet you
Faithful to Auld Lang Syne
Old friends you'll greet, new ones you'll meet
A welcome you'll ever find
So sound the call to dear old Interlochen
Shrine of the Muse Divine!

It was like Woodstock on Grand Traverse Bay for 4 glorious days of music, peace and love at the unofficial 1969-72 Interlochen Arts Academy reunion held August 5-9. A week later would be the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and also the 40th anniversary of the end of my first summer at Interlochen. I was just out of 9th grade and played bass clarinet that summer on a scholarship from the Texas Music Teachers. I was a stranger in paradise there amidst all those gifted youth from all over the world and often felt like I would never keep up with all that talent. I couldn't wait to return the following summer, however, this time playing bassoon on another scholarship from the Texas Music Teachers. I had a lot to learn about the bassoon but made a quantum leap that summer and the next, finally getting into the World Youth Symphony the summer of 1971 and then aspiring to get a scholarship to the Arts Academy for my senior year. I didn't quite believe I would actually get to go to the Academy since I needed virtually a full scholarship. These days the tuition is $42,000 and I don't know how anyone can afford it. Back then it was about $5,000 but that was way more than we could afford. My only hope was that they needed another bassoon badly enough to finance me for the year. I went back to my senior year in Belton the Monday after camp was over and started marching band practice, waiting without much expectation for a couple of weeks before getting the call that I had a scholarship.

I had not been back to Interlochen since the summer of 1974 when I was on staff, working in the library and music library. I was glad to see things have changed only for the better, with several new buildings, including a new concert hall, theater, recital hall/chapel with pipe organ, art building and creative writing building. The Bowl has nice new seating and the old gym which doubled as a concert hall was reborn as a fantastic new library and music library. The only thing I could find to criticize was the women's dorm which seemed rather in need of a facelift.

The week we were there was the week after the Music Camp, which only lasts 6 weeks now (it was 8 weeks in my day), so we had pretty much the run of the place. The marching band camp seemed to stay mostly on the boys side and the adult band camp was always practicing somewhere, so I had a lot of quiet time to wander through all the various sites, some of which I had never seen since they were off limits in camp and academy days. The high school girls camp brought back so many great memories, as did the high school boys. Somehow everywhere I went I ran into inspiration and encouragement, from the words carved into a picnic table ("I can do all things through Him who gives me strength"), to the Linus cartoons with Lucy's laments about falling in love with a musician, which were present also in my day, to the pictures and mementos in Giddings Concourse, which has that same smell it had 37 years ago. There is a timeless feeling about Interlochen that I had almost forgotten, the pure clean pine air (no smoking allowed on campus), the almost deafening quiet save for the wind in the pines and gentle lapping of the lake.

There were about 45 people there from that era who had all reconnected through Facebook and decided to get together unofficially. We rented a recording studio in Traverse City for two nights and about half of us played, sang or otherwise entertained in what was truly a transcendental experience. I never expected to hear so many great tunes done so awesomely. What a lot of gifted geezers we have among us! Truly amazing talent which was streamed in a live webcast and is now being made into a DVD.

The last night we got back from the concert about midnight and decided to make s'mores on the beach behind Kresge. We had a few bottles of alcohol also, but were busted by the security guy for drinking on campus shortly after we got there. We had to pour some of it out on the sand, but a couple of bottles survived and we continued the party after he left until 5:00 when the same security guy came back and advised us that a storm was fast approaching. By this time the last bottle had been drained and we were all getting very silly and would have probably sat there and gotten drenched if he hadn't insisted we leave. We had been watching the lightning get closer and closer from over Lake Michigan and made it out just in time before the heavens opened.

The next morning was Sunday and after only a couple of hours of sleep we got up and had a spirit circle at Cindi's beautiful cabin, where the heavens opened again as we shared our thoughts and experiences from the reunion and what Interlochen and the people we have met there have meant to our lives. I struggled through my own unexpected tears of joy to express my gratitude for the gift of Interlochen in my life, and thoughts of all my newfound friendships sustained me in a very long and agonizing trip back to reality.

Moonrise over Lake Wahbekaness

St. Joseph of Arimathea

2009-07-31T23:13:00.005-04:00

Almighty, everlasting God, Who didst entrust Thy most blessed servant, Joseph, to take down the lifeless body of Thine Only-Begotten Son from the Cross, and to perform the due offices of humanity, hasten, we pray Thee, that we, who devotedly recall His memory, may feel the help of Thine accustomed pity, through the same, Our Lord. Amen.

The Glastonbury Hymn

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon her clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded there
Among those dark Satanic mills?

- William Blake

Lauda Sion

2009-06-30T21:10:00.001-04:00

Doth it pass thy comprehending?

Faith, the law of sight transcending

Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden

Priceless things, to sense forbidden,

Signs, not things, are all we see.

We celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 11 in grand High Church style. We were a little bit light on altar servers but we had a great crowd for once. We were treated to a wealth of wonderful music in our choir's last appearance for the season, starting with the Mass in g-minor of Ralph Vaughan Williams and the motet O sacrum convivium by Thomas Tallis. Canon Osgood gave a very entertaining and edifying sermon, and we also had the Rev. Woodward from London in quire as well as Deacon Paul, so it was a lively event that went pretty well considering we didn't have a rehearsal. It was Craig's last appearance as MC and by the time it was over he seemed to be glad that the mantle had been lifted from his shoulders and I even felt a little envious of his newfound freedom, I must say. Our other retiring MC Frank was not able to attend, sadly, and it was the end of 22 years of altar service for him and about 10 for Craig at St. Ignatius and close to ten at SMV before that. In spite of all the arguments we have had over the years, I will miss their wisdom and grace under fire.

The procession and Benediction after Solemn Mass was the usual near chaos but we managed to wing our way through it even with the mixed signals and sotto voce stage directions from several quarters. The immortal words of Fr Wells again echoed in my mind a few times, wondering "will we ever learn how to do Benediction?" We had no torches but we did have two thurifers, I being one of them, and we had pretty good smoke up until we got back to the altar for the Tantum ergo (Elgar). There was just too much music, as beautiful as it was, having started out with Elgar's O salutaris hostia, then processing around slowly and by the start of the Tantum Ergo my coals were dead and we still had to get through the Te Deum (Vaughan Williams). The second thurifer had better luck with the bigger thurible, so we had a respectable amount of smoke, but not nearly as much as you should have for a Te Deum. It was really too much to add that on after Benediction and it made the service 2 hours and 20 minutes long, which is almost as long as the Easter Vigil. It was glorious but I think Te Deums should be done either on Trinity or at the Feast of Dedication. A hymn to end Corpus Christi is a lot more reasonable even for someone who generally says too much ain't enough.

Now we are into summer and everything is much simpler, with just one sung mass on Sundays. There are no urgent building projects at the moment so I have finally found some time to get back to my candle recycling project and have been spending one night a week in the kitchen making bottle candles and votives from melting down old candle stubs and paschal candles. We have amassed quite a bit of wax the past few years and it's a shame to let it go to waste. It's actually rather fun now that I've gotten the hang of it. Keeps me off the streets anyway.

25 Years On

2009-05-31T20:38:00.003-04:00

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful;
Enkindle in us the fire of your love

I guess this painting gives a precedent for standing, sitting and lying on the altar, but I'm sure on the first day of Pentecost it was probably inevitable. That first rush of the Holy Spirit must have been awesome and gave original meaning to slain in the Spirit. These days it is all very formal and one who gets as carried away as those in this painting is most likely to be seen as mentally ill. We have our own extremist who comes around when the Spirit moves I suppose, caressing the statues and lighting candles, usually during the sermon or some very noticeable point in the service. She used to light her candle right from the altar before they were extinguished but was finally persuaded that was not kosher, so now she just likes to prostrate herself in the sanctuary after Mass and gets very irate if she is told that this is not done at St. Ignatius. Perhaps she is filled with the Spirit, but cursing me when I asked her politely (at coffee hour) to just kneel on the cushion at the rail and not enter the sanctuary and telling me I am going to incur the wrath of God for interfering with her prayers, somehow that doesn't sound like the Holy Spirit. We have this scene about once a year and I have gotten used to it, but it had to happen on the one Sunday in a long time that I got to sit in the Zabriskie pew and enjoy the service. Such is life at the shrine church.

This Holy Week was the last for two of our most senior MCs who are retiring, and the sacristy will not be the same without their wisdom and experience. Next year someone else will have to learn the Good Friday and Easter Vigil services and maybe Maundy Thursday also, who knows, but life goes on and we are training one new server and a new MC and welcoming back a former MC who will add some depth.

I was MC for Maundy Thursday, as I have been for the past 10 years, and it went very well until the Procession to the Altar of Repose. You'd think after 10 years I would remember that it is not like Corpus Christi, as I was waiting for the choir to start the O Salutaris. As Fr Wells famously shouted at Benediction once at St. Mary's, I was about to say "Will the choir please start the O Salutaris!" Luckily I restrained myself and we simply got going and the choir started the processional hymn.

Good Friday marked the 25th anniversary of my first service at St. Ignatius and I was able to "enjoy" (if one can possibly enjoy Good Friday) the liturgy from the Zabriskie pew in what was the first blessedly child-free Good Friday in recent memory. It was an appropriately cold and dark day and I was suffering from a terrible boil in a very inconvenient place. I was able to get through the service sitting very still, but had to go walking all over the West Side afterward looking for ichthamol ointment, which is rather hard to find these days. All in all, it made me feel very close to Job as I had been for several weeks during Lent after having a tooth pulled and suffering a splitting headache for 10 days straight, then getting this boil which felt like a volcano erupting. They say suffering is good for the soul, but I think it is overrated!

We had good crowds for all the services and quite a few visitors.The Great Vigil went well with some ceremonial adjustments, and we had a beautiful new fire from our new, fireman approved hibachi. We did the blessing of the water and paschal candle at the font this year, a first as far as I know. We had always done it in the sanctuary because we thought it couldn't be done at the font due to the height between font and covering, but Fr Blume got just the right angle to avoid dripping wax or having the follower fall off and it did work much better there as it was intended. We also started the practice of lighting everything from Easter through Pentecost from the original new fire, keeping the flame going in the sacristy until just a few days before Pentecost when we finally slipped and let it go out, but at least it was after Ascension.

I was subdeacon for Easter Day and that would have been fun if I hadn't been so tired, in spite of the earlier hour for the Vigil and actually getting a few hours sleep. It was a cold and windy Easter, Gilberto was in Philadelphia, Laurie and the gang had other plans, and I was in no mood for any kind of company this year, so I walked around Central Park for awhile. I found no solace there with the boisterous mobs and relentless wind, however, and I ended up in a movie, as usual, and a scary one at that (Knowing), but at least it put my little boil in perspective!

Procession, Easter Day Solemn Mass

Old Time Religion

2009-04-30T21:33:00.004-04:00

I found this picture of the old St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Belton, Texas, as it appeared in the latter days of its life as a functioning church. It was abandoned to the Bell Fine Arts Assn. when the new St. Luke's was built in 1970 and for many years was an art gallery and museum. I found this article about how it now sits in dire repair, although with some hope of restoration funding.

I came into St. Luke's in the fall of 1970 when they had just moved into the new church. I needed money to finance the next summer at Interlochen so I was desperately seeking employment and just by chance happened upon an ad outside the music department of Mary Hardin Baylor College seeking an organist for St. Luke's. I had studied piano for 5 years and organ for a couple of years so I decided to try out for the job. I had some experience in church music having played piano for Sunday School and various other church activities in the First Baptist Church, so I had access to their wonderful grand piano and organ and could come in and play whenever I wanted, living just a block away. It became my second home in many ways, so when I was actually offered the job at St. Luke's, I was very torn about leaving the Baptists. I had many fond memories of years of choir practices and competitions, wonderful revivals and fellowship, and memorable services which included my cousin and me singing a duet and my voice cracking, whereupon we both fell apart in giggles. The choir director played to the end of the verse as we stood there and giggled. Then we had to slink down under our seats for the rest of the service. The pastor was not amused.

St. Luke's turned out to be a great turning point in my spiritual life. I loved the order of service and the music, so simple and sweet. They had a little Hammond organ and I did the best I could with it, but it suited the space, which was modern and clean but didn't have the quaint character of the old St. Luke's. I had rarely seen the inside of it in my 10 years in Belton, but it was always a fascinating and spiritual site to me and I often passed by wishing it was open. I do remember getting in to see it finally and it really did feel like a very holy place to me.

1970 was the first crest of the charismatic movement in the Episcopal church and our vicar was just out of Southwest Seminary, filled with the Spirit, quite genuinely. He was rather high church leaning and introduced a bit of incense, which was my first experience of frankincense. He also decided to introduce charismatic gifts to St. Luke's and we had several very interesting and probably Spirit filled gatherings where people spake in tongues and interpreted and may have been healed or delivered. I was only 16 and may or may not have really been speaking in tongues, but I definitely felt the Spirit there for the first time. It was all too much for most of the church, however, and a parting of the ways was soon to come. I only spent one year there as organist and then got into Interlochen Arts Academy for my senior year and had to move on, but it was a year filled with much spiritual as well as musical growth and my mother and I went through confirmation class and got confirmed in the spring of 1971. Before I left for the summer at Interlochen (playing bassoon) I also went to some real Pentecostal churches with some friends and witnessed the real Holy Rollers. That was something to behold, but as much as I wanted to be a part of that, I didn't really feel the Spirit like I had at St. Luke's. Which reminds me of the usher at St. Mary's who was heard to say to the woman who was slain in the Spirit and claimed that she had religion, "well you may have religion but you didn't get it here!"

Remembrance of Things Past

2009-03-31T22:35:00.007-04:00

Grace Church, Traverse City, MI

This Lent has been a time of reconnecting with my roots through the miracle of Facebook and some of the most poignant memories have been of the time I spent at Interlochen, a magical place in northern Michigan dedicated to the fine arts. I spent 5 summers there and one academic year (my senior year in high school). I have recently been immersed in remembering the people and events of that blessed time and more than once been astounded at what grace led me there. It was probably the happiest time of my life although I didn't realize it at the time. There were many terrifying moments amid all the wonder and it was truly a rite of passage for my spiritual as well as musical education.

I spent many Sunday mornings at Grace Episcopal Church in Traverse City, trying to keep up my recent entrance into the Episcopal Church just the year before. I remember being one of the very few who actually got on the bus to go to a Sunday service, most of my fellow students rather smirking at my spiritual leanings, although my then boyfriend often accompanied me and being an organist took the opportunity to play a little on the organ there. He has since become the music director at the British Embassy in Tokyo, so perhaps that early experience also guided his career, if not his spirituality, somewhat.

The summer before, I had my first encounter with a satanist at Interlochen and remember taking his satanic bible and hurling it into the trash in a fit of righteous rage. It did little but cause a howl of laughter from him and his friends, but I felt like I had stood up for the true path regardless of how little it seemed to accomplish. During the year I was also subjected to quite a bit of ridicule but I stood my ground even though it did little to enhance my popularity. The following year in Boston when I entered the conservatory I gradually succumbed to fitting in and only occasionally made it out on a Sunday to attend Church of the Advent, and by the time I hit New York I had ceased going to church all together. It would be seven years before I finally looked up St. Ignatius, which I had heard of at the Advent and was advised to attend when I got to New York. And the rest, as they say, is history.

"What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death? The enchanted dawn of every life is love; but where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?" (from Les Preludes by Alphonse Lamartine)

Les Preludes, final concert at Interlochen, summer 1969

The Cornerstone

2009-02-27T20:44:00.013-05:00

How dreadful is this place: this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven: and it shall be called the house of God.

For the Feast of Dedication, which fell on a Sunday this year, February 8, we processed from the altar out the West End door and around the block to the cornerstone, accompanied by the choir and the Sarum plainchant Urbs beata Jerusalem, where we gave thanks to God and our benefactors, past and present, for this sacred place that we call our spiritual home. It was an unusually warm and pleasant day as we marveled at the bright and shining cornerstone and the rest of the wondrously clean stonework.

We had some wonderful English music for the Solemn Mass, Leighton's Missa Brevis, and Bairstow's Blessed City, heavenly Salem for the motet, which was quite long but glorious. I was MC so I didn't catch much of the prelude, Messiaen's Vision of the Eternal Church, but I hear it was marvelously ethereal.

The Monday before the Dedication was Candlemas and that was also wonderful. One of our ensembles in residence, Amor Artis, provided the music and did a fine job on Viadana's Missa "L'hora Passa" and Palestrina's Alma Redemptoris Mater. We had invited Bishop Taylor but had not heard whether he was able to attend until he suddenly appeared in the sacristy a half hour before the service. I'm glad I was only crucifer since we suddenly had to switch into Solemn Mass in the presence of a Bishop mode. We didn't have time to put up a throne and he insisted on sitting in the back clergy stall which is neither very comfortable for sitting nor very accessible for blessing incense and Gospel books, but we managed with a minimum of fuss. This was Bishop Taylor's last visit before he retires in May back to his home in Kingston, Jamaica, so it was a rather poignant occasion. He gave one of his long and captivating sermons and most of us were in tears by the end.

On February 12 the episode of 30 Rock that was filmed at St. Ignatius aired and it was really quite funny. They made our statues appear rather scary and they used several of their prop statues that were pretty horrible, but the church looked great. You can view the episode here: http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/video/episodes/?vid=1014041

Ash Wednesday came much too soon and we did it without a rehearsal so things were a bit chaotic. I was subdeacon and spent most of the first part wondering where I was supposed to be. As usual the ashes weren't wet enough and they ended up flaking all over my alb. The deacon and subdeacon are down to amice and alb for Lent which will really make us feel penitent, but this too shall pass.

Death Don't Have No Mercy

2009-01-30T20:53:00.002-05:00

January was a cruel month. It started with the Feast of the Holy Name which was very cold. I was thurifer and a bit grumpy (even without much of a real hangover) and managed to spill the precious Omani frankincense all over the carpet during the first censing of the altar at the Sung Mass when I tried to get the MC to hold the boat closer to the bowl and we collided in midair. We had a rather small crowd but God was glorified and afterward I had a nice brunch at Carmine's with my old pals from SMV, Walter Morton and his newly baptized wife, Miyoko. They are both at St. Paul's Carroll Street now and enjoying that quaint conservative haven.

The Feast of the Epiphany was especially wonderful, with Lionheart providing the music. They sang the Obrecht Missa “De tou bien plaine” in exquisite style. I was able to enjoy the service from the Zabriskie pew for once and it was most refreshing. We had a good crowd and a lot of visitors. Spirits were high and Fr Blume was looking forward to a nice week or so in Paris.

Who could have guessed that four days later we would be mourning the sudden tragic death of Nicholas Kau, 18 years old, who somehow fell from a 9th floor window early on January 10th. I had seen Nicholas grow up at St. Ignatius and was sad to remember having thrown away one of his Sunday School drawings of a Station of the Cross a few years ago during one of the cleanup days. Nicholas was born on Easter Sunday 1990, the third son of Randall and Elizabeth, two of our long-time members. I remember him as such a sweet boy, always with a big smile. In recent years he had been quite a star in the theater as well as on the athletic field at Trinity and apparently had quite a fan club there, where he had graduated last Spring.

There were about 300 people there for the Friday night Vigil and 518 people there for his Solemn Mass of the Resurrection on January 17, many of them young people. Even Murray Kempton did not have so many people at his funeral. We spent several days getting ready for it. It was imperative that we get the library cleaned up so that we could have people up there during the Vigil, so I spent two evenings in there getting things straightened up and tossed out, with the help of our sexton. We got rid of some dilapidated chairs, several old computers, quite a bit of accumulated paper and debris, and by Friday morning it actually looked like a nice room, although still in need of major floor work.

On Thursday I had to spend a bit of time negotiating for a couple of porta-potties for outside since we only have 3 johns in the whole place and were expecting at least 500 people for the funeral. Fr Harding was in charge of preparations since Fr Blume was on vacation and not getting back until Thursday night. In the midst of deciding which johns we wanted and when and where we were going to put them, Fr Harding's beeper went off and he had to rush down to the famous Miracle on the Hudson plane splash to be a fire chaplain. Luckily his services were not much needed that day.

Friday I took the day off and we spent most of the day getting ready for the Vigil that night. We had a lot of work to do to get the place ready. There were several people arranging flowers (since it was white Mass of the Resurrection flowers are allowed) and I spent about an hour getting the bier lights looking nice since they had orangish beeswax all over them from All Souls, and I had to melt it off with the heatgun. Friends from the Tribeca Film Festival donated their services of a professional AV crew that set up a whole system to pipe the service down to the undercroft with two big flat screens. Another friend had a catering service and sent over 150 decent folding chairs to set up down there for the funeral and they were all used. That was a first for us, to have the need for an overflow capacity, but it worked pretty well I hear. They also brought some things to make the undercroft look a little more pleasant and another friend had some beautiful and heartbreaking pictures of Nicholas enlarged and put up around the room.

It was great to see Fr Stowe again and he preached a wonderful and very appropriate homily, although he fell victim to the sacristy ghost who made off with his vintage Wippell surplice sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning. We look forward to its reappearance someday but in the meantime Fr Stowe is quite bereft since he had been ordained in it in 1970. It was good to see Fr Parsons also and we three strolled down memory lane a bit before the Vigil. It was great to see several other old friends that had been away for awhile, although it is very sad that it takes someone dying for us to come together again.

The day of the funeral was the coldest day we had in quite awhile and I felt sorry for those who had to venture outside to the john. I was thurifer for the Mass of the Resurrection and it was quite amazing to come down the aisle looking at such a full house. I don't think any of us had ever seen it that full. We even had about 25 people seating in the Lady Chapel. It got so crowded down by the bier during communion that two of the glass votive lights got knocked off and smashed, spilling wax and shards of glass all around. Just when we had the first one cleaned up, the second one went down. Somehow it only seemed an appropriate background to the many sobbing teenagers who mourned poor Nicholas and gathered around his family with condolences. It was surely the saddest funeral I had ever attended at St. Ignatius, and there have been some sad ones. But the Mass was just ethereal, with the choir (mostly not our regular choir but some splendid hired voices) doing the Victoria Missa Pro Defunctis after opening with Morley's Burial Anthems. After the Commendation someone sang Loch Lomond and then a firefighter played the bagpipes at the procession. Nicholas was a great lover of all things Scottish and also all things Hawaiian. He had just had a wonderful vacation in Hawaii over the Christmas holidays with his grandmother where he basked in the warm sun that he loved so much. She sent three beautiful leis made of hundreds of petals of different flowers which were placed on his bier. The altar flowers were birds of paradise and other tropical plants. It was all so heartbreakingly beautiful, I was glad I had a lot of smoke to hide behind.

We learned of the death of former parishioner and semi-famous editor Tom Congdon in early January also. He and Connie had retired to Nantucket in the early 1990s and I was glad I had been to see them a few years ago in their quaint Nantucket house on Pine Street, near St. Paul's Church. We remembered fondly their Easter Even parties at their 87th Street townhouse in the late 1980s. We would get out of the Vigil around 1:30 am and head over to a royal feast with endless champagne that often lasted until around 4:00 am. Getting up for Easter Sunday was not so easy, and once the MC of the day never made it, so Fr Stowe suggested we start having the festivities in the Undercroft and it was never again so much fun as it was at the Congdons.

Another Auld Lang Syne

2008-12-31T17:08:00.006-05:00

drawing by Lelia Ryan
based on High Altar window of St. Ignatius

We had a gift of some wonderful Omani frankincense from a parishioner who was over there recently and I made a Christmastide blend adding some myrrh and the rest of last year's blend. It was somehow a much purer essence than the Somali frankincense we have in stock but we will have to save it for the highest feasts since it is only a pound. I wish we could get a consistent supply of it for it truly is a much superior product, huge teardrops that release a heavenly scent when broken up and burned. Our thurifer for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve really made some wonderful smoke and only a handful of the 166 people who came did not stay for the whole service. I saw a group heading for the exit after the opening procession, and thought that the smoke must have been too much for them, but apparently they were there just for the carol service for some odd reason. It was great to have a nice crowd for once and the service went well in spite of not having quite enough servers, a few of us being ill (myself included but I managed to get through it as an acolyte). The MC doubled as crucifer (in the festive tunicle) and the Subdeacon rang the tower bell at the elevations from underneath the humeral veil. The next morning I had to get up early to be MC, and most of us came back and did it again for a much smaller crowd at 11am after not enough sleep. Then I went out to Forest Hills to celebrate with Laurie and the gang, which was fun even in my exhausted and sickly state.

Last night the choir gave a wonderful concert of three Christmas oratorios by Bach with a small orchestra that was just superb. The church was almost full and it was a good mix of parishioners, neighborhood people and music lovers. For once the church was warm enough for comfort after we had the whole heating system cleaned out and a new motor installed on one of the blowers a couple of weeks ago. That combined with all the cracks and crevices we sealed up on the north wall have made the place comfortably warm, and the Omani frankincense still lingering in the air and the aisle candlesticks glowing gave the place a very nice atmosphere. Perhaps some of our visitors will even come back for a service.

And so another calendar year draws to a close tonight. Let us pray that '09 is a good and joyous one in spite of all the uncertainty that abounds.

Don't look so sad,
It's not so bad you know.
It's just another night,
That's all it is, it's not the first,
It's not the worst you know,
We've come through all the rest,
We'll get through this.
- B. Manilow

A Windy New Year

2008-11-30T20:17:00.000-05:00

Church of the Incarnation
Dallas, TX

I went to the Choral Eucharist at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas on Advent I, accompanied by Gilberto. Fleeing the Diocese of Ft. Worth, we drove 75 miles from my brother's house in Granbury and his Baptist relations from Garland met us there. They had never been to an Episcopal service but were game participants, following along with all the ups and downs, although no crossing or bowing, and even received Communion. Afterward they said they had enjoyed it but could not see making a habit of it, their own service was much livelier.

It was a "bells but no smells" Rite I Choral Eucharist, and for some reason there were 8 candles on the altar. We were impressed to see a mitre coming down the aisle at the procession and Bp. Burton (a young Canadian Bishop who has lately come down to this gig) had a nice presence and gave a decent sermon on the meaning of Advent. They had a very fine choir, although the mass settings were out of the hymnal, and they did a nice motet at the Offertory but the leaflet gave no details on the music or the readings. Afterward our Baptist friends remarked that they had already been singing Christmas carols that morning in their early service and were amused that we were so joyously singing Lo He Comes with Clouds Descending as the hymn called for deeply wailing. But they were impressed that there was an Advent wreath although I never did see it get lit.

The Sunday before, we celebrated Christ the King in grand High Church style with Bp. Sisk celebrating and confirming 2 and receiving 1 into our fold. We had a great crowd, with both 9:00 and 11:00 congos combined and several visitors from GTS and elsewhere. I was thurifer and did better this time with kneeling on my left knee since I had learned to use it when my right knee was injured for several weeks last Spring. But I managed to get branded by the hot chain when I knelt down and then had to hold up the thurible for incense. I was just on the verge of dropping it when Our Grace finally got through sprinkling and blessing and I could move my hand. At least he didn't say the whole Latin prayer like the Rector does. It was also the anniversary of Fr. Blume's institution on Christ the King 2007 by Bp. Sisk and we gave thanks for that. Bp. Sisk loves playing high church for the day and goes along gamely with all the MC throws at him. We put up a full throne for him and he gets a kick out of that. He even donned the pontifical dalmatic under our Christ the King chasuble.

After a festive reception and brunch we came back for Solemn Evensong, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. I had to jump in as MC and we got by with just a thurifer and two acolytes, and no canopy. It was not our most glorious Procession of the Sacrament, with only a handful of people in the congo, but perhaps we have passed into a new era where the monstrance need not fear the open air and Our Lord might even deign to be jostled a bit at the porch when the doors have not been opened for Him. We do Benediction a little different every time and this time was no different. But God was glorified and it was a lovely way to end the Church Year and start Thanksgiving week.

The next day I flew down to Dallas with Gilberto and we spent the next week driving 1100 miles around Texas seeing various friends and family, dropping by Lake Belton for lunch with some friends, spending one night in San Antonio and taking a stroll along the Riverwalk on a perfect night, then ending up in Spring for a warm 3 day Thanksgiving family reunion of 25 people. It was the first time my three brothers and I had all been together in a few years and it was wonderful to meet two new members of the next generation and a new Iranian nephew-in-law and to see nephews and nieces I hadn't seen in awhile. And it was nice to see Texas and once again remember all I love and hate about it. It was wonderfully warm in San Antonio and Spring but I had forgotten how cold and windy Dallas can be and that Saturday as we traveled northward into a blue norther, it felt more like Boston than Dallas.

After church we went over to the West End to Sonny Bryan's for barbecue sandwiches and then our Baptist friends gave us a tour of downtown Dallas (it has changed a bit in the 30 years since I worked at the Dallas Public Library for a year). Then we made our way back to Granbury in the blinding sunset to my brother's new house by the lake. Granbury is rather like the town in The Last Picture Show, a very long way from downtown Dallas. But there's not even a movie house in town, so we watched Run Silent Run Deep at home and had rum drinks till we passed out. We left the next day for New York after walking around the quaint old town square and having a wonderful Texas cheeseburger at Grump's. It was still windy as Hell and about 10 degrees colder than New York. Just in case I might ever feel nostalgic about the place.

Proclaiming the Gospel,
Christ the King

The End of an Era

2008-10-31T21:39:00.008-04:00

October 26, 2008

At long last the scaffolding came down and a bright shining church was revealed last Friday, the octave of the Feast of St. Ignatius, which we had celebrated in grand High Church style the Sunday previous. When I got there it was already twilight, then Saturday we had a near hurricane all day so I had to wait until Sunday morning to really see how wonderful it looks. It feels like a new era has begun and tomorrow we will put up a new flag and then it's on to less glamorous projects like nailing down the loose shingles and patching up the bell tower and apartment roofs. I'm so glad our new leaf screens on the gutters will mean we only have to have them cleaned every 2 or 3 years rather than twice a year. With the new roof over the narthex and holes in the party wall sealed up we should finally have a dry porch and dungeon. And it already feels warmer with all the other gaps that were filled up. The windows look much brighter also and now we must pray for funds to finally clean the inside.

October 4 we said goodbye to the Cursillo Kid, Kevin Farley, with a "Burial of the Dead" service at St. Mary's. I'm pretty sure Kevin would have preferred a black requiem, but they apparently don't do black anymore there, so it was white and a Mass of the Resurrection, with Fr. Wells celebrating and Fr. Gerth assisting and preaching. It was good to see and hear Fr. Wells at the altar and he was in very fine form 10 years after retirement. It was a lovely service with readings and music that Kevin had chosen. The choir did a splendid job with the beautiful Durufle Requiem and also gave us Bruckner's Ave Maria and Mozart's Ave Verum before the service. It was great to see many old time St. Marians and Cursillistas there and hear a rousing Alleluia, Sing to Jesus at the Offertory. Kevin's cortege down to the Holy Sepulchre in Trenton was too far a trip for most of us, but afterward 12 of us toasted Kevin in grand Irish style at the Playwright Tavern and proposed creating a new Cursillo wristband with WWKD (What Would Kevin Do) on it. October 4 was also the 29th anniversary of his (and the NY Diocese's) first Cursillo weekend. I dare say there will never be anyone more devoted to Cursillo than Kevin. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Kevin Farley
1/30/22--9/25/08

War in Heaven

2008-09-30T21:45:00.006-04:00

"But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short!"

I got to read that great passage from Revelation 12 last night as subdeacon at the High Mass on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. We had a small but worshipful congo and our 4 voice evensong choir. No acolytes either, but we managed okay. There was no procession since our St. Michael shrine is at the high altar. We just smoked him really well a couple of times and had a nice bright votive light for him. He needs a good dusting off as do all the statuary after the summer's exterior cleaning project. The outside is really looking wonderful and who knew we had pink granite at the base. I can't wait until the scaffolding is taken down after they finish replacing the roof over the narthex and installing leaf screens for all the leaders. Then we must focus on fixing the other roof problems at least temporarily to get us through the winter. Recent storms have manifested a number of problem areas where water is getting in, over the organ chamber, around the skylight and the apartment skylight. Insurance companies are looking for every reason not to help us, and who can blame them in this economic climate. But hopefully we will be qualified for some kind of grant for at least part of the expense.

In other news, I got to hear the High Priest of Honky Tonk, the great Ray Price, a couple of weeks ago up in Monticello. My cousin, Laura Hazelbaker, plays fiddle with his band and she flew in from Cincinnati the day before and we drove up. I got to hang out with Ray and the band on his bus and that was a trip. Not quite as wild as Willie's bus, but close, with a great pre-show ritual of whiskey shots and orange soda chasers with a Mexican toast. It was a great show, even though the venue (a racetrack!) was not quite the acoustic delight that Radio City was, but Ray's voice, even at 82, is still so wonderful. He sang all his great songs and the band was just classic authentic honky tonk.

I'm sad to report the death of the Cursillo Kid, Kevin Farley, last Thursday. Kevin was one of the first people I met at St. Mary's back in 1996 and I believe the one that persuaded me to jump ship and join SMV for a 3-year term. He also persuaded me to go on Cursillo (something I could never have imagined on my own) and we served on several teams together. I'll never forget his Father Farley in the sacraments skit on one team. He was in seminary to become a Roman priest when his spiritual adviser had told him that he took his religion much too seriously to be a priest. He dropped out soon after that and became a public servant but also a devoted member of St. Mary's, having converted soon after Fr. Wells became the rector, and was thereafter a spiritual presence there serving at the altar and in many other capacities. Kevin's love of Cursillo was profound since he had been on the very first weekend in New York back in 1979, along with Fr. Wells. He was diocesan lay director for many years and a constant fixture at clausura and ultreyas until just a few years ago when his and his partner's health began to fail. He will be buried in Trenton after a High Requiem at St. Mary's on Saturday, mostly likely with Fr. Wells celebrating. Kevin left very explicit instructions and if I know him, it will be a lovely and very old fashioned requiem with a Cursillo tune or two thrown in, no doubt.

Almighty God, we give you thanks for all the benefits you have given us, you who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

A Grand Assumption

2008-08-31T22:05:00.009-04:00

Mystical rose, Tower of David, House of god, Tower of ivory,
Ark of the covenant, Gate of heaven, Morning star, Pray for us.

We had a grand feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15. Our choir was back for a command performance and did a fine rendition of that first polyphonic mass by Machaut. It was a dark and stormy night but we had a good crowd with many visitors. We processed to the Shrine of St. Mary and Our Lord, which was nicely adorned with roses and some devotee had scattered a small sea of rose petals, which was a nice touch. It was the debut of our new deacon, Rev. Paul Kahn, and he did a fine job with an excellent singing voice for the Gospel. We only sang one Marian hymn, however, which rather disappointed a few of us, and I would much rather have heard Charpentier's Missa Assumpta est Maria. I went home and listened to it on CD but it wasn't quite the same. It was the tenth anniversary of the St. Mary's diaspora and I was reminiscing on that glorious Assumption at SMV on a hot Friday 10 years ago. I had gone by the Shrine Church of St. Mary at lunch hour to pay my annual respects. They were in the midst of the sung mass as I arrived, so I enjoyed Kenny's latest blend as I said a prayer at the shrine and asked her forgiveness for saying for many years that she didn't live there anymore. For years it really felt that way after the great debacle that was the end of the Wells era there, for which I was witness three years before returning to the Ignatian fold. I thought about that day ten years ago that I had so enjoyed being subdeacon for the Solemn Mass. It was probably the grandest High Mass I'd ever been subdeacon for and it was a wonderful if blazing hot night complete with the now-discontinued procession of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, although by then without those mythical twinkling lights. Three days later the infamous train wreck occurred which sent 10 faithful MCs and acolytes fleeing the premises and rang down the curtain on an era of the SMV sacristy although it was the beginning of a new one at St. Ignatius.

I Cover the Waterfront

2008-07-31T21:54:00.007-04:00

St. Joseph of Arimathea and Our Lord landing in Britain

I always think of today, July 31, as the Feast of St. Joseph of Arimathea, although most calendars now have him tomorrow and the Romans I think have August 31. I've always loved the legend of him taking young Jesus over to Glastonbury with him on a tin trading mission and letting him stay there a few years among the Druids as part of his "lost years". Then, all those years later, after being thrown in prison when Our Lord disappeared from his tomb, Joseph was visited by Jesus and given the mission of taking the Holy Grail to Glastonbury and starting the first church there. I think it would make a great opera and hope to get down to work on that one day soon.

Meantime, work goes on at the shrine church of St. Ignatius, and the outside of the north wall is almost done being repointed, waterproofed and cleaned. I went up on the scaffolding with our architect to survey some of the roof problems and that was interesting if more than a bit scary (not to mention illegal). We discovered the source of our narthex and dungeon waterfalls to be some missing bricks in the party wall with The Boulevard so that alone was worth the trip. Now if we can just get them to help with the repairs we can perhaps even start using that corner of the dungeon again.

There were so many logistical problems with the interior cleaning phase that we decided to just continue working on the exterior instead, so the west wall will be done next along with some critical roof repairs, including leaks in the apartment roof and the copper flashing above the organ pipe chamber. Hopefully when we are through all the current waterproofing problems will be cured. Then we can start planning for the interior cleaning, which I hope will be done in my lifetime.

I've been rereading some of Barbara Pym's novels this summer and many days feeling like a character out of one of them. Some day I may write a book about all the characters I've known at St. Ignatius, perhaps a roman a clef to protect the innocent. We've said goodbye to several good parishioners this year and a few have just disappeared. One died, one got married, a few are still mad about something or other, one went back over to Rome, one moved to North Carolina, one moved to Ohio, one is moving to DC, one lost his mind and another just sank into a very deep slough of despond. I miss them all, believe it or not, but hope we start getting some new faces this Fall. We're getting a Deacon (a real one) in September, the Rev. Paul Kahn, lately at Good Shepherd, so that should liven things up.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

A Cheeseburger In Paradise

2008-06-12T21:47:00.008-04:00

Mayan Observatory at Chichen Itza

I had a great time on the cruise to the Yucatan aboard the Carnival Ecstasy. We ran into a little rough weather from Arthur, the first tropical storm of the season, but were very grateful that he kept things mostly cloudy while we were in Cozumel and Chichen Itza, else we would truly have roasted. The beautiful turquoise Caribbean sea was a bit muddy for our subocean trip but we did see some beautiful fish and coral reefs even with cloudy skies.

We were a group of 14, 10 of us schoolmates back in Belton, Texas, class of '72. We were the Cruisin' Chicks and t-shirts to match, with one rooster, everybody's favorite boyfriend Billy and his wife Linda, who kept him well in hand. We were a scenic surprise wherever we went, especially when Henrietta, a fine looking old bird who had a most fetching cackle in all the wrong places, got to talking.

We started out in Galveston, spending the night before the cruise at the Holiday Inn Resort on the seawall, closing down Gaido's and causing a scene with Henrietta's cottonectomy. Jerri had stuffed cotton down her throat to try and keep her quiet, but we decided she needed her voice so it took a couple of coat hangers and several margaritas before she got her voice back, poor old thing. No wonder she was so talkative the rest of the trip.

The next day we set sail for Cozumel and it took us all of Sunday to get down there. It was the first Sunday in a few years that I did not go to church. Surprisingly there was no form of religious observance aboard the Ecstasy. I went to the gym instead and was treated to a wonderful view of the oncoming storm which was quite dramatic and made 20 minutes on the treadmill seem like fun. By the time we got to Cozumel on Monday morning Arthur was just a steady drizzle, which kept things cool, mercifully. After the subocean view we had lunch at Margaritaville and had a great time singing Jimmy Buffet songs and drinking strong margaritas, along with pretty good cheeseburgers. Afterward we stumbled around in the rain looking for souvenirs amid the constant sales pitches from the endless vendors, assuring us their stuff was "almost free". I did get a nice fishbone Last Supper and a wonderful Mayan tablecloth. That night after dinner Billy, Carleen and I smoked a fine Cuban cigar on deck with the captain accompanied by blue margaritas. Henrietta also took a few puffs and coughed her head off.

Tuesday we landed in Progresso, a small port from which we took a 2 hour bus trip to Chichen Itza and saw the Mayan pyramid, observatory and sports stadium. I didn't have time to see the well where the virgins were sacrified or the other ruins because we only had 2 hours. Their gods demanded a lot of sacrifices, with someone having to lose a heart, a head or some other body part at most every event. They were brilliant people for their time, if a bit extreme in their theology, and were very advanced astronomers and mathematicians. Some say they were space aliens or maybe a lost tribe of Israel. Our tour guide informed us that people think the current Mayan calendar has the world ending on December 20, 2012, but really that is just the day the space aliens will bring the new digital calendar and a new era of Mayan ascendancy will begin. We'll see.

Leaving Progresso we ran into some rough tides and many people were really lurching around and getting sick. My seabands kept me just borderline queasy and the rest of us good sailors managed to close down the Starlight karaoke doing "Friends in Low Places". Then after another blue margarita and the midnight Mexican buffet, we called it a day.

The last day I slept late and then went up to the top deck to get some fresh air and sun alone in my favorite spot under the front window with a great view ahead. Then I ran into some of the Chicks and we spent the rest of the day hopping from one watering hole to the next, drinking Ultimate Suntans, laughing our asses off, singing "Baby Got Back" at Kamikaze Karaoke and then ending up totally exhausted about 10pm and actually ready to get back to America. I don't think I could have stood any more fun.

Donna, Lisa, Carleen and me at Margaritaville, Cozumel

Those changes in latitude, changes in attitude
nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.
If we weren't all crazy we would go insane.
(apologies to J. Buffett)

Let the Good Times Roll

2008-05-29T22:27:00.005-04:00

It has been a rather somber and chilly Spring here in Gotham, so I am very much looking forward to my trip down to Galveston and the Yucatan tomorrow. I'm going on a cruise with a group of high school friends to Cozumel and Progreso to see some Mayan ruins and perhaps swim with the dolphins or go snorkeling, all of which I have never done before. I will be in Galveston only one night but I hope to get to the cathedral there and see the wonderful shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I hope to find her down in the Yucatan also but time is short. I ask her protection for the journey.

I'll miss the beginning of the restoration work, delayed a few weeks by details about how we are going to protect the Ralph Adams Cram Lady Chapel artwork and statutes of St. Ignatius and Our Lady. They're just putting up the sidewalk bridge and scaffolding to start on the outside on Monday so we have a few weeks to figure it out with the help of a few expert consultants. We will have a free-standing altar down by the statue of Our Lord since there will be scaffolding in the sanctury for about 8 weeks. It's going to be a long dusty summer in the shrine church, but the results will be glorious. I never thought I would live to see the Lady Chapel and the north wall including the wonderful St. Ignatius window cleaned. We may need to rethink having the thurifer parking in the Lady Chapel before the consecration in order to keep it clean.

We also must figure out how to pay for some necessary roof work, including a leak over the organ pipes which has already damaged several pipes due to corroded flashing along the outside wall. The roof over the apartment is leaking and must be replaced soon. The Lady Chapel also needs a new roof since it was done in a similar substance that only had a 15 year warranty 12 years ago. The shingles on the main roof also are showing signs of deterioration, well ahead of the 30 year warranty they purport to have. I'll be busy when I get back dealing with shingle manufacturers, roofing contractors and insurance claims so I will do my best to have a good time for a week.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death. Amen.

Great is thy Faithfulness

2008-04-30T18:58:00.014-04:00

Gordon-Hurst Barrow+
January 5, 1915 - April 15, 2008

Fr. Barrow died a couple of weeks ago in Indianapolis, where he had spent the last several years near his son, also a priest,who lives there and helped him through his final years. He was 93 years old and had been a robust old man until a few years ago when he started falling and had to leave his Chelsea apartment for assisted living. He didn't say goodbye and I was left wondering where he went after that last dinner at the Oyster Bar a few years ago. He had called me one last time at work a few months later, wanting to go out for lunch one day, but I was busy and couldn't go, and he hung up in his usual fashion and didn't call again until one Saturday morning last fall when he had finally gotten a phone in his apartment in Indianapolis at the insistence of his children and he explained what had happened. He sounded very frail and had trouble putting things into words, but he seemed his old cranky indefatigible self, although grudgingly reconciled to life on a fast downhill tread. His daughter, Amanda, called me the Saturday after he died and we had a long talk about him. From all I had heard about her life and her art, I felt like I knew her although we have never met. She is organizing a memorial for him at St. Thomas', where he said a couple of weekday masses every week, so I look forward to that.

During our final talk I am thankful that I managed to express that I loved him and was grateful for all he had taught me and for all the wonderful masses and other meals we had shared over the years. I had served Saturday morning mass with him for several years back in the late 1980s/early 90s. After Mass in the Lady Chapel we said a decade of the Rosary sitting in the pews outside the Lady Chapel and then went and had coffee and pastries up in the Common Room or went somewhere for brunch. He loved to tell stories of his life, which were always interesting, and he loved to talk about his four children who all had interesting lives as well. His wife had died several years ago and he had moved to New York after retiring. He was also a good carpenter and one summer very generously built me a wonderful chickenwire and wood cage for my pet iguana, Iggy. Poor Iggy died a few years later after outgrowing the cage and getting way too big, tangling with the cats and eventually dying from eating their food, which I should have known was bad for a vegetarian like him.

Fr. Barrow was also very old fashioned and we eventually stopped speaking to each other for a few years over the women and gay clergy issues. I can't remember how we made up, but eventually we were back going out to dinner, his favorite activity along with going to the gym, which he did religiously almost every day, rising at 4:00am and getting to the gym right when it opened at 6:00. For several years we went to the same gym, at the Worldwide Plaza, and I would often see him there intrepidly working out.

Fr. Barrow was a very frugal man and lived in a bare-bones studio apartment furnished mostly with furniture and shelves he had made himself. I was only invited there once, when he decided to give me his vintage Raleigh bicycle, which was way too big for me but I took it anyway and made some use of it for many years. He kept books in his oven and only made coffee there, which he was passionate about, always taking great care in the brewing. He had trouble sleeping so he slept on the floor, but he refused to have a television or even a telephone for the last 20 years in New York. He woke up on September 12, 2001 and went down to the big post office near Penn Station where he would always get his mail as soon as it was put in the box. Finding the eerie dawn streets and the unimaginably closed post office he couldn't figure out what had happened until he asked a man wandering dazed and confused what was going on and he told him in an incredulous tone that New York had been attacked the day before and described having seen the first airplane going down Eighth Avenue.

For a few years Fr. Barrow slept on the floor of the Common Room at St. Ignatius on Friday night so he would be up early for Saturday mass. He loved to sit near the back of the north wall and meditate/doze, and when I arrived for mass I often found him sitting near the Centurion window where there was a tiny bit of heat seeping out of the radiator on the wall. It was freezing in the winter and blazing in the summer and there was no solution, he used to say. After he left, in the early 1990s when he cottoned on to the fact that we had gay and women clergy in our midst, the heating got better, thanks to Ted and Maurice, the rain gutter system was redone, and these days he would probably find it quite toasty, but back then it was very cold for a very long time and there were often cascades of water in that area. I think of him often when I sit back there myself on a sunny Saturday afternoon enjoying our newfound warmth after sealing up many holes in the south wall. And blessedly, tomorrow begins the restoration of the north wall which will undoubtedly seal up even more cracks. It will be a few months before we can enjoy that area again, but it will be wonderful to have the whole north wall, inside and outside, repointed and the windows recaulked and cleaned, as well as the Lady Chapel. Then we must find some more money to secure the roof over the Lady Chapel as well as over the apartment. It will be a busy summer.

Iggy in 1987

Back to the Valley

2008-03-30T17:13:00.004-04:00

It was supposed to be "Back to the Mountain". I had been looking forward to this weekend retreat, the second one of its kind, a reunion for Cursillistas hoping to recapture that mountaintop experience that Cursillo often provides. I had made my Cursillo almost 12 years ago, which was a great experience at that time in my life and yielded several close friends and a resurrection of my keyboard playing skills (such as they are) in nine subsequent Cursillo weekends over the next 10 years as a member of the music team. I had been a bit disillusioned with Cursillo the past few years after some truly awful liturgical and musical moments and had put my volume of praise music on the back shelf until I was asked to play keyboard for this weekend. I hesitated and then said why not and had been actually enjoying playing those tunes again, and it even inspired me to finally get a decent full digital keyboard so I could really start practicing again. We had one rehearsal which went pretty well, the guitars and singers were well above the norm for these weekends, so I went up to Graymoor on Friday hoping for the best. Barbara Crafton is always wonderful and her "Fireside Chat" would be worth the trip even if all else was a drudge.

It had been a wonderful Holy Week at St. Ignatius, no blowups and all the liturgies went very smoothly, with heavenly music and good attendance, and I hoped to continue the Easter spirit through Low Sunday before descending to the inevitable valley. But it was not to be. The music team leader (a rock and roll guitarist who confessed to not being able to read music, nor understanding how the music for a eucharist worked, himself not going to church very often) was on my case for playing too many extra notes in the songs (I play from arrangements, not the one note in the songbook) and was always telling me not to play so loud while I couldn't even hear myself the whole weekend for his loud banging away on his 3 power chords. Then he decided I wasn't to play for the highlight of the weekend, the Fireside Chat, supposedly because he couldn't find the cord for the electronic keyboard in the chapel, meanwhile there was a perfectly good piano in the corner, on wheels even. The Chat and eucharist were okay, but sort of ruined for me by someone telling a stupid joke spontaneously right after Communion. It had been a very informal consecration, with Deacon DePue doing a silly running ad lib against Barbara's attempt to be instructional, but the joke was taking it way too far.

However, the real moment furthest from Christ came during the last service on Sunday morning, which was Morning Prayer because all the priests had either had to return home to their parishes or were ill or their dog was ill. So we were left with Deacon DePue, who was just delighted that her moment to shine had finally come. This woman had driven me over the edge a couple of times before on other weekends with her antics, but today she not only hijacked the final music session with one of her "tunes" but she offered to give a "homily" for Morning Prayer and that my dear readers was the fabled straw that broke my back. She got up, hiked the altar cloth up and planted her fat butt right on the altar to give her homily. It was supposed to be on the subject of placing your heart and soul on the altar (and yes, even your ass) rather than obsessing about objects like candles and flowers. That could have been a worthy topic, but I really don't think God (not to mention the dear friars of the St. Francis Chapel) appreciated her butt sitting on His altar. I know I didn't and this is just one reason why Cursillo gets such bad press. No one seemed to bat an eye at this and several people were just thrilled at such innovative preaching. As for me, I'll just stay down in the valley next time.

The Art of Dying

2008-02-27T21:17:00.011-05:00

Jacques Crosby
12-25-31-
2-22-08

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing Sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you.*

This is the way I remember Jacques best, on a silent Ignatian retreat at St. John Baptist convent in Mendham on an early Spring Sunday, taking a stroll around the grounds, observing the wildlife. We would often pass on that long winding road going up to the old cemetery and nod to each other, keeping silent comraderie. Once he fell asleep under a tree and missed dinner, having us worried that he had fallen somewhere deep in the woods. But he finally got home in time for a few morsels I seem to remember, quite mortified to have been so late.

Those were wonderful retreats and I was blessed to have been on quite a few arranged by Jacques in the early years of this decade. It was his mission to keep up the tradition of the silent retreat, which is rather a dying practice I believe. It seemed odd for Jacques, who loved to talk and laugh, to be so into silence for a whole weekend, but I loved it, tactiturn soul that I am. Fr. Stowe had started the tradition and we went for about a decade with him, then Fr. Hitchcock continued them for a few more years, with Jacques insisting on the silence and himself making all the arrangements for several years. Finally we stopped going when the good Sisters insisted on filling the house with all and sundry other retreatants and it was very hard to keep silence when all around were Zen groups chanting and carrying on, or a vestry retreat from Paramus yakking their heads off. We tried going up to Vails Gate one year after that, but it wasn't quite the same, although Dr. Norris led some wonderful talks on his just released Songs of Solomon book. That was only a few weeks before Dr. Norris' sudden death so it was very special that we had that time with him.

Dr. Norris and Jacques both left us quite unexpectedly. Jacques had just found out that what he thought was just an ulcer was in fact galloping lymphoma and was facing a very grim future of endless treatments and procedures. It was not the kind of existence I could imagine Jacques dealing with very well, so it was a very bittersweet blessing that he just decided to check out early last Friday morning. When I called there around 11am a policeman answered and said that he had been found dead on the bathroom floor, of natural causes apparently. His neighbor had insisted on opening his door when he hadn't answered.

We will send him off in High Church style with a Solemn Requiem this Saturday at 10:30am, and then he will be interred later next to the transept door, which he had charge of opening and closing for the entrance and exit of the ministers of the altar the past several years. I think I helped create that position of doorkeeper and it really does help to have someone holding the doors rather than us juggling thuribles and candlesticks, struggling to keep it open as we pass through. It was a perfect job for Jacques, who always deigned to serve in whatever useful role he could: staying behind to take communion last in order to watch over the congo's possessions until they were back in their seats. He saw a job that needed to be done and he did it. I will miss him very much on Saturday afternoons, when he would always come by and tend to the flowers and we'd catch up on the latest gossip.

I didn't get to say goodbye to Jacques and the last time I talked to him, only two days before he died, we did not discuss the exact state of his condition, nor even talk about anything important. I think I joked about envying him his weight loss. We were both tired and he sounded very low so I didn't want to keep him long. I could not imagine there would not be another time to thank him for his friendship and all the good times we had. We had not been as close in the recent past as we once were. The last time we really sat down to dinner together was last Easter Even and then the storm clouds were brewing over the Palm Sunday incident which would leave many of us with divided loyalties. I didn't get a chance to tell him how much I really loved him, so I guess this silly blog, which he heartily disapproved of, will have to hear it.

I'll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.**

* G. Harrison

** B. Dylan

Where is my Valentine?

2008-02-14T22:31:00.005-05:00

I had the nicest valentine I've had in years this morning when Dr. Goofoff's office called and said they were writing off the balance ($618) of my root canal after receiving my letter. I almost felt bad about revealing all that about her, but then I remembered the hours I spent in that chair and I was still glad I sent it.

It was a blessedly quiet day at work and I was able to get a lot of work done on the new Triduum Sacrum books, last published in 1980 by Fr. Stowe. The new rector has updated and corrected several things, with RSV readings replacing the King James except for Good Friday. The old books had a lot of typos and had gotten very shabby so it's high time they were redone.

I always recall on this day all the wretched Valentine's Days I've had and wonder if there will ever be another good one in this lifetime. I couldn't help remembering the Valentine's Day dinner I had with Fr. Hitchcock after Stations and Benediction on the first Friday of Lent 1997. I was thurifer and while we were at the last station I heard the sacristy door rattling. I figured it was someone having trouble with their key, but then when I went back in the sacristy to get the thurible for Benediction, I saw someone rushing out the other door. I still didn't realize anything was wrong until after Benediction. I went to get my bag and realized my wallet was gone. Luckily he had left my keys but I had $200 plus several credit cards in there plus my bank card, which meant I had no money and couldn't get anymore until I got a new bank card. Fr. Hitchcock got his nice silver pyx stolen also. We discovered that the sacristy door had been jimmied open with a credit card apparently and the West End door had a cigarette butt keeping it open. We had to call the cops and make out a report, then Fr. Hitchcock insisted on taking me to dinner and also giving me $200 so I could go on living until I got a new card. We were an odd couple at The Boulevard with all the romantic couples around us. That was also the night JV and I called it a day after he failed to show up due to a drunken Records Dept. party. So I was grateful to Fr. H for taking me out, although it wasn't quite the valentine I was hoping for.

That was not even the worst Valentine's Day I've ever had. My father was buried on 2-14-76 and I guess I've always been a little sad on this day even when I have had a real valentine. I remember we all went out after the funeral and flew a kite with the young nieces and nephews and then it suddenly just took off in the strong Texas wind and we chased it for a long time before we gave up and came back to a delicious Mexican dinner cooked for us by my father's attendant Jose. I couldn't help remembering the box of chocolates he had given me one year when I didn't get a valentine from anyone. I think I made a remark about it not being exactly the valentine I was hoping for and then left it unopened. I did not like my father very much back then and I guess it has taken all this time to appreciate his good points, of which there were a few. I find myself acting more like him every day, which is scary!

Tonight I spent with the Catalines at the Park Place Diner in Brooklyn Heights, a very salt of the earth kind of place, although tonight the gyro, usually wonderful, was cold and tasteless. We had a good time anyway, with a newly married couple in attendance and I heard all about W's departure from SMV, which was worth the trip.

I had to break the news which I had just gotten before leaving work about our dear Jacques, for whom it must have been truly a Valentine's Day from hell. How his doctor could have missed his very serious condition is beyond me, but it was our dear Dr. O, himself miraculously still alive, who diagnosed him at the annual meeting and sent him to one of his colleagues at Mt. Sinai. He had exploratory surgery today and the outlook is very dire. He's in good hands but the next few days are critical. Let us pray.

Sad Eyed Lady of the Root Canal

2008-01-31T22:36:00.001-05:00

I just want to know what you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice? Apologies to Bob, just got home from I'm Not There and am seeing Dylan lines everywhere. I was singing that in the dentist's chair this afternoon during a second and totally unprepared for root canal on no. 14. I had the first one last Tuesday afternoon, as poor old Heath lay dying, and fortunately had the rest of the day off to recover. Little did I know I was only half way through. This is exactly why I never go to women dentists. The three I have had in my life have all been the same sadistic type. This one I had to see as a referral since my dentist doesn't do root canals. This lady took my insurance, which is not the greatest, so I hadn't much choice with the rather urgent nature of the case. I had postponed looking into the constant dull ache until after the holidays so by last week it had gotten rather unpleasant. Two hours of drilling through the crown, reaming around and yanking out three calcified canals I guess was not enough, so I went back today and had to go through the whole process again. She did not say last week that there would be further surgery required. I thought today was just a checkup so I didn't ask for more than an hour off work and didn't eat lunch first. During the surgery she was talking on her cell phone every 10 minutes, lining up creative writing work, chatting to her assistant and asking her what she thought of her writing. I finally yanked the suction thing out of my mouth and announced that I had to get back to work and why wasn't I told that I would need 2 more hours of root canal? It was almost 3 hours before I got back to my desk and then had to format a complicated financial document. But my super called me in later to say I had gotten a good raise for this year, so I guess that helped ease the pain. At least they gave me a decent painkiller this time after last week's script failed to kill the pain for very long and made me ill.

I don't know what this has to do with High Church but I feel like in a way we are going through a bit of a root canal at the moment, both locally and nationally. Some roots are dying, some have calcified and must be removed, all with great pain but ultimately to save the teeth themselves from being pulled. San Joaquin has extracted themselves and others will likely follow before it's over. We had a good annual meeting last Sunday, but at the end that painful extraction we endured last Spring resulted in a diatribe from one that made us all realize that for some those wounds are still fresh. All in all there was a lot of positive news such as a good pledging base and the coming north wall restoration, and plans to renovate the Undercroft are also brewing, so it should be a lively and early Spring.

ETA: Update on that white-coated idiot dentist: I got a bill for $618 with a note that Dr. Goofoff does not accept my insurance so I am liable for the full amount, this after she had assured me that I would only have to pay $250 and the insurance would cover the rest. I wrote her and the other dentists in that group a letter today detailing the whole debacle and asking that the charges be dropped in light of the negligence on her part and the incredibly unprofessional manner in which she treated me. We'll see what she has to say about that.

The Feast of St. Stephen

2007-12-26T21:40:00.000-05:00

Just found out that St. Stephen is the patron saint of stone masons (makes sense since he so fervently prayed for forgiveness for those who stoned him to death) so I am saying a special prayer to him for our upcoming work on the north wall. I served at low mass tonight since the regular acolyte was away on vacation. It is always wonderful to serve in the Lady Chapel when the Gloria in Excelsis lace superfrontal is on, which I just had time to get on before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We also got the little silver cruets out of the safe so we used those and luckily had just enough wine for those present (7). It was a wonderful way to spend the night after Christmas which otherwise was quite dark, damp and cold.

I was thurifer on Christmas Eve and managed to smoke the place up perhaps too well since half the congregation disappeared before Communion. We started out with 111 and ended up with only 46 communions, which seemed rather odd. It was glorious nonetheless, although I was in a bit of a bad mood beforehand being tired and a bit exasperated with the small number of people who showed up to do an enormous amount of work. A very few of us labored many hours on Sunday and Monday polishing, cleaning and decorating while others were content to sit back and enjoy the show. The Good Ship Ignatius was indeed very short on crew this year but the crew that showed up got the job done somehow. The place looked fabulous in spite of what visiting critics may opine about the slightly changed ceremony.

After a small reception with eggnog and goodies and then very little sleep after too much caffeine, I got up on Christmas Day and helped with the Solemn Mass which we accomplished with just an MC, who also functioned as thurifer and acolyte, and myself as Subdeacon. I also rang the tower bell with my right hand while holding the paten under the humeral veil with my left. I had not been subdeacon for over a year and many things have changed recently, but I got through it with just one stumble going up the altar steps (my alb was too long and I stepped on the hem, dropping my maniple in the process). I had never worn a maniple before so it was a new experience trying to keep that thing on. I know now why Dr Norris hated them.

After a long nap I went back over on Christmas night to a delicious feast in the undercroft cooked by St. James Marshall for all those who had no other place to go. Laurie and the gang went to Denver so I missed being with them for that wonderful white Christmas they had there, but it was a special night of fellowship with my fellow Ignatians.

Holy Stephen, pray for St. Ignatius as we prepare for the final phase of our capital campaign, the cleaning and repointing of the masonry of the north wall. Amen.

Ecce sacerdos Magnum

2007-11-29T21:35:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, November 25, after a full morning of celebrating Christ the King with Solemn Mass and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, at 4:00 pm we instituted our ninth rector, the Rev'd Dr Andrew Charles Blume. Bp Mark Sisk presided and celebrated at the Solemn Pontifical Mass. I was thurifer by special invitation from the MC, who felt sorry for me that I had been, I'm quite sure, accidentally left off the rota for the event. The thurifer that was scheduled graciously allowed me to take the job and he became verger, taking into account the perilous left-knee genuflections that are called for when incense is put on by the Bishop. Better I should fall on my face than he. Luckily I managed to get through it without any major disaster, although I had to put out a fire for the initial censing with the Bishop at the door. A strong wind whipped the coals into flame but I was able to blow them out before it got out of hand. At the Offertory I somehow could not genuflect on my left knee, so I went down on both and then thought I would never get up while attempting to close the thurible, but the Lord lifted me and I somehow arose. Then at the final procession the chain was caught and I had to struggle to untangle it to get the lid up for the Bishop to put on incense all the while kneeling on my right knee (I rationalized that it was actually kneeling before the Sacrament more than the Bishop). But I had blessedly great coals all night and did a good job of smoking up the place with my Glastonbury blend. I almost felt sorry for the choir, who had complained about the procession of the Sacrament that morning when we had two thurifers (I was second) and they were almost gassed out when we passed them. But in spite of that they did a splendid job with the wonderful Howells Office of Holy Communion, which most likely had never been heard before in this church. The Elgar anthem The Spirit of the Lord during Communion was likewise most heavenly so it seems the smoke did not hinder. It sure cleared up my cold congestion by the end of the day.

We had a great crowd of religious and lay people alike, and the service went very smoothly with Frank as MC. The Rev Dr Thomas Pike gave an entertaining sermon with several good stories about Fr Blume and Bp Sisk gave a wonderful greeting to the new rector as the right priest at the right time in the history of St. Ignatius. We had a wonderful reception afterward with lots of good food and champagne. And nary a roach in sight!

Hail Bright Cecilia

2007-11-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

St. Cecilia window in the Gallery

Lots to give thanks for today as I head over to Forest Hills for dinner with Laurie and the gang. It's a beautiful, balmy day here in Gotham and things are shaping up for this Sunday's Feast of Christ the King and then at 4pm the Institution of our new Rector, with Bishop Sisk presiding and celebrating. I do hope we manage to get through the weekend without another pipe bursting (thankfully that pipe behind the altar was a replaceable link) or another geyser erupting as it did a couple of weeks ago on Sunday morning in the downstairs bathroom. We were having coffee hour in the Sunday School room because of the massive Saturday night knockdown of vermin that had left the air in the undercroft quite unpleasant. Someone noticed a stream of water issuing from under the bathroom door and I went in to see what looked like a scene from a horror movie, with the water gushing out of the sink but no taps turned on. Luckily it was just a clogged drain which the Sunday sacristy washing finally overloaded, but I had to deal with cleaning that up, finding a plumber and also making sure everything that had been taken out of the cabinets was put back before AA arrived in the evening. Gilberto and I spent the afternoon after brunch at Dean's putting away as much as we could before we got rather ill from breathing the sickeningly sweet minty roach spray that lingered in the air.

As fate would have it, the Health Department showed up to inspect the soup kitchen that Saturday afternoon before the extermination and were quite appalled at the number of roaches openly cavorting in the kitchen while food was being prepared. There were even roaches in the refrigerator, not to mention mouse droppings by the stove. We were given two weeks to improve ourselves so we have to deal with that this weekend also along with putting up the throne and trying to repair the canopy enough to use on Sunday.

More later...

The Feast of St. Ignatius

2007-10-17T21:40:00.000-04:00

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.

Glory to God

2007-10-13T21:59:00.000-04:00

Saturday, October 6, I was thurifer for Kathy's wedding to John at St. Mark's. I spent about an hour before the service cleaning and polishing St. Mark's cute little thurible with bells that looked like it had not been cleaned for several decades. They don't burn incense much at St. Mark's any more, although they did have a near-disastrous fire recently from burning some kind of stick incense in a potted plant. Kathy was fortunately there showing a prospective priest associate around when they noticed a bitter smell and found a plant smoldering in the upstairs chapel. Luckily it was soon put out and left only a very disfigured pot and plant.

Mo Barbara Crafton, also a member of our reunion group, presided and gave a wonderful homily. The St. Mark's choir and band was superb, especially on The Lord's Prayer, using my favorite rock setting. I had quite a time getting those "quick-lights" to start, and I held up the opening procession even as I was expecting Kathy to be her usual late self. She was miraculously on time leaving the rectory and Fr. DeNaro could be heard all over the church announcing "we're waiting for the thurifer". I finally got the coals going and by the consecration we even had a little smoke. There were several who strongly objected to having incense but I assured them they would hardly notice a little frankincense. And Janet only had to leave once, at the offertory when Fr. DeNaro piled it on. I had fun censing the congo in the round and that thurible is just the right size, with bells that are just the right degree of subtle. I left the boat full of frankincense so I hope they make use of it from time to time.

Kathy will miss St. Mark's quite a lot, I'm sure, as she begins a new life in Saskatoon. We will miss her also but somehow I suspect she and John will find a way to visit from time to time. We wish them well in their life together and Godspeed them back to us.

Image designed by Sr Claire Joy

Right Place, Wrong Time

2007-09-27T21:28:00.000-04:00

Veneration of the Holy Cross

On the Feast of the Holy Cross I went to St. Mary the Virgin for Solemn Mass and veneration of a (supposed) relic of the True Cross. This relic was donated in recent years by someone who acquired it from the Vatican. We venerated the (very small) relic (in a nice reliquary however) in the Mercy Chapel after Mass and I did feel an awesome power from the blessing I received with it. It was also a delight to see and hear the little "sisters balcony" reopened and put to use for the first time in many years, with a small choir singing some antiphons during the venerations. It seems the rector paid a visit there during communions to check the setup and his body mike somehow turned on. As I was walking back from communion I was amused to hear him advising someone about something one learns the first week in seminary (apparently this was not to always know the status of your body mike).

After a little refreshment in St. Joe's Hall, steamy as always (a steampipe runs under it) we headed down to the San Gennaro festival for dinner at Il Fornaio (excellent as always) and then zeppoles for dessert. I hadn't been down to San Gennaro for about 30 years so it was fun in an "only in New York" kind of way. I got a rose scented rosary from one of the orders selling wares there but the rose scent didn't last very long.

Then on the following Wednesday I went back down to the Feast of San Gennaro at the Church of the Most Precious Blood to help Fishngrl with her mystery worship. DL also joined us and we even took communion (don't ask, don't tell!). There were the usual electric votive lights everywhere but I was rather horrified to see that the high altar candles were electric with amber candelabra bulbs. I loved the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the statue of St. Jude was just ghastly but somehow I couldn't take my eyes off him. In spite of vigorous swinging of a very ugly modern thurible, there was hardly a whiff of incense (thank Jesus for that because it was one of those horrible Roman blends) and the choir was barely holding it together, but the procession at the end through the streets of Little Italy was worth the trip. I just loved the way they swayed with that statute of San Gennaro, behind the priest in scarlet cope blessing the crowd with a relic. The procession was so slow because of the large crowd and small streets that we were finishing dinner at Umberto's (fabulous red clam sauce) when they returned down Mulberry Street. Then we had zeppoles for dessert and I vowed to go on a starvation diet for a few days.

Meanwhile, my new rector was waiting for me at Pain Quotidien, calling my cell phone, wondering where I was. I had written down the next day at 6:00 pm as the time of my first meeting with Fr. Blume, as I was mortified to learn the next morning when I got the message. I could blame it on being sick and high on Nyquil and Grey Goose the night I entered that date, but in any event it was not a very dignified start to our acquaintance and I was grateful that he made time to see me the next night before he had to hie back up to Boston. It was wonderful to meet him and find that he is absolutely just what we need right now: someone who has a lot of energy and good ideas about our future as well as a wonderful personality. Blume time is indeed here!

Outdoor statue of San Gennaro
Church of the Most Precious Blood, NYC

A Bog Intersection

2007-09-11T19:52:00.001-04:00

window in St. John the Evangelist
Newport, RI

Last Friday I drove up to Newport with Bill and Kathy for a weekend of group reunion at Janet's new manse. Barbara was unable to make this, our next to last official group reunion after 11 years of semi-regular meetings after our Cursillo weekend together at the same table in May 1996. It was a bittersweet weekend of reminiscences and planning of next steps for each of us. Janet has now made Newport her home and Kathy will soon be moving to Saskatoon after her wedding in early October. Bill and I will continue to meet with Barbara, but it will never be the same. No more sharing of our spiritual journeys and our moments closest and farthest from Christ, over long evening meals and many glasses of wine, although we have promised to get together at least once a year if at all possible and also hope to meet by teleconference once in awhile.

In many ways the weekend was a bog intersection for our lives. We laughed until we almost couldn't see as we were driving toward Newport and Bill was reading me the directions that Janet had sent. He came to the part where she had advised that we would come to "a bog intersection" and need to make a turn, and I said "what's a bog intersection?" Bill said it must be a place where we would see a couple of bogs coming together, but then we cracked up when we realized she must have meant to type "a big intersection". It wasn't until late Sunday when we were driving back that I suddenly came to see that in many ways the weekend actually was a bog intersection for us. I was certainly bogged down with a miserable cold made worse with the heavy marine air to the point that my asthma came out of remission. Kathy was in her own bog of premarital planning and stress which precipitated a terrible migraine on Saturday night that sent her to bed without supper. The poor girl was almost driven mad, she said later, by the noise we were making downstairs carrying on at dinner while she lay dying. I myself went to bed rather early with a wheezing cough and sinus headache and that Springsteen tune playing over and over in my head about "this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing as the calliope crashed to the ground." Bill's bog was much more pleasant I think as he rather continuously and good humoredly juggled text and voice messages from a variety of admirers who mourned his absence.

But we had a wonderful day on Saturday touring Newport. After a morning of silent retreat followed by a long group reunion, we went to Flo's Clamshack for lunch, then drove all around and saw the wonderful homes and mansions, then ended up on the lawn at Castle Hill for cocktails before going back to cook dinner outside on the grill. We went by St. John the Evangelist (also known as the Zabriskie Memorial Church--another branch of the family) where I took the picture above, which somewhat resembles an apostolic bog intersection. I had heard a lot about St. John's and wanted to go to High Mass there on Sunday. By some miracle the church was open late on Saturday afternoon so I was able to at least see it. The liturgy looks somewhat like ours and they still use the old Prayer Book and Hymnal, but when I read the literature in the narthex and realized they are part of the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith, we all lost interest.

Sunday morning Kathy was still in recovery so Bill and I went with Janet to her church, Emmanuel, and had a low but meaningful worship experience. The sermon by Fr. Cole was quite good and had us imagine how popular Our Lord must have been when he was doing miracles and healing the sick, but then how the crowd grew smaller and smaller when he explained all that would be required of true discipleship.

So it ended with a bowl of chowda at the Black Pearl before we headed back to a final view of that bog intersection on our way home. Janet is now beyond the bog, lucky her, but we are still immured each in our own ways. I look forward to October 21, the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Ignatius, when the bog that has been this interim period at church shall at last turn into a new era of growth and renewal with our new rector, the Rev. Dr. Andrew C. Blume. Let us pray that our parish shall grow together again in spirit and service to Our Lord.

Sleepless in the Rockies

2007-08-25T20:47:00.000-04:00

The 11th and 12th Sundays after Pentecost were smoke free in colorful Colorado. The intoxicating smell of sage and juniper in the clear mountain air was incense enough and seemed to help compensate for the missing oxygen. I spent the first Sunday at St. John Baptist Granbury, pictured above in winter, just down the road from Snow Mountain Ranch, where I was staying with 9 other family members and 5 dogs. St. John's is a lovely little mountain church with a gorgeous view of the Rockies behind the altar. Fr. Spencer Carr is an ex-New Yorker and was a familiar face from his concerts at St. Ignatius with the New Amsterdam Singers. I felt most welcome at St. John's in spite of sitting in someone's pew. I was so exhausted and lightheaded from no sleep and not enough oxygen that I just sank into the first comfortable looking seat I came upon and it was not until I roused myself from a deep prayerlike state and looked around that I realized I had the only seat with a nice back cushion. The service was starting and I was too embarrassed to start asking around if anyone needed a cushion, though the largely senior congo seemed spry enough and no one obviously glared at me. It wasn't until the exchange of the Peace that I felt a slight chill from my right and realized that must be the man whose seat I was sitting in. Oh well, suffering is good for the soul they say. We had the "Star Trek" canon for the Mass and it seemed quite appropriate for the first time that I can recall.

After a full week of outdoor activities such as alpine sledding at Winter Park, hiking around Monarch Lake and finding a sacred mushroom (I let it be), hiking up to a waterfall at Snow Mountain in a steady downpour, soaking in the "sacred" therapeutic pools of Hot Sulphur Springs on the Assumption, and then a wonderful early morning drive across Rocky Mountain National Park on my way to Denver, I spent the following Sunday at St. John's Cathedral in Denver after the first and only night I actually slept the whole 10 days. They had two vergers, one in front and one at the rear even for the Gospel procession, humongous torches and a crucifer, but no thurifer. Dean Eaton gave a "Commentary on the Liturgy" on the Ministry of the Sacrament at two points in the liturgy, the first of which went on at great length and against a feeding back mike that kept getting lower and lower in volume. This must be the current thing in Colorado as the previous Sunday was also an "Instructed Eucharist", although Fr. Carr did also preach a fine sermon about faith and hope. The Cathedral has many gorgeous stained glass windows and architectural details and seems to have quite a healthy and diverse congo with a plethora of clergy and servers as well as a splendid choir. The liturgy throughout was one I had not heard before and no info was available about it. Perhaps it is the new trial liturgy, but if so I must say, I was not that taken with it.

It will be good to get back to my pew tomorrow and hear the tower bell again during the consecration. We finally got the relay fault corrected and a setting made for the 3 tolls with the new ChimeMaster system we had installed to replace the old electroshock chamber that died last year. Doug has mastered the fine art of the remote control and has been ringing it from behind the organ bench, so I look forward to hearing that. The Angelus is once again ringing at noon and 6pm automatically so I'm sure our neighbors are back to remembering us fondly at those hours. At least they are spared the early morning ringing for now anyway, at least until the new rector arrives. I hear a contract is being drawn up as we speak, so we should know soon who the ninth rector will be. Keep praying that those rumors of clown masses in our future are unfounded!

St. Joseph of Arimathea

2007-08-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

And did those feet, in ancient time,
Walk upon England's mountains green?

St. Joseph of Arimathea is my favorite saint. I've had a fondness for the legends surrounding him for about 20 something years and have amassed most all the known literature about him and have been to Glastonbury, which is my favorite place in the world, three times. I hope to write an opera about him some day. Until then, it's business as usual. Can hardly wait for my vacation next week out to Snow Mountain Ranch in Rocky Mountain National Park with the family. It will be another high altitude Assumption.

I was at Transfiguration last Sunday and it was good to see Bishop St. John bringing that congo back together, admist the renovations following the removal of the parish hall. They do a Solemn Mass all summer so they are ahead of us, and even have a full choir. They need more fans, however, as it was positively stifling in there on a day that was not terribly hot but very very humid. The incense was a bit sweet for my taste, Gloria I think, but there was at least enough of it to notice. The torches did that Hail Jesus salute at the elevations that I always find amusing. Afterward there was a small coffee hour at the back of the church but Gilberto and I decided to head down a couple blocks to Hill Country, which has become my home away from home. The brisket is just wonderful and those Kreuz margaritas are just heavenly. What a blessing to finally have a real Texas barbecue joint here in Manhattan! One day soon I hear they will also have Shiner Beer! Thank you, Jesus!

Yesterday for the feast of St. Joseph of Arimathea I went to the noonday Sung Mass at St. Mary's. Fr. Beddingfield celebrated and homilized and there was a wonderful amount of incense, as usual. St. Mary's and New York will miss Fr. Beddingfield, but we wish him well in his new gig at All Souls, Washington DC.

The final three have been chosen in the St. Ig. derby for the vestry's consideration, so let us pray that they are of one mind and that right soon.

The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

2007-07-23T21:00:00.000-04:00

"Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much."

I kept the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene yesterday at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue. They did a rather modified version of Solemn Mass, with three sacred ministers including a proper lay subdeacon who sang the epistle. They had a crucifer but no candles or torches and the thurifer only appeared at the offertory and left after the rather dramatic censing of the congo. BG and I were sitting about half way back and I barely got a whiff of what seemed to be a Holy Cross blend, not bad but not enough of it to either offend or delight. I was surprised to see a female attendant who did acolyte duties so perhaps that bit of discrimination is slowly dying. The rector was on vacation so Canon Andrew held forth as of olden days, giving one of his classic sermons from the late 1990s on St. Mary Magdalen and updating it with a short tirade on current affairs in the Anglican Communion. It was good to see him looking very hale and feisty. The visiting choir from the Rochester Third Presbyterian Church was splendid in the mass settings from various modern sources. Afterward the fellowship upstairs consisted of only liquid, no munchies of any sort, not even a crust of bread, which seemed rather strange, but the iced tea was very refreshing. BG opted for a Bloody Mary and then we headed down to 26th Street to the High Church of Hill Country Barbecue, the long-awaited oasis of "real" Texas barbecue here in Manhattan. After a delicious brisket sandwich and Kreuz margarita, we decided to head to the beach. A couple of hours later we were basking in a perfect day at Jones Beach and watching the gorgeous and humongous sea birds frolic in the surf. We ended up at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria but it was way too smokey for me (people actually smoking cigarettes, how primitive!) and the Czech food was not that great, although the pitcher of beer was quite adequate.

In other journeys I also visited St. Mark's in the Bowery on the last Sunday in June. Fr. Denaro led a rather unique celebration of the eucharist after the "UnWedding" of four gay couples, which was actually a blessing of their unions, albeit not legally binding. The service started with a drag queen in a red tutu singing or rather croaking some show tune and then some rather obscure readings followed by more show tunes. Then there was a long speech made by a woman who got up to "protest" the joining of the couples by demanding that everyone everywhere in any sort of committed relationship be able to marry or no one should. Fr. Denaro then blessed the unions and after the exchange of vows and tokens there was a champagne toast and exchange of the peace which lasted about half an hour. Then most of the crowd left and the eucharist proceeded with about 30 people, many of whom seemed to be visitors. A light projected a simple white cross on the "stage" and the altar was a round table on the floor in the midst of the circle of people, with a rainbow altar cloth and rainbow vestments for all. They have a decent band and choir even without Kathy, and they belted out my favorite gay anthem, "I Am What I Am", at the offertory. The Body as pita bread and the Chalice were sent around the circle and Gilberto didn't bat an eye as he handed them to me.

Two weeks ago we visited Good Shepherd and were happy to see Fr. Carlson doing well there and aided by a couple of former St. Marians. Next Sunday we are planning to go up to Intercession and see what form of "Solemn Mass" they do. Stay tuned and keep praying. The search committee is narrowing the field down to three this week!

Takin' It To The Streets

2007-06-12T21:54:00.001-04:00

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

2007-06-05T21:35:00.001-04:00

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!

30 Years Ago Today

2007-05-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of my lease here at Casa Piscina. It took almost 7 years after I moved here from Big D to find St. Ignatius, but I had been advised back in Boston by the notorious Robison brothers that I should by all means visit "The Lamps". They had been acolytes under Fr. Weatherby and had a certain mystical insight about St. Ignatius that they often tried to share as we had made our way across the Common from NEC to Church of the Advent. It was at the Advent that I first experienced High Church and the joys of incense, but I was more concerned with making bassoon reeds in those days so it took a long time for me to get around to looking up old St. Ignatius.

It was Good Friday of 1984 when I first walked in and was just in awe at that liturgy and yes, I had a great mystical feeling, as if I had finally found God again after years of being a little dubious about Him. I came back Easter Sunday (I didn't know about the Vigil) and was even more awestruck at the beauty of the music and the ceremony. I still think of my first May festival there a few weeks later, also a new thing for me. I developed a closeness to Mary that I had never felt, saying the Rosary on Saturdays with Fr. Barrow for a few years. Those were the honeymoon years, as Jimmy Dollar used to call them. The wonderful first years at a parish before you get involved in all the politics and internal personality clashes that inevitably occur when you work with people in a community like the Church. It's hard to remember sometimes that one cannot really be a solitary Christian. It is in working together as a community that we most encounter that cutting edge of what it really means to try and be Christlike.

I must admit I was having a moment furthest from Christ last Sunday when I saw there were no flowers at the Shrine of Our Lady. No one had given money for a bouquet (and this should have been in the Parish Notes the week before, but I guess that would have been too much work to actually notice it and email the office to ask it be put in), but there were plants at the Font which could have been moved over to have something there at least. But no, we can't be arsed. I even attempted to put my dried Easter rose bouquet over there and it was removed by the flower guild. So nothing was what we had. I know I shouldn't have gotten so upset about it, but frankly this was the second time an important feast day was celebrated with nary a flower in sight. The Feast of St. Ignatius was the other time and his shrine had no flowers nor did the altar. Can I just suggest, if you don't have the interest to make sure we have flowers on important feast days, perhaps someone else would like to assist you in this ministry?

I also wanted to report that the Zabriskie web pages are done. Last weekend Chris Citron was in town and we had a little exhibit of Zabriskie photos in the Sunday School room. Then Chris and I had lunch with Charles Sachs and discussed trying to get the whole exhibit here to NYSHA as well as finishing the book that had been started about him and left unfinished at the author's death. I look forward to helping with those endeavors. I'm also hoping to take an actual course in Dreamweaver so that I can do a few things with the website.

Blessed Julian, pray for us, amen.

Vaya con Dios

2007-04-16T21:45:00.000-04:00

Just lost the best sexton we ever had and also probably the best associate priest, so the past few days of monsoonal weather have been particularly appropriate and even convenient for hiding a few tears. It was just one of those Palm Sunday things that seem to happen every year. Someone had joked the week before that we could create our own High Church version of Halloween and call it Palm Sunday. Tensions rise at the vast and mighty acts of Holy Week and tempers are short to nonexistent. This Holy Week was going to be fine, I had felt the week before. Things seemed to be on an even keel in the sacristy and the only incoming fire was from some crotchety parishioner (let me guess) who had made it into the vestry minutes complaining about my candlestick conversion. I was in a good mood as I arrived for Palm Sunday and even looked forward to the procession from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument with the Methodists even though it was a bit nippy and threatened to rain at any moment. But outside the West End door I beheld Tex and the senior warden deep in serious conversation. I was late for my torchbearing duties so I didn't stop to inquire, but I never imagined it was the beginning of the end for our beloved sexton, hardly six months after he had begun working there.

The moment I walked into the sacristy I knew all was not well. It seems there had been a confrontation between the now former associate and the sexton after the 9:00 am service and a line was drawn in the sand about the handling of the acolyte duties by the sexton. It had been a problem getting a server for this service since we eliminated the 8:00am service and the faithful acolyte who had always done the opening of doors, lighting candles, setting up the elements, etc., had been unable to serve later than 8:00. Asking Tex to do it seemed like a good arrangement for both of us. Tex felt like he was a fulfilling the full duties of a sexton, which in many churches involves such duties as he was performing on Sunday morning. Then a few rude remarks, a general disrespect for his involvement in the service, and we have lost not only a sexton but an associate priest, the sexon quitting the next day, the priest leaving yesterday after Low Sunday High Mass.

Now some people are saying I am to blame for the priest getting asked to take a leave of absence for some anger management. I'm flattered you assume I have that kind of power, but in fact I was not one of those who voted unanimously to ask him to step away from the sacristy for awhile. I'm not even on the vestry this year, and the vestry is trumped by the power of the wardens during the Interim--hirings and firings are in their purview alone, in consultation with the Interim Pastor, Bishop and Deployment Canon, all of whom agreed that a time out needed to be taken. I will miss him also and I foresee that his absence will be a source of considerable conflict for us in the near future, but I believe it is the right thing for both parties at this time to take some time away. See the world, go with God.

In the Beginning

2007-03-31T21:36:00.000-04:00

I just love this picture of the High Altar taken around 1905 by Charles Frederic Zabriskie. Everything looks so shiny new and clean. I always imagine this was taken on Maundy Thursday since there appears to be an empty tabernacle and only the bare minimum of adornment. Those are the original solemn six candlesticks which are so much finer than the ones we have now. Alas something happened to three of them somewhere along the way as we now only possess three of them, two at the baptistry and one only recently rescued from a life converted to a lamp under a very large and ugly shade. I suppose someone decided that a candle without a pair could hardly have a life of its own and so fitted its insides with an electric cord and put a large shade over it so that it was hardly recognizable as the beautiful candlestick it once was, sitting proudly on the High Altar. As I was refinishing the West End door those many weeks it gave me some good light but then one day it stopped working and I was faced with either repairing it or doing what I had been longing to do for years: turn it back into a candlestick. It seemed to fairly shout at me to do the latter and after some weeks of sitting in the electric room, one Saturday it just demanded that I take the electrical wiring from its guts and restore it to its intended purpose. It took three Saturdays to actually accomplish this restorative surgery since it was very well made and the final step of taking out the three foot rod that held it together involved also sawing off six inches of it to make it fit again. I lost a few ounces of blood in the procedure but I finally managed to get the eight individual sections back together and upright, not an easy operation at all, but well worth the effort. It now sits atop the marble plinth in the Sunday School room, which had been without a purpose itself for many years. I felt sure people would think this was all well and good, but apparently someone was so offended that they complained to the vestry about my audacity in converting it back to a candlestick. Oh well, you can't please everyone!

This has been a very busy month and I have spent many hours getting the Zabriskie web pages finished, struggling mightily with Dreamweaver and Photoshop and finally being enlightened by a colleague at work only this past week about resampling so that now the photos don't take up a gazillion bytes. I think Charles Frederic will be pleased and I hope someday soon we can get an exhibit of his photos here to New York. I wish I had more of them to display but that will have to wait for another trip to Cooperstown. I hope I can get up there in the summer this time and experience it in its most wonderful state.

I also had a very nice treat last week when my cousin, Laura Hazelbaker, came through town with Ray Price, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson on the "Last of the Breed" tour. She plays fiddle with Ray's band, the Cherokee Cowboys, and was able to sneak me in backstage at Radio City to hear the show. It was great to meet Ray and hang out with him and and the band on their bus afterward. He is one of my all time favorites, and still sounds as good as ever, even at 81! Merle and Willie were great also and it was a wonderful warm night at the High Church of Honky Tonk, a nice respite in the midst of a chilled and somber Lent.

Today was polishing day at the Shrine Church and we got most of it done. Tuesday we shall finally, God willing, get the new lantern installed over the West End door and get the new sign up. Thursday I shall spend most of the day there getting ready for Maundy Thursday. I'm MC, as I have been for the past several years, and it takes all day to get everything set up, but it's my favorite service I think. Here's praying we don't have any major blowouts in the sacristy this week as we often have. Lord grant a blessed Holy Week to us all.

Dedication

2007-02-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

Today is the 82nd anniversary of the dedication of St. Ignatius' Church. On February 8, 1925 Bp. Manning presided at the dedication which was to the glory of God, in honour of St. Ignatius, and in memory of Fr. Arthur Ritchie, rector 1884-1914.

I finally got back up to Cooperstown the day after Christmas and got the Zabriskie photos of Fr. Ritchie copied. The picture above was taken in the summer of 1900 in Cooperstown during a visit to the Zabriskie summer home there. I'm working on a web page now about the Zabriskies and will elaborate more in that space soon. I've been learning Dreamweaver the past few weeks and have taken over updating the Church website, which has been fun but a steep learning curve. Our previous webmaster has left the parish so I have been honored to try and fill in until we can find someone who actually knows what they're doing.

I'm happy to report the West End door has now gotten a coat of marine spar varnish and the new lantern has arrived and awaits installation. The new sign should be here in a couple of weeks and this project can finally be finished, more than 3 months from when it started. It has been a hard fought battle but I think the finished product was worth the effort. I hope to turn our attention to the Common Room next and get that place renovated this year as well as the Sunday School room, not to mention the garden area.

I'm glad I have some time off from the vestry at least, having reached my term limit for at least a year. I'm returning to altar duty this Sunday for the Solemnity of the Dedication, so that will be nice. I have enjoyed coming in late, sitting at the back and generally being not at all concerned about who's doing what at the altar. But it has had its downside, especially having to watch the woman who makes a big scene lighting candles at the shrines and touching every saint in the house twice before prostrating herself before the altar. That is a bit distracting. At least when I'm serving I can pretty much totally miss anything like that, although there are other types of distractions up there. What I'd really like is a private booth up in the gallery, but that wouldn't quite be church, would it?

We also give thanks that the Profile has been filed and the search for a new rector has officially begun. On this anniversary of the Dedication, I pray that God prepare us all to discern His will for the ninth rector of St. Ignatius.

A Warm Epiphany

2007-01-06T22:27:00.001-05:00

Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

It was a record-breakingly warm day here in New York, and people were wandering the streets with slightly surreal and euphoric expressions of disbelief as the temperature hovered around 70 for several hours. I avoided the hordes in Central Park by spending a good part of it outside the West End door. It was blessedly warm on West End Avenue as I labored to get the door ready for varnishing and the installation of our new lantern. The light was good and I had some uninterrupted time to get most of the troublesome details done. I just had time to clean up a bit before the 7:00 pm Epiphany solemn mass. We were not many in numbers for a Saturday night but it was a lovely procession to the Epiphany creche and a simple solemn mass, without choir but Doug and Charles sang the propers and graduals quite adequately. We had several fine voices in the congo so the hymns and Willan mass setting were sung quite heartily. Fr. Gentile gave a fine sermon although the velcro on his amice had gone awry sometime during the Introit and didn't get fixed until the ablutions. I sat near the front and once again wished I hadn't. There's a new lady sitting in the Zabriskie pew that I have not sat in for awhile so I sat a few rows back, but still too close. But all in all it was a truly joyous Epiphany and I give thanks for being almost done with the door.

The Door

2006-12-23T21:51:00.000-05:00

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That which ye behold is a divine mystery.

Tonight was the final night of the Great O Antiphons at Evensong. It was nice to have a full complement of servers and a decent congo and so great to see Bob back in his pew. Doug led the chants and for once most of us sang along on pitch. Somehow this finally put me in the Christmas spirit and I got my shopping done after polishing and melting wax most of the afternoon. My brother came by for lunch, having escaped Denver just before the blizzard hit. I look forward to spending Christmas with him and the Forest Hills gang and then going up to Cooperstown for a couple of days. I hope to finally get copies of the photos of Fr. Ritchie that Zabriskie took and to finish viewing the enormous collection of his photographs in the Fenimore archives. I also plan to see the Grandma Moses exhibit with my sister-in-law and nieces while my brother and nephews go to the baseball hall of fame. It will be nice to get some nice fresh upstate air after six weeks of sanding the West End door. It's almost done and looks quite wonderful in its almost virginal white oak state. It occurred to me that surely Charles Frederic had a hand in picking this most exquisite and costly wood. Fr. Ritchie mentioned in his sermon, "A Lover of God's House" at CFZ's requiem, that he would not hear of sparing any expense to obtain the best possible materials for the building of the church. I have wanted to refinish this door for years and have finally this fall had the nerve to attempt it. I always suspected it was beautiful wood underneath all that ugly varnish. I had some help for a few weeks getting most of the varnish off but the last few weeks I have been on my own getting down to all the details. It's been a lonely endeavor, usually in the evenings when no one is around, but I have never felt alone thinking of all the good people who have gone in and out that door. I kept hearing that Julio Iglesias song and thinking if only oak could talk what tales we would hear of all the ones who have loved this place before.

Christ the King

2006-11-26T23:09:00.000-05:00

We celebrated the feast of Christ the King today in grand High Church style. It is our custom to have a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction after Solemn Mass. I sat in as second thurifer for the Procession by special request from the MC, and it was nice to be back up where I could smell the incense again. I've been sitting toward the back the past few weeks and now really have no sympathy for those who complain about the incense when there is plenty of space in the back where you will get barely a whiff. I almost had an overdose today, however, from my Processional blend. I guess I'm off my game when I can't open my eyes or sing because of too much smoke. But I've also been inhaling 105 years of West End door dust the past couple of weeks and that has been quite an experience. I'm helping strip all the varnish off the gorgeous old growth Oak doors and I felt today like I really needed to get some fresh air after 3 straight days of sanding then all the frankincense. The young sister torchbearers were coughing and their mother later said that was their last High Mass because it's too long, too late and too much smoke. Well, they are needed at the 9:00 so I hope they will help out there. I'll be glad to get back to my pew, since I can't help being an MC when I'm up there. I realized today how much I really need a sabbatical from all those details. I have enjoyed not being able to see what's going on, although I was unfortunate to sit right by the back speaker last week and got way too much information from the three sanctuary mikes. I turned them down after picking up some rather amusing flatulence during the censing of the altar. I guess if you're going to pass gas, that's the best time to do it, although it could be a fire hazard! At any rate, God was not totally glorified with that and other various mutterings and excessive chain rattlings. The previous rector would not allow mikes in the sanctuary for that reason. Then when he left the B&G chair immediately saw to it that we got two mikes on the altar and one behind the tabernacle lamp, so you have to be careful.

Fr. Harding gave a very interesting sermon which started out with a quote by EB White and then wandered through Stephen Hawking's imaginings about the End of Time. It was Fr. Harding's last Sunday with us for awhile, sadly, although it is a joyful thing that he and Mo Swain are expecting a child on Epiphany. We hope to see them back soon. Next Sunday our Interim Pastor, Fr. Rob Schwarz, takes charge so that should be a nice stabilizing factor. It's been a very long and bumpy two month transition and I think Fr. Rob is just what we need to bring us all back together again. Let us pray.

All Saints and All Souls

2006-11-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

On All Saints Day I went to St. Mary the Virgin for Solemn Mass and 3 baptisms and a reaff, with Bp. Grein presiding. I hadn't been to SMV for several years and was glad to see it is still drawing a decent crowd for an impressive floorshow, although they no longer have processions for such occasions and the strange things they have done with the ceremony make me rather upset. Still it was a lovely service in many ways and the incense is beyond compare. I learned all I know from the incensemeister of SMV, but he didn't teach me his best secrets evidently. I have never attained quite that incredible bouquet that lingers for days. The large thuribles also help create the large clouds of fragrant smoke and the thurifer now goes down the center aisle censing the congo.

The reception afterward was not quite up to the standard of olden days but it was good to see several old friends there all the while ducking the rector successfully. I thought he had followed me into the ladies room as I slipped behind him to make a narrow escape and suddenly there was that unmistakable voice talking about church history as I settled into a stall, but it was just that he was talking to a young visitor while holding the door open.

The next evening I was at St. Ignatius for a sublime All Souls requiem and absolution at the catafalque accompanied by the Faure Requiem. Our choir had never sounded better and it was just a transcendent experience to hear the Faure in that setting. I was sitting toward the back in my new favorite pew and enjoyed very much not having to do one bit of work.

Sunday I was at St. Ignatius again for the Solemnity of All Saints which was also lovely. I can't believe I have been going there for more than 22 years and have never realized how wonderful the service is from the back of the church. At that distance it is an elegant liturgical dance, with just enough smoke to obscure the details. I also didn't quite realize how good the sound is from that pew, with a speaker right on the column. And the sunlight comes streaming in from the clerestory stained glass so wonderfully, although I realized how dirty the floors really are in that light. We have a new sexton starting this week so I am hoping we can get the place clean again.

I prayed for the Zabriskies and all our faithful departed as we sang my favorite hymn, St. Catherine's Court, at the ablutions.

These stones that have echoed their praises are holy
And dear is the ground where their feet have once trod
Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims
And still they were seeking the city of God.

All Hallows Eve

2006-10-31T22:41:00.000-05:00

I guess it's time to let my inner witch out to play for a moment on this All Hallows Eve. And I know some of you are saying when was she ever not out, but I actually think she is pretty well under control most of the time. But this is my damned blog and I say things here I would not say to you face to face. I say them here so I don't have to make a scene. I'm sorry if you are offended by my observations but did I ask you to read this? If not, did someone else send it to you? Then they are just stirring the shit, pardon my French. My remarks do not in any way represent anyone other then me and I take full responsibility for whatever reaction they may invoke. Some times things just need to be said, and we Texans have a bad habit of not really caring what people think about us. Just please don't go crying to the wardens about me because they have better things to occupy their time right now. And so do I for that matter. I am going to take a very long break from sacristy work and I am so going to enjoy it. I need to get out of that show and see a little bit of the world beyond High Church. I want to go some place where I'm totally anonymous and just worship God without all this drama. I will be there most Saturdays, cleaning and trying to improve things here and there, but after the Profile gets finished I am planning to do alot of visiting, as I did during the last interim 10 years ago. It is a good time to get a fresh perspective and meet some new friends. Last time I spent 3 years at St. Mary's and that was a real growing experience in many good and also terrible ways, but this time I plan to stay uninvolved in any and all parishes I may attend. I do love all of you in my way, but right now you are driving me crazy. So let's not say Au Revoir, let's just say Vaya con Dios!

The Feast of St. Ignatius

2006-10-17T20:27:00.000-04:00

"Here and now, as I write in the fullness of life, I am yearning for death with all the passion of a lover. Earthly longings have been crucified; in me there is left no spark of desire for mundane things, but only a murmur of living water that whispers within me, 'Come to the Father'."
- St. Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle to the Romans

The church in Blessed Ignatius' day was riven, much like today, into three parties, right, left and center. He presided over the See of Antioch in the latter part of the first century. By legend he was reported to be the child whom Jesus exampled in the "Suffer the little children to come to me" episode. He was also rumored to have led quite a wild life prior to his conversion. Ignatius had a good long episcopate of 40 years, and his leadership had to have been strong in a church so fractured at that time. Talk about inventing the wheel! New York has nothing on Antioch in that day for highest splendor and darkest decadence.

We celebrated the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Ignatius on Sunday in grand High Church style with a procession to the shrine of St. Ignatius and Solemn Mass. I was subdeacon, Fr. Gentile was deacon, and Fr. Harding was celebrant and preacher. The crucifer sounded the Sanctus bells too early and then couldn't get the tower bell to ring because he was clicking too fast, but otherwise the service went off "without a Hitch" as someone said. We missed Fr. Hitchcock briefly but then remembered that we would have been singing "Blessed Feasts of Blessed Martyrs" if he were still around, and thought better of it.

The choir is sounding especially good this year and did a wonderful job on our annual hearing of Victoria's Cum beatus Ignatius as well as the Guerrero Missa "de la Batalla escoutez". All in all it was a joyful celebration with a high coffee hour afterward (although sans the bubbly) and a new era seems to be dawning at the shrine church. We have selected a search committee and names are flying in from all over the world. I ask your prayers as we begin this discernment process and as God prepares the priest who will be the ninth rector of St. Ignatius of Antioch in the City of New York.

A Long Goodbye

2006-10-04T22:44:00.000-04:00

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.

Requiem Aeternam

2006-09-11T21:39:00.000-04:00

Remembering all those who died this day 5 years ago. Today it seemed that we were all wrapped in our own memories of September 11, which was a day very much like today. As I rode the #1 to work there was even the same eerie stillness as we crept toward Times Square, but today it was just a bomb scare at Penn Station that held us up. As we waited and wondered what was going on, I thought back to my own last glimpse of the World Trade Center, on September 9th. After a protracted Cursillo team meeting at St. Paul's, a visit to Snug Harbor and a late Italian dinner, I had been compelled to spend the night in remotest Staten Island and had to take an early bus back in time for church. On my way to the bus I glanced up and beheld Joe Grillo already up and painting his upper terrace. We had only met the night before briefly as his sister-in-law and I sat out in the yard between their houses and drank several glasses of wine before realizing it was much too late for me to start for home. Joe had not been drinking, evidently, or else had some marvelous inner drive to get up early on Sunday morning to paint his terrace. At any rate he was in better spirits than I was as I staggered toward the bus. He gave me a big grin and looked like he was in his bliss. Well, to each his own, I mused, as I made a brave effort to get back to my bliss, High Mass at St. Ignatius.

I was dozing as we rumbled into Manhattan and suddenly there they were: those twin towers that one never got tired of marveling at. Up close they were simply massive. The morning was crisp and clear, the streets all but deserted as I gave them a long admiring glance before closing my eyes for a few more moments of rest.

48 hours later Joe Grillo was arriving for work as a Port Authority controller there at the North Tower. He called his wife Mary about 9:15 and said he was on his way down. Most likely he stayed behind to help others try to escape because he was just that kind of guy. Those who knew him better than I said he would never have dreamed of just running for his life. And I'm quite sure there were many unsung heroes that day that did their best to help others, as the famous Man with the Red Bandana, but Joe was never heard from again. He left behind two teenaged boys and a wife (my good friend's sister), as well as many relatives and friends who waited for days in hope that he might come walking in, dazed and confused but alive. I who scarcely knew him was haunted for months by the image of him grinning and waving goodbye that pleasant Sunday morning. Joe, may your soul and all those who died that day, rest in peace.

A High Altitude Assumption

2006-08-29T22:20:00.000-04:00

I was high in the Rockies on Assumption Day, at Snow Mountain Ranch, Colorado. It was a perfect day in many ways and I spent an hour or so in the afternoon at the outdoor sanctuary by myself, not another soul in sight. I had spent the morning doing a copper rubbing of Da Vinci's Last Supper and so missed (blessedly) the death march started at noon up Snow Mountain by my cabin mates. My niece Laurie loves to take people up to Hell's gate and I learned the first trip that going up Snow Mountain was just a bit of an ordeal. This year I had not been sleeping well up there, with strange dreams of pigeons in peril and two requiems back at the shrine church, so all that combined with the usual New York fatigue made me feel lazy most of the time. I did go on the Zip Line again and managed to climb up that 25 foot pole faster than I did 2 years ago and jump off the top with almost enthusiasm. But Assumption afternoon was my favorite time there. I missed being at Solemn Mass for a minute or two but I was soon distracted by how awesomely quiet it was and then just relished breathing that clear mountain air (no incense necessary). Later on I met the gang back at the Craft Shop where Evan and I made dreamcatchers and tie-dye t-shirts before we headed back for dinner. Mark and I made a grand Mexican fiesta for the 10 of us and then we headed over to Hawkquest and saw some amazing birds, including a gorgeous owl and a "bald" eagle. We then headed home in a torrential thunder and lightning storm. That night I put my dreamcatcher up and promptly had the scariest dream I've had in years, about demon kids that looked like Chucky and Bride of Chucky lurking in the closets. I probably should have hung my rosary up instead.

De profundis

2006-07-17T21:52:00.000-04:00

Yesterday after the Sung Mass we rented a minivan and a car and 12 of us with the rector drove out to the Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill, NY, about 21 miles up the Hudson off the Palisades. It was a beautiful if very warm day and we were thankful that the St. Ignatius section was mercifully shaded by a very tall oak tree with branches that seemed like arms upraised to heaven. After visiting all the graves, we had a short prayer service in front of Fr. Ritchie's grave. It was well nigh time we paid a visit to the place as it had been 11 years since the last burial there. The large crucifix at the entrance needs repairing and some stones had fallen over but otherwise it looked pretty good even with no regular care. It was almost 3:00 by the time we made our way over to Piermont for a very welcome lunch at The Turning Point, which was just the perfect place even with the loud music going on underneath us. On the way back we drove down Broadway from the GW Bridge and said a prayer for the Zabriskies in the Trinity Uptown cemetery as we passed.

While at the cemetery we were also able to pick up the memorial stones from our monument engraver from Nyack for three parishioners that have died and are awaiting final interment in our columbarium at the church, so now we can finally get poor Carolyn into her niche after three long years of waiting in the pantry.

Almighty God, who has knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant, we beseech thee, to thy whole Church in paradise and on earth, thy light and thy peace. Amen.

Independence Day

2006-07-05T11:57:00.000-04:00

I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd. (St. John 10:14-16)

A week ago today, on the feast of St. Irenaeus, our rector made his declaration of independence, effective October 1. The Gospel at Mass before the vestry meeting was from St. John, the parable of the Good Shepherd. I had received a report the day before that the announcement was coming and upon hearing this parable could not help thinking rather bitterly that our shepherd had revealed himself as only a hireling after all, not really as concerned about us and our future as the one Good Shepherd is, but then I realized that perhaps he does have our best interest at heart in confessing that his health and energy are not what they need to be to do the job. I think we had all imagined we would have more than 3 months to adjust and make preparations for the transition, but perhaps it is better this way. We will move on and hopefully find a good shepherd, one with more zeal and energy to try and make our little sheepfold stronger and healthier. In the meantime we must carry on and find a suitable interim, one that will keep the flock together while we self-study and search.

Good Shepherd, pray for us, Amen.

Remembering Father Ritchie

2006-06-28T14:39:00.000-04:00

With all the craziness last week of celebrating our first female presiding bishop, the hoopla over Corpus Christi, the benefit for Christ Church, Slidell, praying for Gilberto's ticker and trying to decide which type of pigeon spikes to order, I forgot to wish a happy 157th birthday to Fr. Arthur Ritchie, our second rector. He was born June 22, 1849, in Philadelphia. He graduated from General Seminary and thereafter worked at Church of the Advent in Boston and briefly at St. Clement's Philly before becoming rector of Church of the Ascension, Chicago. He soon got into trouble with Bp. McLaren in Chicago over his reservation of the Sacrament and the so-called non-communicating high mass. He stood his ground and continued his catholic practices with the full approval of the parish until he accepted the call to become rector of St. Ignatius in early 1884. It wasn't long before he had introduced at St. Ignatius a much more advanced catholic ritual than Dr. Ewer had done and incurred the disapproval of fellow New York clergy and Bp. Potter with his use of vestments, candles, incense, holy water, confessionals and reservation of the Sacrament as well as Benediction (believed to be the first American use of this service, then called Adoration). Fr. Ritchie was rector for 30 years and made St. Ignatius a stronghold of Anglocatholicism with his superb preaching and his unswerving devotion to the catholic faith and traditions.

We have him to thank for our current marvelous church building and its furnishings. In 1900 he and Charles Frederic Zabriskie, then senior warden and also recently moved to the neighborhood, scouted out the frontier property of the Upper West Side and found a nice plot of land at 552 West End Avenue. Thanks to the generosity of Zabriskie and other vestrymen, they were able to build quite a nice little church.

Fr. Ritchie died on July 9, 1921, and is buried in the St. Ignatius section of Rockland Cemetery near Nyack. We are planning a trip to the cemetery on July 16, which the Parish at Fr. Ritchie's suggestion purchased in 1891 and in which any parishioner may be buried at no cost for the plot. We need to figure out how many plots there are left and make the parish more aware of its existence. We haven't paid a visit in several years, since Fr. Weatherby, our seventh rector, was buried there about 10 years ago.

Neither Fr. Ritchie nor Fr. Weatherby would have approved of the new presiding bishop, I'm sure. They wouldn't have approved of me being "on the altar" either, but I trust we will not see evidence of them turned over in their graves on either count. As for all the bitter defeatists, I wish they would just get over it already. As one button at the Convention said, "God is not a boy's name."

Corpus Christi

2006-06-17T20:50:00.000-04:00

Lo! upon the altar lies,
hidden deep from human eyes,
Bread of angels from the skies,
made the food of mortal man.

The Feast of Corpus Christi was one of those rare, perfect days of Spring. I took the day off and spent most of it at church, setting up for Solemn Mass with Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction and also making a visit up to the roof to see the progress of the flashing work being done by AWR. The skylight over the tower apartment was being removed and a new base built as I climbed up. The work looks excellent thus far, so now we just have to persuade the terrace residents next door not to throw towels and cigarette butts into the gutters and we may be making progress.

The service was rather dismally attended this year and there was no reception afterward. The rector was in Columbus as alternate delegate to the Convention so Fr. Chris Pyles, our erstwhile seminarian and now a curate in Valley Forge, celebrated and preached. Deacon Kate Malin, our Norris fellow last year and soon to be curate of Christ Church Bronxville, was deacon. I was MC as I have been for the past several years.

Somehow we had never taken pictures of a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament so I asked Alison if she would take pictures from the rector's office, without a flash. She took quite a few shots so I hope they turn out well. We may not put them on the website, however, if Fr. Pyles has anything to say about it. Apparently he had quite a few comments about his first Mass at St. Ignatius last September, which Alison photographed beautifully and put on the website. That jackass Young Fogey posted a link to it on his boring blog and the resulting comments from his band of jackals mortified poor Chris and got him in bad with his St. Clement's buddies. He doesn't want to be seen with a lady deacon and MC, it could just ruin his career you know. He said he did not want any pictures of him celebrating Corpus Christi at St. Ignatius on the worldwide web. As if it's all about him.

Trinity

2006-06-12T20:29:00.000-04:00

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Trinity Sunday was also our episcopal visitation, this year from Bp. Cathy Roskam. I'm so glad she has a sense of humor because several things went wrong. First thing was the MC only rang half the Angelus for some reason. But what totally mortified me was when we led Bp. Roskam out the West End door to go around to the narthex, there was a huge puddle of pigeon doo right outside the door. We have the usual New York pigeon problem but this was extraordinary. They had to really hike up her cope and everyone else's to get over it as she clucked and said "Ewwww, well that's New York for you."

At the door the Rector, wardens and vestry greeted the Bishop effusively and she was duly soaked and smoked before we headed up the aisle. The MC of the day was the type that doesn't believe in rehearsals so the last minute instructions he threw at us at 5 minutes before the service created more confusion than light, and poor SrT as verger thought we were going all the way around the church after we got in. She was so worried that she would go the wrong way again, but apparently failed to get the MC to give her clear instructions and so mortified herself yet again as she and the cross and candles went off toward the Lady Shrine and the rest of us up to the sanctuary. I was blessedly just the bishop's cross so I couldn't get blamed for it. People looked at me rather strangely not realizing I was supposed to be carrying the crucifix backwards so the bishop can see it at all times.

We had not put the throne up because there was a rehearsal in the nave on the one night the crew had available to do it (yes, I know it's not necessary for a suffragan, but we always put it up for any bishop, except this time) so at least that was not the usual complication. Bp. Roskam celebrated and preached and confirmed four.

When she got up to preach, her sermon was not on the lectern. The deacon went around the sanctuary looking for it and then headed into the sacristy. Meanwhile Bp. Roskam ad libbed and vamped as long as she could and then just started to speak ex tempore about the Trinity. About five minutes went by before the deacon emerged from the sacristy with her sermon in hand and she laughed and started all over. Apparently she had preached the sermon at the 9:00 mass and was expecting it to still be on the lectern, but the acolyte had apparently removed it and it had gotten thrown in the garbage, where Fr. Gentile found it finally, slightly crumpled but fortunately still readable. The speakers in the sanctuary are on the blink so I couldn't follow it too well, but it was apparently a decent sermon on that difficult concept of the Trinity.

Afterward we had a lovely reception after just a bit of unpleasantness with the very prayerful lady who always kneels in the crossing before, during and after the service and goes around caressing all the statutes. Today she felt the spirit move her to march right up into the sanctuary and light her candle from the altar before the acolytes got out to extinguish them. The rector came out with the Bishop and asked her to please not enter the sanctuary, whereupon she got rather huffy and chided us for our "restrictions". It was then someone reminded me that it was a full moon so maybe that accounts for some of all this.

Pentecost

2006-06-07T21:56:00.000-04:00

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. And kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth.

The Feast of Pentecost was blessedly cool and partly cloudy after a monsoonal Friday and Saturday. I was rather worn out from some unaccustomed manual labor. I did a couple of hours of mopping on Friday night after a small flood from a backed-up rain gutter left the undercroft covered with an inch or so of water. God’s Favorite was opening at 8:00 pm and it took until right before curtain to get the place sopped up. Just when I think I’ve discovered every pitfall there is to find in that church, another problem area makes itself known. It’s just a small drain at the bottom of the stairwell but when covered with debris or whatever the water has nowhere to go but down into the undercroft. At least that floor got a good soaking and mopping and looks cleaner than it has in years.

On Saturday the sexton called in with a killing wisdom tooth so I had to do his job, at least the basics. I was hoping to start refinishing the archive cabinet I found last week but that was off. At least the sidewalks got naturally washed so the outside was easy.

On Sunday I was subdeacon and got the rare treat of wearing the red tunicle. I also wore the red humeral veil and a biretta, so I was very glad it was not too warm. I got to administer the second chalice since there was no other priest present. Fr. Gentile was home with a broken door so Fr. Bodie filled in as deacon. The rector celebrated and preached a very compelling sermon about the Holy Spirit.

Afterward I made a hasty exit with Rob, SrT and Gil to catch a train up to All Saints Briarcliff Manor for the Ultreya for Cursillo #84. It was a lovely afternoon out on their lawn with good food, fellowship, excellent witness and group reunion. We ended up with Evening Prayer inside in their lovely stone and wood church which is very tastefully done except for the electric sanctuary light. We left from the scenic Scarborough station and then had dinner at the classic old TGIF by Grand Central.

Yesterday of course was 6-6-06 so I spent a few hours at work scanning some more of Zabriskie's photos of St. Ignatius altars and praying that the apocalypse would wait awhile longer. Last night I had a visitation from a very large cucaracha which the cats cornered but would not kill, so I had to summon up my feeble Terminator skills and kill it with a mop, imagining it was the antichrist. Damien, look out!

We give you thanks, almighty God, for all the benefits you have given us. You who live and reign forever and ever, amen.

Memorial Day

2006-05-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

Charles Frederic, Minnie, Anita and Lemarie Zabriskie c. 1905
courtesy of Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY

Today is the original Memorial Day so I worked yesterday (for double overtime) and took today off. Had a meeting with Kevin O'Brien of AWR this morning to assess the leader and gutter work which is just getting underway. After looking at the map of drainage lines we may have to rethink expanding the leaders and gutters to 6" since the drain pipes are only 4". But at least we will get some flashing and pointing done in some crucial areas and also a new skylight for the tower apartment. I also talked Kevin into repairing the cross and finial which were damaged during last summer's work when we draped the Altar of Repose in plastic. We didn't realize they were just sitting on the stonework with pegs so they came tumbling down when we pulled the plastic off. Not my favorite day at the shrine church. But Kevin thinks he can fix them, so we live in hope. I told him we would both get 25 years off Purgatory if we got them restored so perhaps that will be an incentive.

I always love walking through Central Park on Tuesday afternoons and it got suddenly too hot to do anything more strenuous, so I decided to take a leisurely stroll over to St. Ignatius Loyola and perhaps hear a mass for Memorial Day since we no longer have a Tuesday mass. It was a lovely day in the park, all the crowds back at work, and I got a nice welcome dose of sunshine after many days of rainy chilly weather. Spring has come awfully late this year. When I got to the church it was awhile before the next mass so I decided to just pray for all my beloved departed and save myself from feeling annoyed that I can't actually receive communion in good conscience there.

Then I walked by Anita Zabriskie's old residence on Park Ave. and 86th and said a prayer for her sweet soul. I have been reading all the minutes in 3 volumes of St. Raphael's Guild we found last year and have discovered that Anita (who was Charles Frederic's daughter) was a member of the Guild, which had care of the sacristy and sanctuary, for about 25 years, from 1921 to 1946. Anita also gave the cushion for the Lady Chapel communion rail in 1926. I think it may be the same one we still have. There were about 30 ladies who took one day a month each to come in and polish, clean, dust, launder linens and take care of the flowers. They also made cottas and cassocks and mended vestments in their weekly meetings which included a corporate communion, instruction and spiritual reading by the rector. Reading the minutes was a fascinating glimpse into that quaint era when life was so much simpler.

On Saturday, hoping to find some storage space for St. James Marshall's projects, I discovered another shelf of wonders high in the undercroft storage space that we had somehow overlooked in last year's raid. I found a box containing the makings of a beautiful black velvet cope with a wonderful gold fabric lining. The cope was cut out and the hood was finished, a beautiful black and gold embroidered with Jesu Mercy in old English lettering, but the lining was a bit ripped and the details were left undone. It was miraculously unscathed from vermin which had destroyed some other bits of fabric that were also in the box. There was a ream of the gold fabric and some other nice pieces I think we can use. Along with this was a beautiful old book of ancient embroidery prints. Also found among the bits and pieces of a wooden jewely box I hope to restore, were some odd bits of costume jewelry, a few religious medals and a couple of letters and a marriage certificate left by one Alice Jones, who I am hoping to discover more about. Apparently, according to the letters, she went blind, one hopes not from embroidery work, but that could explain the unfinished cope.

I went back over to the church this evening to do a few things and found at long last in the mailbox the CD from Fenimore Art Museum containing the pictures of the Zabriskie family that I had requested back in early March. I had almost given up waiting for them, after calling and emailing Cooperstown several times, when they arrived, most appropriately on Memorial Day. So we now have pictures of the whole family and also Christian Zabriskie, Jr., Charles Frederic's father. I had also requested the series of Fr. Ritchie that CFZ had taken but alas they were not on the CD, so I will have to bother them once again.

All Shall Be Well

2006-05-08T21:50:00.000-04:00

The Window in Lady Julian's Cell
St. Julian's Church, Norwich

Remembering St. Juliana of Norwich today. I read about half of her Revelations on the interminable A train journey out to Ozone Park to visit Chiarelli's tat shop with Amanda, Sacristan and FishnGrl on Saturday. I found a red votive light to replace the one we broke from the hanging lamps but alas they were out of stock. I then raced back (with FishnGrl in tow to show her the church) to help Douglas replace all of the nave chandelier globes with new ones, all 64. I thought it would make a big difference in the lighting since the new ones are alot whiter and a bit larger, but it's a very subtle improvement.

I was just remembering my first Julian feast at St. Ignatius 22 years ago and hearing Fr. Stowe tell the parable about the hazelnut, which was such a revelation back then. This past weekend was Cursillo #84 and it was dedicated to St. Juliana of Norwich. I ran up to Mariandale Saturday evening after setting up for the May festivel in honor of Our Lady, since I was MC. It was the 10th anniversary of my Cursillo weekend and Janet Hunt, one of my reunion group from St. Luke's decuria #61, was lay rector for this one. Barbara Crafton was head spiritual director, also from that decuria. Bill Baker and Kathy Chase are the other two members of our group and together with some other 4th day angels we descended upon Mariandale to set up the Agape party and visitation. I have been on team 9 times but had never set up for the Agape and visitation before, so it was fun. We had about 114 candles on the altar and watched from the secret loft until all had left the chapel and we could start cleaning up. Attended the team meeting afterward with leftovers from the Agape and got spotted by Kathleen, one of our candidates who came into the team room by mistake and caught me sipping wine before getting quickly herded out by a cha cha. They told her it was an apparition. We took the midnight train which was very delayed back to Manhattan and finally got home about 2:00 am.

On Sunday I was MC and rather tired but it was a lovely May festival in honor of Our Lady in spite of no flowers at all at Her shrine. It was good to have Fr. Bodie back with us for the summer at least. Afterward I headed back up to Mariandale with Gilberto for Clausura, which was very well attended this time, with 20 candidates and lots of cursillistas. By all accounts it was a very spirit-filled Cursillo despite the sorrow of losing our beloved Cursillo brother and Janet's sponsor, Dan Gray, on Thursday evening. He was well prayed into God's arms by the team and somehow Janet carried on bravely but the sadness was evident. Kathleen, SrT and Rob had a very blessed weekend and no one got hurt. We heard all about it on the way back home and at Tre Venezie with Gary and Vera, their sponsors. De Colores!

Death by High Church

2006-04-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

Death by High Church, that's what we were singing as we processed in from the Vigil and First Mass at around 1:20 am Sunday morning, to the tune of Doug's postlude, a rather gothic setting of The Light of Christ. Most of us were on the verge of collapse after a wonderful but exhausting three days that began Maundy Thursday morning for me, with a 5-hour setup of all the tat required for that production. Then the service itself, I think my favorite of the year, was over 2 hours with the procession to the Altar of Repose and stripping of the Altar. After being MC for this service the past several years I have finally gotten all the details down (almost).

We sometimes also have the crucifer wear a tunicle in processions of the sacrament, so we decided to do that, having the crucifer wear the tunicle that Michael Haworth made for his swan song, singing the Exsultet at the Vigil in 1988 I believe. A few of us sometimes joke when things are missing, that Michael, who died in May 1988, is playing tricks on us. Perhaps he was bummed that we didn't use the frontal he made for the Altar of Repose this year since it had gotten damaged in last year's excavations. I found four exquisite lace superfrontals for the chantry altar which had gotten a 20-year rest since we have been using Michael's frontal. So I picked the most Passiontide one and only had a minor grumbling from Craig. But now Michael's tunicle is missing from its drawer and the crucifer swears he put it back there after the service. We searched everywhere but it is gone. Another St. Ignatius mystery.

Good Friday I got to sit in the congo, blessedly, after keeping watch an hour beforehand at the Altar of Repose. I had to move from my quiet place in the Zabriskie pew about halfway through the Passion (after praying for the repose of Charles Frederic's soul, whose 92nd anniversary of death it also was), when Rosemary and her two brats made their noisy entrance and planted themselves right across the aisle from me. I made what I hope was a subtle escape before the sermon, to my second point of refuge by the south wall at the back for the duration. Rosemary only shows up from Tenafly on Good Friday and has been dragging her young twins the past several years so they can get a little religion, I guess, although for a 6-year-old our Good Friday service has got to be the most boring thing imaginable. They chattered, yawned and kicked their way through this one, although from my seat at the back it was mercifully just a dull roar. VK was there and let down her hair for veneration, a sight we hadn't seen for a few years. We had a good crowd on a suitably dark and rainy day. Afterward we had the obligatory Hot Cross Bun and talked to those we only see on Good Friday, before departing in peace.

Afterward I had fish and chips and sympathy with Deacon Anne before heading down to St. Luke's for Tenebrae, to see our restored hearse in action. We used to do Tenebrae 3 times in Holy Week but the practice was discontinued about 30 years ago or more. The hearse had been sitting in the acolyte's closet and recently the dungeon for all that time so it needed 4 new braces and some nailing and gluing to get it back in usable shape. The feet are still a little uneven, but I thought they would notice and put something under to steady it. Apparently not since it was teetering for the last bit where the last candle gets put back on. Otherwise not a bad rendition, although I was puzzled that we just said the last Lamentation. I missed that ethereal falsetto of the Misereri and their big bang sounded more like a big drum. Nice effort though. They are now having their own hearse made on a model after ours.

Saturday we spent most of the day rehearsing and setting up for the Vigil, which began at 10:30 pm. I was subdeacon and got to wear the folded purple chasuble, my favorite. The deacon was to have worn the missing tunicle for the Exsultet, but she wore the solemn white dalmatic instead, more correct if nothing else. I was so tired after carrying the cross for the first part that I sat down in the first available seat, which was actually the deacon's seat at the sedelia. She had gone in to change into the purple folded chazzie, so I was blissfully unaware until we got up to sing the Solemn Prayers. We switched after the first set. Good crowd for this also, and saw some people we only see on this night. Nice champagne punch reception afterward with lots of good food and fellowship. I got home about 3:10am and got a few hours sleep before getting up for Solemn Mass at 11:00 to serve as acolyte. I was tired and cranky but it was nonetheless a glorious procession and mass with humeral veil, patena and birettas. By the time we got through cleaning up all that, all the champagne punch was gone. Luckily I was on my way over to Forest Hills for a festive champagne brunch and an afternoon of good old fashioned family fun.

The powers of death have done their worst, But Christ their legions hath dispersed; Let shout of Holy joy outburst. Alleluia!

Palm Sunday

2006-04-10T21:35:00.000-04:00

It was a sunny but brisk Palm Sunday as we set out for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the usual last minute chaos. The Methodists, with whom we share this once a year ecumenical effort, had hoped to bring along a donkey, but the donkey had other plans and refused to budge from its place in front of the church, so they had to leave him behind. Once we all gathered at the Monument and the blessing of the palms began, it all seemed worth the effort and we processed cheerfully back to our churches singing the old standards and stopping traffic on West End Avenue. Then it was two hours of passion liturgy and another hour afterward rehearsing for Maundy Thursday, for which I'm MC, as usual. Thankfully we had a very hearty coffee hour with Thelma's homemade quiches among other goodies in between.

Then after an afternoon at the cinema (Ice Age 2) we returned for an evening of Bach's Markus-Passion, performed by our choir plus some guest soloists and a string quartet. It was a rare performance of this work with selected recitatives by Keiser to round it out and Doug and the choir and soloists did a splendid rendition. I sat in my second favorite spot, back by the newly cleaned south wall with a view up the aisle of the choir and excellent sound as well as peace and quiet. We had a great crowd for this initial fundraising effort and it was just a transcendent evening until I found out afterward that our resident mental case had had a meltdown by the West End door on our new rug. The poor rector had to clean it up and missed half the concert. It was a sad ending to an otherwise glorious Palm Sunday and seemed to bear out the rector's sermon that morning about Simon of Cyrene and the unforeseen cross one is sometimes forced to bear.

Refreshment Weekend

2006-03-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
be it unto me according to thy word.

Saturday, March 25, we celebrated the Annunciation in grand High Church style with a procession and Solemn Mass accompanied by our artists in residence, Lionheart. They sang the Missa "Ave Maria" of Cristobal de Morales as well as his motet Missus est Gabriel, both truly sublime. Mr. Keilitz did a superb rendition of Dupre's Ave Maris stella to start us off and ended with Bach's Prelude and Fugue in c-minor. We sang four Marian hymns, two I had never heard before (the Rector is always coming up with the most obscure hymns) and two favorites, Sing of Mary, pure and lowly and Sing We of the Blessed Mother. I was blessed to be able to sit back and enjoy it from the Zabriskie pew with no distractions, after a long day of struggling with a lazy sexton, trying to get the place clean and also spending a couple of hours with the heat gun melting wax off of just about every follower we own, cleaning the Lady Shrine of wax and restoring a missing candleholder and tightening up several others, as well as gluing on an ornamental piece that had been sitting behind our Lady for several years. Lent is always a good time to focus on details. We had a lovely reception afterward with some delicious food and drink provided by St. James Marshall, so it was truly a blessed feast day.

The next day was Rose Sunday and I was very glad to be able to also sit that one out in the Zabriskie pew. The choir did a wonderful job with Gombert's Missa "Je suis desheritee" and Peter Philips' motet, Rogo te. It was so very refreshing after three Sundays of plainchant. We had the traditional simnel cakes blessed before the dismissal, made from an old English recipe by Karen Christian and Nancy Barnes this year, with the customary 12 colored marzipan balls (representing the apostles), accompanied by a wonderful ham and other goodies.

Afterward Gilberto, Vera and I went to see Inside Man, an excellent Denzel-Jodie-Clive via Spike Lee production, so it was all in all a very refreshing weekend, thanks be to God.

Driving Through the Wilderness

2006-03-14T15:18:00.000-05:00

After the Solemn Mass on Lent I, I drove up to Cooperstown, NY, in order to view at long last the Charles Frederic Zabriskie collection at the Fenimore Art Museum. I thought it would be an easy drive and it was, up until I turned off the interstate and began negotiating the small roads that MapQuest had recommended for the final 50 miles. I don’t have much sense of direction on the best of days so I wasn’t surprised when I came to a fork in the road and had no idea which way I should turn. I opted for the westerly direction and was nearly blinded by the late afternoon sun, scarcely helped by a pair of UV4 sunglasses. Luckily there was hardly any traffic but as I drove I did have a strong sense of being in that wilderness that Fr. Harding had spoken of in his sermon that morning. I stopped once to consult the map (to no avail) and realized how utterly quiet and totally forsaken this area seemed under a blanket of snow and a chill factor in the single digits. I had wanted some peace and quiet but this was downright eerie. I felt like I was in one of those Twilight Zone episodes where I was suddenly the last person left on earth. I decided to keep going into the blinding sunset and prayed that I would eventually come to some kind of civilization, which eventually I did, in the form of a very small town with one lonely flashing signal light. This was Cooperstown, not exactly as I had pictured it, but a welcome sight all the same. I seemed to be the only guest at The Cooper Inn that night and after a hearty Italian dinner at Nicoletta’s with a handful of other guests, I settled in to watch the Academy Awards. I was glad they didn’t go on past midnight as they usually do since I wanted to get an early start on the Zabriskie collection. I was a bit puzzled that Crash was awarded Best Picture. It was entertaining and had some good insights, but I think Brokeback should have won.

It was a rather restless night and I had a long strange dream of being held hostage in a department store occupied by terrorists, with people getting killed all around me until I finally managed to stroll out untouched with a faun-like character. I got to the Museum about 9:15 am and had to go through a bit of a process to get in since the Museum was closed officially until April 1, although I had arranged to view the collection with the curator. After entering through the loading dock and passing through security, I met Bev Olmsted, who showed me to a small archive room filled with the Zabriskie collection, which I had to myself for the first couple of hours. Bev was working on another floor and I had forgotten to ask her where the ladies’ room was located, so I had to go out looking for it on my own, unsuccessfully. After the second pass by a room full of museum curators, one of them came out and demanded to know who I was and what I was looking for. I explained and then he wanted to know why I didn’t have a security pass. I had a sense of déjà vu remembering the security guard at the Zabriskie plot, and I looked rather sheepishly at him and said I was just trying to find the ladies room. He took pity on me and pointed the way down to another floor, but after that he must have insisted that I not be left alone since I had company in the archive room for the rest of the day. I wasn’t planning to lift anything, but I did want to take some digital photos, and that was definitely not on. I asked the curator sitting with me and was told that any reproductions would have to be done by their staff. I had to sign a statement that said I would not be using any of the material for mercenary gain after I gave the list of the photos I wanted copied.

It was hard to decide on just a few of them since they were all wonderful. CFZ took about 55,000 photos in all and probably half of them are still waiting to be developed from the original glass plates, which are stored in another location. I spent six hours there that day and went through 30 albums and two drawers full of photos. What a rare sense of beauty he had, each photo so artfully done. There were whole albums full of portraits of his family, friends and Cooperstown neighbors and many photos of the area around their summer home, Glimmerview, on Lake Otsego. I also found a wonderful series of Fr. Ritchie, our second rector, which I am having copied. These are such treasures since we only have one badly deteriorated photo of him in our archives, and I look forward to sharing them with the parish.

CF Zabriskie’s health was likely compromised by his exposure to the chemicals used in developing the glass plates in those early days of photography. He spent long hours in his dark room developing the thousands of photos he took and eventually died of meningitis on April 20, 1914 at the age of 66. But what a vast treasure he left behind. I hope to bring an exhibit of his photos to St. Ignatius some day soon.

As his great-grandaughter, Christiane Hyde Citron, wrote in a summary of the exhibit, call The Joy of Photography, “The Zabriskie photographs show a high degree of sensitivity and esthetic feeling in their composition, together with sophisticated technical craftmanship. … He was particularly adept in his handling of light, and often returned over and over to a particular site because of his fascination with the light. … Many of the Zabriskie images reveal a compelling artistic judgment. There are abstracted shapes in the composition of a scene, and strong drama and emotion in the images. These photographs were clearly intended as more than simple documentation, as fine art.”

Today, March 14, is CFZ’s 158th birthday.

In Search of the Lost Pulpit

2006-02-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

I had heard of the pulpit many times and often wondered what it had looked like. I knew it used to reside where the statue of St. Ignatius now stands, on the epistle side just outside the communion rail, but I could never quite visualize it. I wondered why on earth it ever got consigned to the dungeon, where it sat for decades before being summarily thrown out sometime in the late 1980s by a practical but insensitive Building & Grounds chairman, who apparently thought it was just a waste of good storage space. I didn't think too much more about it until last winter when we were forced to clear out some high and obscure storage shelves in order to find places for the many items that were displaced by the electrical upgrade. One Saturday we tackled the dusty boxes that sat on the top shelf and were amazed to find a box of glass plates and negatives of photos that must have been taken in the very first years after the church was built. At that time I had no idea that they were most likely the work of Charles Frederic Zabriskie, who was senior warden for 25 years in addition to being an important early photographer. I looked through the collection of a dozen or so images of the interior of the church and made a note to get back to them at some time after the more pressing work of redistributing our sacristy storage space. Several months later I was given an essay on the life and work of C.F. Zabriskie by Randall Kau, who thought I might be interested in reading about him. CFZ's great granddaughter had sent the thesis to him after she had visited St. Ignatius in the spring of 2003. I had met Christiane briefly in the sacristy one Sunday in May, in fact the very day we were beginning our Capital Campaign. It seemed quite coincidental at the time since we were scheming about getting in touch with descendants of our early patrons to hit them up for donations for the campaign and suddenly there she was, on the very day we were launching the effort. I just happened to be in the sacristy as she came in with Rob, our resident archivist, who did not introduce her other than to say she was interested in seeing the statuary in the sanctuary. Another religious fanatic, I thought, wanting to kiss the feet of St. Ignatius. We were blessed with one of those every now and then. I went on with preparing the thurible for Solemn Mass and thought nothing more about her until later that day when we had our campaign kick-off reception at the Bessire's apartment and Randall told me that the great granddaughter of C.F. Zabriskie had shown up at the 9:00 Mass that day. I was incredibly amazed, but all I really wanted to know was whether we had gotten a donation from her. No, he said with a laugh, she had told him that CFZ had given most of the family fortune to us a century ago and there wasn't much left after that. I didn't much care to hear anything more and didn't give it another thought until almost two years later when Randall gave me a copy of the thesis that she had sent to him and Rob shortly after her visit, that told all about CFZ's life and work. He had been quite a dedicated and skilled early photographer who started taking pictures about 1890. In those days the process of developing pictures involved immersion in rather toxic chemicals. CFZ's health suffered greatly from his dedication to photography and he eventually succumbed to an early death just after Easter in 1914. He left quite a treasure trove of images, however, and the New York State Historical Association has the collection in its Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. I am planning a trip up there this weekend to see it and I hope to return with copies of his pictures of Fr. Ritchie and St. Ignatius. I am also trying to get this pulpit rebuilt. We have a couple of skilled carpenters in the parish and I am praying that we will be able to recreate this simple yet elegant design. We have been without a real pulpit for about 80 years now since the Cram-Ferguson statute of St. Ignatius displaced it, and somehow I think Fr. Ritchie's spirit will rest a lot easier once it's restored.

Dedication

2006-02-15T13:37:00.000-05:00

This is thy temple; here thy presence chamber.
Here may thy servants, at the mystic banquet,
Humbly adoring, take thy Body broken,
Drink of thy chalice.

Hallowed this dwelling where the Lord abideth,
This is none other than the gate of heaven;
Strangers and pilgrims, seeking homes eternal,
Pass through its portals.
[Rouen]

The Feast of the Dedication dawned with surreal lightning flashes and a chorus of rolling thunder that seemed to rumble on for minutes at a time. We were in the eye of the blizzard of ’06 I later found out, a massive storm that started down in Texas and gathered a lot of warm air on its way here, so the collision of warm and cold air caused quite a display as the blizzard blew into Manhattan. After a restless night of disquieting dreams after watching Hide and Seek (with a truly scary DeNiro), I stumbled wearily to the window, resigning the day to an earlier start than I had planned, and looked out upon an iridescent orange sky snowing heavy wet snow at a very fast clip. Technically it wasn’t quite a blizzard here in the city, but it sure felt like it as I made my way over to the church. Bless their hearts, the Building & Grounds crew were there shoveling away and soon we had the cleanest walk in the hood. It was the biggest snowfall recorded since they started keeping records in 1869, an impressive 26.9 inches by the time it stopped around 4 pm. [I read somewhere that the Central Park “official precipitation” gauge is actually a stick in the snow outside the sea lion’s den, which is read by a security guard, so who knows how accurate it is, but it was definitely a lot of snow.]

Only about 44 people made it to church (at least half of them in the sanctuary and choir) but it was a divine liturgy all the same. I was MC and somehow we managed to have a full complement of servers as well as an attending priest, our new associate Stephen Harding, who skied down from the Cathedral. After a rousing prelude of Messiaen’s Apparition de l’Eglise eternelle superbly done by Mr. Keilitz, we processed around the church to the station at the Rood singing Rouen (2d tune), one of my all-time favorites. Then we sang Aurelia, another favorite, back at the sedelia and it was Solemn Mass with humeral veil as usual thereafter, with no misbehaving candles for once. The choir did a splendid job with the wonderful Missa Nisi Dominus of Pierre de Manchicourt and Bairstow’s glorious Blessed city, heavenly Salem which, though rather long for an offertory anthem, was magnificent. The Proper Preface of the Dedication, sung most heartily by the Rector, went on for awhile also, but as I marked the book I felt like I was really hearing the words for the first time.

… And verily thy Church is the true House of Prayer, of which these visible buildings are but the figures. It is the Temple of the habitation of thy glory, the Throne of unchanging truth, the Holy Place wherein everlasting love abideth. It is the Ark which bringeth us, who are delivered from the deluge of the world, into the haven of salvation. …

This was the 81st anniversary of the dedication of St. Ignatius as a house of worship. It was opened in 1902 but in those days a church could not be consecrated until the mortgage was paid off, so it was not until February 8, 1925 that the church was canonically consecrated to the glory of God, in honor of St. Ignatius, Bishop and Martyr, and in memory of Arthur Ritchie, Priest and Rector. Bishop William T. Manning did the honors.

In 1925 St. Ignatius was grateful to finally have a bishop that was supportive of Catholic practice after decades of pontifical disapproval over Fr. Ritchie’s introduction of full Catholic ritual upon his arrival in 1884. Dr. Ewer, our founding rector, had problems enough of his own over his Catholic leanings, but Fr. Ritchie was considerably more “advanced” than Dr. Ewer in his use of vestments, candles, incense, holy water, confessionals, reservation of the Sacrament, Benediction (it was believed to be the first instance of Benediction ever practiced in the American church, called “Adoration”) and the so-called non-communicating High Mass, where only the celebrant receives, the faithful having come to one of the four Low Masses earlier for their fasting communion.

Fr. Ritchie’s ill heath forced him to resign after a 30 year tenure, and Fr. William Pitt McCune took things even higher over the next 30 years, introducing the full Kalendar of Saints Days, Stations of the Cross, Tenebrae, Holy Week ceremonies, the Angelus, three beautiful statues and a gorgeous font by Cram and Ferguson, and use of the American Missal with Introit, Sequence and Offertory included in the Mass.

So we have come a long way from Dr. Ewer’s plain linen chasuble (except on high feasts when he wore brocaded silk), “no biretta” days. As it says at the end of Louis Gray’s History of St. Ignatius:

It is, in great part, a stormy tale, but storm and strife are the lot of all who strive steadfastly for the right and the true. From the days of Dr. Ewer at Christ Church to this moment St. Ignatius’ has had but one goal and one aim, and from this it has never swerved: devotion to our Blessed Lord and love of Him, especially in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar; increase of that devotion and that love in the hearts of all who profess and call themselves Christians; constant progress in the richness of the rites of the Holy Catholic Church; absolute adherence to her historic Creeds and historic traditions; veneration of the Blessed Saints and super-veneration of our Lady; unceasing remembrance of the faithful departed – the Catholic Faith undiminished, unimpaired, enriched. …”

The Presentation

2006-02-08T15:38:00.000-05:00

O Lord Jesu Christ, who as on this day appearing among men in the substance of our flesh wast presented by thy parents in the temple: whom Simeon in his old age, being enlightened by the light of this Spirit, knew and blessed, taking thee in his arms: mercifully grant, that we, being enlightened and instructed by the grace of the same Spirit, may know thee truly in our minds and love thee faithfully with all our hearts...

Last Sunday we celebrated the solemnity of Our Lord's presentation in the temple, aka Candlemas. I always love this feast for its rich symbolism and also because it heralds the beginning of the end of winter's darkness, even when the Groundhog sees his shadow as he did this year and there is no real hope of an early New York spring. This year the candles seemed to light and warm the place up more than usual, even the two that misbehaved on the altar and caused a bit of a distraction during the consecration.

I was subdeacon and had my hands full during the procession, juggling candle, biretta and collect book while trying to hold back the celebrant's cope at the same time. I was just glad to get back to the sedelia without dropping one or more of them. I'm getting better at doffing that biretta at the right time, although I heard from the verger after the service that I totally spaced out and forgot to doff at Our Lord's name during the sermon, so I hope no mystery worshipper was in attendance to witness that.

After the service we had the blessing of throats in honor of St. Blase. And no, we don't light the crossed candles used for the blessing as some churches do. It isn't St. Blaze, after all! The blessing came in handy as later that day I started coming down with a blasted cold, but my throat at least wasn't sore so I think it worked.

Today, February 8, is the 81st anniversary of the consecration of St. Ignatius, and we will celebrate the solemnity of the Dedication next Sunday. The Feast of St. Ignatius used to be February 1 so that would have been the octave in 1925. An outstanding mortgage had prevented the consecration until it was paid off, hence the 24 year delay after the construction.

We have waited, O God, for thy loving-kindness in the midst of thy temple...

Remember!

2006-01-30T19:02:00.000-05:00

Remember! That was blessed King and Martyr Charles' last word, whose feast day today is. I wish I could say I went to Mass, but as I was walking up Park Avenue to St. Bart's I encountered a posse of CSM litigators I used to work with about 10 years ago and started remembering that wonderful year up in White Plains with the rental car and all that leisurely time on IBM's endless litigation matters. That threw me into a kind of alternate universe and I began wondering what I'd be doing today if I had become JN's secretary as I almost did when she became partner. That led me to thank my lucky stars I moved over to DPW, which is a much saner place and I am happily ensconced in a wonderful room with a view of the Chrysler Building and lots of quiet space, most days anyway. Suddenly I realized I had gone past the church, but it was such a glorious rare warm day in January that I decided to praise God and blessed Charles outside in the wonderful sunshine instead. I hope they will understand.

It's been a busy month at the shrine church and I am happy to report that our boiler has finally gotten reprogrammed so that's a big item to check off my list. Preparations for the annual meeting took up some time also as I had to write a year-end report and it's been a very busy year. We got through the meeting without any blood being spilled and we actually had a good discussion of ways we can improve our operations. The three newly elected vestry members all are high churchmen, so things are looking up. The choir got fully funded for the year and Doug is now scheming ways to make money with them so I predict the suggestion of cutting the music will be a non-issue soon.

I am now mostly focused on our next building project which is most likely going to be working on the roof drainage system and improving the flashing in the several areas where water is still getting in. I've been absorbed with leaders, gutters and flashing, which someone said sounds like the latest thing in adult entertainment. But it's fascinating stuff and critically important to get right. We have been plagued for decades by moisture damage from inadequate rain gutters and insufficient flashing. I hope I live to see the day when we can finally get the inside walls cleaned of all the efflorescence and stains from the years of water damage. But before that can happen we must make sure the envelope is sealed. This year I hope we can correct many of the problem areas with larger capacity drains and copper flashing under the eaves. Then we must raise about a million to do the interior cleaning. So angels, start your engines!

Last week I went up on the roof with our architects to survey some of the problem areas and I was grateful for AR's teaching me how to roofwalk that last summer. Years of walking the barrio rooftops had made him like a gazelle up there. I had no intention of following him but he insisted on showing me how to do it as he assured me that roofs are made for walking. And he's right, at least with this type of roof. You can walk pretty securely with the right kind of shoes and something to hold onto once in awhile. I didn't go all the way to the other side as he did, up and over the nave roof, but I did go up by the bell tower which is quite exhilarating especially on a cold January morning. JD took alot of pictures of the gutters and eaves and I took my binocs to see for myself. Over the narthex we were surprised to see no flashing at all between our building and the Boulevard, which would account for the waterfall we observed a couple of weeks ago when we had that hurricane.

But I've wandered far from blessed Charles, so I'll leave you with this glimpse of his reign:

The Holy Communion was once again seen as the principal action of the Church rather than the sermon. The doctrine of the Real Presence at the Communion was once again taught in the universities. Vestments began to be worn again. Candles were lit once more and a greater emphasis was placed on the externals of worship including the use of music. In particular altars were restored in church buildings, replacing the communion tables which had in turn taken the place of the old stone altars during the iconoclasm of the protestant reformation.

(from SKCM history)

And we think we have battles today...

Epiphany

2006-01-07T18:27:00.000-05:00

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way." (Matthew 2:1-12)

We celebrated the Epiphany of our Lord last night in grand High Church style. Our artists in residence, Polyhymnia, provided the music, the glorious Missa 'Surge et illuminare' of Pierre de Manchicourt and the motet Magi veniunt of Clemens, both superbly done. We processed singing Morning Star to the Epiphany creche at the beginning. We have a separate creche for the Epiphany with the toddler Jesus since this is supposedly 2 or 3 years after the nativity. I was a torchbearer with a wobbly candle which managed to splash a big puddle of wax onto my left eye so I had to finish the procession with one eye sealed closed. It wasn't easy getting it all cleared off so I could see again once I got back to the sacristy to put away that confounded torch, but such are the perils of High Church.

I got to enjoy the rest of the service standing by the Louise Zabriskie memorial under Our Lady, probably the most serene spot in the sanctuary, just off the Gospel end of the altar. At the Epistle end, St. Ignatius stands above the Christian Zabriskie, Jr. memorial. Louise and Christian's son, Charles Frederic Zabriskie, gave the statues as a memorial to his parents and they stood in the original church before being moved to our present building. Christian Zabriskie was one of the founding fathers of St. Ignatius and warden for many years. Charles Frederic was senior warden for 25 years after his father's death and very instrumental through his close collaboration with our second rector, Fr. Arthur Ritchie, in the creation of our present church. I always feel very close to them all somehow when I stand there by Our Lady and think of how much of themselves they gave to God's glory for His worship.

Fr. Noel Bordador gave a wonderful sermon in which he suggested that the three wise men were not rich kings but more probably simple folk who had received the gift of grace to discern the presence of Christ. The gifts they offered were just the tools of their trade and were also rather practical for a newborn since gold would come in handy, frankincense would freshen the air and myrrh was a natural antiseptic (mostly likely in oil form rather than the resin we burn with frankincense). He then quoted the processional hymn, and assured us that "the greatest offering or adoration we can give God is nothing but our own self, our own life in all its beauty, ordinariness, sinfulness and brokenness."

It was a beautiful service, a good crowd for a Friday night, with lots of visitors, and even SrT drinking the lavabo water didn't bring me down. But does she really think lavabo water is too sacred to go down the piscina? What exactly is the reasoning behind that bizarre devotion? Best not to inquire I guess. I just can't wait until Ash Wednesday and I tell her she has to consume the English muffin and lemon we used to cleanse the celebrant's hands after the imposition of ashes... :>)

Shall we then yield him in costly devotion
odors of Edom and offerings divine;
gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine?

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
vainly with gifts would his favor secure,
richer by far is the heart's adoration,
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

A Really Big Shoe

2005-12-26T19:04:00.000-05:00

On the eve of Advent IV I climbed up to Lamburnite's manse high above the North River for dinner, with W and S also in attendance. As we dined on the exquisite house cassoulet we discussed our collective fondness for the shrine church we attend, and since Lamburnite is about to enter the fray for a seat on the vestry we also necessarily discussed the current political climate and that vision thing. It seems there are a few visions for the future of our beloved parish currently floating around and some of them don't look anything like the church we have come to love. My crystal ball is a little hazy right now, so I won't presume to say which will win the day, but I would hope to assure you, dear friends, that "safe is our confiding, for nothing changes here!"

W told me about the first time they came to church there, he felt like he was slipping into an old familiar shoe, a really big shoe, and also a really big shew in the Ed Sullivan sense. We wondered why anyone would come to church there if they weren't comfortable with the shoe the way it fits now. I suppose they are within their rights to suggest an alteration, but in my experience most shoes don't take very well to change. They can be stretched a little but their essential shape is not going to go very far from the original without destroying the shoe.

It was still a glorious Ignatian Christmas amid all the turmoil. The sacristy rats and assorted elves had the place looking fabulous and Doug and the choir were absolutely wonderful. On Christmas Eve for the Midnight Mass they sang the Missa 'Noe Noe' by Pierre de Manchicourt, including the Credo which seemed to go on forever, albeit gloriously. I was blessedly just a torch so I could relax for most of the service. I got a bit too relaxed during the Credo, however, and almost fell over when we had to get up and genuflect for the Incarnatus est. That was a good wakeup call. Should not have had that second glass of Merlot at Bob's Christmas dinner! When we processed the bambino to the creche at the beginning, I had us kneel down when we first got there, forgetting that we still had to get through Silent Night, so the old knees were aching by the time we got up. But we had a great crowd for the first time in many years, probably thanks in large part to Doug's putting up a banner outside advertising the services. They seemed to be mostly visitors in fact, with a lot of the regulars out of town or planning to wait until tomorrow. But we don't expect much in the way of offering on Christmas, since most visitors tend to put in a dollar bill and that's about it. We do live in hope, however.

Christmas Day was a pretty good crowd also. I didn't get much sleep but somehow got up and was subdeacon for the Solemn Mass, which featured the wonderful Palestrina Missa 'Hodie Christus natus est'. We were all dead tired, but the only mishap was one of the candles on the high altar ejected its follower during the Gospel and green wax (from the copper) got spilled all over the newly laundered altar linen. Other than that it was a really good shew and the Lord was truly glorified, I do believe. It was a rainy Christmas Day and many buts are up in the air, however it was a blessed day of thanksgiving and praise for Our Saviour Jesus Christ. Oh come, let us adore Him!

A Gloomy Rose Sunday

2005-12-12T20:52:00.000-05:00

Actually things didn't get gloomy until coffee hour (after the service here!). I showed up right at the Angelus so was safe from being asked to fill in for any missing servers. The Zabriskie pew was waiting, of all mercies still unoccupied since Marjorie was sitting with Ana, whose first communion it was. (It's always a small and blessed miracle on those days when Marjorie isn't already sitting there and I'm not serving that I get to sit in my favorite pew and enjoy the service as a member of the congo.) And blessedly also SrT was not in the pew behind groaning along with the choir. The Lord indeed seemed to be full of mercy this Rose Sunday.

Then as I was preparing to depart a suitably refreshing coffee hour for a traditional Rose Sunday 3-Mimosa brunch, I was nabbed by the Junior Warden, who had a thing or two to inquire. It seems an important member of the church family has gone off in a huff and she wanted to know what I knew about it and when. I didn't know much but I guess I said something that summoned up a further revelation from her that this was all portentous of something much more ominous. This something is no less than the Solemn Mass and our traditional mass settings sung by our wonderful choir itself being put to question by our current junior and senior wardens. They believe we must drastically reduce our budget for next year and the best way to do it is cutting out the paid choir for most of the year. Our excellent professional choir and organist do account for a significant chunk of money but I believe if we do that we may as well say we've given up and close the place because these are two of the things that are so special about St. Ignatius. Yesterday they sang the beautiful Brahms Missa Canonica, which was just glorious, and Gibbons' This is the record of John as the anthem. We have just been hearing mass settings from the classical and romantic eras for the first time under our wonderful new (as of two years ago) choirmaster since our previous one hardly ever got out of the 15th century. I can't imagine an 11:00 am Sunday service without our choir and the "sacristy queens" putting on their fabulous show with those fabulous falling apart at the seams, 80-year-old vestments.

Unfortunately we have two very low church wardens for the forseeable future and they would love to steer St. Ignatius down that slippery slope that St. Mary's has slidden into the slough of the broad church. They don't understand the purpose of "dressing up and putting on a show" as I was shocked to hear the junior warden say. She's right that it's not all about putting on a good show, but it is partly that. This is New York after all and just off Broadway. I'm sure some people don't need all the sensory aids that we provide and I say to these people, there are churches aplenty where you will fit in just fine. Just don't go trying to change everything we've been for the past 135 years. As if! And she had the nerve to say if I'm not part of the solution, I'll be part of the problem. Honey, you haven't seen a problem like the problem you're gonna see here.

I was so shocked to hear all this from a women I used to like alot, I didn't know quite what to say but I made my exit and got down to that mimosa in a very gloomy mood. I was quietly pondering how best to begin marshalling troops for the coming battles so after brunch we went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is pretty well done and seemed an especially apt allegory this day. I couldn't believe with the hundreds of kids in the theater, it was so quiet you could hear every line!

I had a good chat with the rector this evening and he was a little surprised to hear about all this. The rector is always the last to know, he always says. But I think things will be unchanged for this year anyway. We'll find the money somehow to keep the show going, at least for a little while longer, so catch it while you can!

A Sunny Advent I With Flowers

2005-12-04T17:39:00.000-05:00

Gilberto and I shrugged off our Sunday morning hangovers and hit the road for Austin early with a fairly clear road, a beautful sunny sky and Jesus Take the Wheel coming on every time we switched the dial. We sailed onto 7th Street and into the St. David parking garage (which is free!) in time for the 11:15 am Rite I Holy Eucharist in their Historic Sanctuary. St. David's, completed in 1854, is believed to be the oldest Episcopal Church building in constant use west of the Mississippi. It has grown from a small parish that was split for 3 years during the Civil War to a thriving urban ministry center with $1.5 million in pledges this year.

We were spotted as visitors when we came in and given a notebook filled with information about St. David's and all its ministries and activities. We were hoping for a higher service since it was Rite I but alas, no smells or bells, and there were flowers on the freestanding altar, which sported a purple superfrontal. I've never been a fan of those shorty frontals. They just look like you couldn't afford a full one. The Rev. Mary Vano greeted everyone before the entrance hymn Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending and insisted that we greet our neighbors. We did so in the simple New York style. I was just thankful she didn't insist that all the visitors introduce themselves. Then the procession began with the rector, the Rev. David Boyd, gladhanding his way down the aisle. The service then continued with the Word of God. They have a decent choir, which is mostly amateur, and a serviceable organist. The Rev. Vano gave a pretty good sermon on how she's given up on complaining about how commercial the season has become. She's going with the flow this year and has actually been finding that Christ is with us even when all we want to do is shop till we drop. Go figure.

After the service we made our way over to the Paradise Cafe on 6th Street since there was no coffee or anything else on offer and no one except one of the choir members stopped to talk to us as we made our way around taking pictures. St. David's has a Cafe Divine that serves breakfast on Sunday until 10:45 am and then nothing afterward, which we found odd. We walked by there on the way in to the Sanctuary and there were lots of people. Apparently they have breakfast together and then go to Mass. So much for fasting communion. At any rate we enjoyed walking around their spacious plant, which includes a labyrinth in a courtyard, on our way out and over to 6th Street for lunch which was bustling with the Pecan Festival and baking in the midday Texas sun.

We headed on back north on I-35, stopping by the family plot in Wilson Valley to pay our respects. It took quite a while to get back to Arlington with all the holiday traffic but we finally made it and then headed over to Ft. Worth with Charles and Marisa for our last supper at Joe T. Garcia's. No trip to Texas would be complete without a trip to Joe T.'s (http://www.joets.com/)
for an enchilda dinner. A perfect end to a wonderful trip.

Saturday Night in Luckenbach

2005-12-03T18:48:00.000-05:00

This time last Saturday night we were on our way to the High Church of Hill Country Honky Tonk, Luckenbach, Texas, after finding a room and a delicious German dinner at Der Auslander in Fredericksburg. As much as the past is always present in San Antonio, you could say that Luckenbach is a place where time seems to have stood still for the past 150 years or so. Last time we tried to visit it was during the great flood of 2002 when the roads were flooded and the cotton mill was lost, so it was good to see that the rest of the town was spared. The famous old dance hall still looks the same and that timeless feeling has not been altered by any modern progress, thank you Jesus.

Gilberto was not feeling well (can't imagine why after 5 days of Texas food) so we didn't try to dance, but it was fun just watching and listening. Geronimo Trevino's band was cooking and the dancing was fabulous. I still have trouble with the Two Step so I'm glad I didn't get up and embarrass myself, but it was a bit chilly to just sit since they had opened four of the big windows. I went out and warmed up by the big fire going over by the bar, had a couple of Shiners and almost got drunk enough to buy a turquoise cowgirl hat in the General Store. They don't take anything but cash in Luckenbach so I guess that was all for the best. I'm not sure I would wear it very much in New York City. I did buy a red bandana with a Lone Star clasp so I'm making progress on my cowgirl outfit. The Luchesse 2000 boots drew some approving glances. But I do need a hat. And turqouise is rather rare, so said the Hondo Crouch lookalike hat salesman. I was going to try and jaw him down ala New York but somehow that's not my style. "If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it," they say in Texas. So I wandered on back to the Dance Hall and found Gilberto dozing in the corner. We had to get up early to drive to Austin for church so we left after the second set, after hearing What I Like About Texas. Hee-Haa!

Across the Alley from the Alamo

2005-11-30T21:13:00.000-05:00

The day after Thanksgiving I drove down to San Antone with my gonzo compadre Gilberto from a wonderful Thanksgiving in Arlington with my brother et al. We got a room at the historic Crockett Hotel across the alley from the Alamo and after a heavenly barbecue sandwich at the County Line on the Riverwalk, I sat down beside the Alamo and thought about that great battle which ended on March 6, 1836, the day the Alamo fell. No matter how many times I've been there, it always feels like sacred ground. The spirits of those brave men still reside there I believe. Some have speculated that surely there must have been buried treasure there for men like Crockett, Bowie and Travis to have defended it to the death as they did. But the treasure they were guarding was likely just a love of that place that was so strong that any notion of giving it up refused to be entertained.

March 6 is also my birthday so I have always felt a strong connection with the Alamo, having been born in San Antonio and lived there until I was 7. It always feels like home when I go back, even though I don't even know anyone there to call up anymore. But the past always seems to be present in San Antonio, not just at the Alamo, and over the years I haven't seen it change all that much. Sure there are more people here now, but the old neighborhood looks pretty much the same as it did 50 years ago. Casbeer's, "the Joint" as we called it, is now a hot little country/western dance club and restaurant. Good local and imported talent and they make wonderful enchiladas there, just like Mother used to make. I was glad to see they have a big star with Doug Sahm's name on it in the sidewalk in front of the door. He of Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados fame was also a native San Antonian and he and my brother took guitar lessons from my uncle Lloyd Hazelbaker, who played with Bob Wills for awhile. Alas Sir Doug passed away all too soon a few years ago.

The next day we made it to Joe's Hamburgers in time for Phyllis to make us a good ol' Texas burger with her secret sauce. Joe's has been there since about 1940 and Phyllis has been cooking burgers there since sometime in the 50's. They don't serve fries or anything else except burgers, and the only things she puts on it are her secret sauce and chopped onions. But the taste is like nothing I've ever had anywhere else. It's just a little shack on Blanco Road near Hildebrand but at least as long as Phyllis lives, it is truly the High Church of Hamburger!

Christ The King

2005-11-20T21:54:00.000-05:00

Today we celebrated the feast of Christ the King in grand High Church style with Solemn Mass followed by procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. It went pretty well considering we had no rehearsal and several of the altar party had never done procession and Benediction before and another couple were holding their breath that one of the canopy poles wouldn't fall apart. Yesterday as we were assembling the canopy one of the poles fell and the cross on top of it broke off. A quick soldering job seemed to repair it but one never can be too sure about these things. We made it through without it falling off, praise to God, and I'm sure it helped that the procession was only halfway around the church, the scaffolding still being up. The only ragged part was Benediction where we had a very asymmetrical line of torches and candles and an odd newbie torch that squatted down behind the rest despite my best efforts as torchmeister to direct her. Once they're down it's best to leave them where they land, but there was a lot of smoke so I hope that detail was blurred to most people's vision. All in all a meaningful worship experience I would say.

I'm off to the Lone Star State for Thanksgiving, so I ask your prayers for a safe journey and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and a Happy New Church Year!

Sturm und Drang at Bach Vespers

2005-11-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

Last night, Sunday Nov. 13, I went with my friend Bob to Holy Trinity Lutheran for their Bach Vespers service. Somehow I had never been inside this church and was delighted to find such a lovely old pile with a high church evensong that was almost Anglican but also rather Roman in style.

The aisle candlesticks were lit before the service, which opened with a lovely motet by Hartmann. The Presiding Minister in a rather dingy white cope and an acolyte in cassock and cotta processed in, the acolyte carrying a two foot pillar candle that resembled a paschal candle without the decoration. After versicles and responses in procession also reminiscent of the Easter Vigil, invoking Christ as the Light of the world, we sang O Christ, You Are the Light and Day, a good sturdy Lutheran hymn. The minister was at the altar looking like he was preparing for communion, but then we saw smoke rising and realized he had been putting on incense in a large bowl. I believe it was Gloria.

Then we had psalms, prayers and lessons followed by an excellent homily by Pastor Robert Rimbo, sometime bishop of Michigan. Since our cantata for the 25th Sunday after Trinity was to be No. 90 (Es reisset euch ein schrecklich Ende), he spoke of the current popular obsession with End Times prophecies and books like the Left Behind series. He assured us this is nothing new. Back in the late first century people were sure the end was very near and the cantata we then heard was evidently inspired by another such era.

The author of the text of Cantata 90 is unknown, but the opening tenor aria says it all: You shall be carried off to a horrible end, you sinful scourners. The mass of sin is at full measure, yet your utterly stubborn mind has completely forgotten its judge.

The service continued with the Magnificat, harmonized by Martin Luther, during which more incense was put on. A little too sweet for my taste but not unpleasant. Then prayers and another good old hymn for the recessional, The Day is Surely Drawing Near. Let's hope not too near. I still have work to do!

Why a Catafalque

2005-11-09T12:06:00.000-05:00

On All Souls Day this year our magnificent choir sang the Durufle Requiem and it was truly transcendent. I had hoped to enjoy the service from my favorite pew, which was the Zabriskie pew back in their day. I did have a few moments of mystic sweet communion with those saintly souls before I was summoned to fill in as acolyte for SrT who had to work late, but the acolyte chair nearest the credence is my second favorite spot in the church, so I could hardly complain.

This year we restored the practice of saying the Prayers of Preparation at the altar during the introit and the sacred ministers also wore birettas. We have a stunning set of black vestments which made their first appearance at All Souls in 1920. The frontal had to be taped up a bit, but it looked pretty good for 85 years of service. And of course we changed all the candles to unbleached beeswax and put up our so-called catafalque.

The Absolution at the Catafalque is a rather curious coda to the All Souls Requiem, which one former rector referred to as the "so-called Absolution at the Catafalque". He evidently had some issues with absolving all souls of their sins in this way. One could also say the "so-called catafalque" since ours is just a coffin shaped wooden top resting on chairs, covered with a pall. But nonetheless it serves to focus our prayers for the departed and even give a sense of closure to those deaths which have occurred most recently.

After the choir had sung the Libera me and the catafalque had been aspersed and censed, the Celebrant intoned: Absolve, O Lord we pray thee, the souls of thy servants and handmaidens from every bond of sin, that though they be dead unto the world, yet they may live unto thee: and that whatsoever sins they may have committed through the frailty of the flesh in their earthly life may be done away by the pardon of thy most merciful loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then the heavenly In Paradisum ended the service and the tower bell tolled 33 times for all the faithful departed.

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them.

For all the Saints

2005-11-07T20:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints in grand High Church fashion. We had uncovered all our household saints on All Souls day after a few weeks enshrouded in plastic during the restoration, so it was great to see them all again. One of the sacristy rats was heard to wonder, somewhat shockingly, why on earth anyone would pray to or for a dead person. If they are with God, how could any of our prayers possibly matter to them, and if they're not with God, how could our prayers possibly save them, he asked. And furthermore, here he began quoting from one of the 39 Articles and I realized it was time to light the office lights, so I said it was a good question, but I'd have to get back to him.

We had a Sung Mass on All Saints Day proper (last Tuesday) but had a very sparse crowd, since we did the Solemnity on Sunday and most of our parish is loath to come to church three times in a week. I had my favorite job as thurifer and it felt like all the saints were there with us anyway. I especially felt the presence of our second rector, Fr. Arthur Ritchie, to whom St. Ignatius is dedicated for his work in having the present church built. He and the Zabriskies were all there. (What did I put in that incense?)

Yesterday I was subdeacon at the Solemn Mass. I was scheduled to be a torch but the subdeacon overslept so I had to fill in for him. The Rev. Park Bodie was the celebrant and the rector was deacon. We only processed halfway around the church since the scaffolding is still up, and we had the station at the Rood Beam. Sr. T wanted to start the procession after we came in the door, instead of going to the altar first, but we managed to flag her down by the time she had gotten to the St. Ignatius shrine. Having a verger for such a small procession is rather silly anyway and her verger robe just clashes with that veil, even worse than the cotta. But let me stop.

After that it was calmer sailing. We had the des Prez Missa Gaudeamus done marvelously by our choir. And I forgot to mention we are now using birettas on the high feasts. This was only the second time I'd ever worn one and I kept having trouble getting it on correctly with the blades at the right angle. But I must say I can understand why they stopped using them. It's like a comedy routine, taking them off, putting them on, doffing them here, passing them to the MC there. I almost started giggling.

We are now also using a patena during communions, so I had to hold that under everybody's chin, trying to avoid slicing their throat in the process and trying to hold back the chasuble at the same time. I tell you, this High Church stuff is alot of work! Of course I also wore the humeral veil (we call these high feasts HVBP masses for short: humeral veil, biretta, patena). I'm glad we don't do it every week though, even if it would be less confusing for MCs and subdeacons.

We sang my favorite hymn,
St. Catherine's Court, at the ablutions and I hope my friend understood what it is saying, better than I could express it:
In our day of thanksgiving one psalm let us offer, for the saints who before us have found their reward; when the shadow of death fell upon them we sorrowed, but now we rejoice that they rest in the Lord.

Strangers and Pilgrims

2005-11-02T08:25:00.000-05:00

Remembering today all those who have gone before us across that great divide.

From that wonderful hymn, St. Catherine's Court :

These stones that have echoed their praises are holy,
and dear is the ground where their feet have once trod;
yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims,
and still they were seeking the city of God.

Sing praise, then, for all who here sought and here found him,
whose journey is ended, whose perils are past:
they believed in the Light; and its glory is round them,
where the clouds of earth's sorrow are lifted at last.

Zabriskie Plot

2005-10-31T22:13:00.000-05:00

I know, Halloween is almost over. I wanted to write this earlier in the day but I had to run over to another law firm with a laptop to type in some confidential documents that couldn't be copied or otherwise leave the building. I had a nice visiting attorney office all to myself overlooking Times Square, quiet and unbothered, but I really hate laptops and the dim screen plus the poor copies I was typing from have left me nearly blind. But I digress.

For some reason, on Saturday I woke up and thought of going up to Trinity's uptown cemetery at 153th St. west of Broadway to visit the graves of two of St. Ignatius' most dedicated churchmen from the first years of its founding, Christian Zabriskie, Jr. and his son, Charles Frederic Fabriskie. I didn't realize you need an appointment to visit the cemetery (who knew and the gate was open) so I was almost arrested for trespassing, but I told the guard that these were my family, so he had pity on me. I didn't feel like I was really lying since I have felt very close to these guys for about 20 years. Some times I think I may be channeling one or all three of them. Yes, there were three generations of Zabriskies that were on the vestry of St. Ignatius. Charles Lemaire Zabriskie, Charles Frederic's son, is not buried there. I will tell you more about these fascinating men in days to come, but right now I need to rest my tired eyes.

A Trip to the Geranium Farm

2005-10-24T19:30:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday, October 20, I went over to the Geranium Farm with my Cursillo reunion group. Kathy, Bill, Janet and I skipped out of work early and took the train over in mid afternoon. Q met us at the station and while Barbara started dinner he gave us a tour of the garden while it was still light enough to see the Farm in its late October glory. What's Her Name and Noodle, two of the house cats, greeted us warily and then headed for higher ground. Ethel Merman, the hummingbird, had left weeks ago for Mexico but we hope to meet her next summer.

After a little liquid refreshment Barbara led us across the street and showed us around St. Luke's, her first church and now her home parish when she's not on the road. It has a lovely nave and sanctuary, and the parish house has a lot of space for activities and classes, and a beautiful kitchen.

We crossed back to the Geranium Farm and Barbara showed us around the front yard and gave us some sprigs of lavender, two different types. The yard is lush and a bit wild with a kind of untamed beauty. There was the obligatory pumpkin and a whole lot of firewood on the front porch. We went in and Barbara then Q started a fire for us, since it was starting to get a bit nippy. We sat around talking and drinking wine, basking in the warm fire, while Barbara finished making a scrumptious and healthy meal of chicken and buckwheat dumplings, asparagus and carrots. For dessert we had a baked apple and vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we sat around the table and had our reunion group, which consisted tonight only of the Piety section, wherein we shared our spiritual aids and told of our moments closest and farthest from Christ since we last met. We then offered our prayer requests, many and various, a new feature to our reunions which has proven to be quite powerful. We ended the evening with another round of Grand Marnier before hustling back to the station and NYC. Thank you, Barbara and Q, for having us over. It was a wonderful reunion. You may pay a virtual visit to the Geranium Farm here: http://www.geraniumfarm.org/home.cfm

The Feast of St. Ignatius

2005-10-17T20:57:00.000-04:00

Today, October 17, is the feast day of our patron saint, St. Ignatius of Antioch, 2d bishop of Antioch, martyred in 115. More about him here: http://sa intignatiusnyc.org/patron.htm. We celebrated the solemnity yesterday in fine High Church style. I was thurifer and I think I managed to smoke up the place pretty good. We only processed halfway around the church since the south wall is covered with scaffolding right now, undergoing a bit of a facelift. We sang "Blessed feasts of blessed martyrs", one of my favorite. The mass setting was Guerrero's Missa "Simile est regnum", heavenly! The first reading was from the Epistle of Blessed Ignatius to the Romans, wherein he embraces his martyrdom with open arms. The motet was Victoria's marvelous Cum Beatus Ignatius, with the rather graphic text: "When Blessed Ignatius was condemned to the beasts and heard the lions roaring, his eagerness to suffer made him exclaim: I am the wheat of Christ: let me be ground by the teeth of beasts..." The offertory hymn was a new edition of a hymn written by our second rector, Fr. Arthur Ritchie. It was a lovely Vaughn-Williams-like tune arranged by our organist, Douglas Keilitz, with words edited by James Bush. The last verse says it all: "O dear Ignatius, pray in heav'n, for us on earth below; so to us here may grace be giv'n, that we Christ-like may grow." Amen!

Our conversation is in Heaven

2005-10-10T15:43:00.000-04:00

Today is the 122nd anniversary of the death of our proto-rector, Dr. Ferdinand Cartwright Ewer. In true High Church style, he collapsed while preaching a sermon at St. John the Evangelist in Montreal and died shortly thereafter. His text was Philippians 3:20: "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ…”

Here's a link to a Project Canterbury document about Dr. Ewer:
http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/fcewer/memoir.html

High Church, small wedding, no thanks

2005-10-04T13:39:00.000-04:00

I was thurifer last Saturday afternoon (Oct. 1) at a solemn mass blessing the marriage, which had happened about a year ago, of two new members of our parish. I spent several hours before the service making sure the church was properly cleaned (I usually do that anyway, but trying to get it done by 3pm was not easy) since I heard they were expecting over 100 people there. So it was rather surprising when we processed in that there were only a handful of people in attendance on each side of the aisle. I believe we counted 11 people in the congo, plus 8 in the choir and 7 in the sanctuary. It was a lovely service nonetheless, with the Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli mass setting and enough music, all of it glorious, for a crowd of 300 at communion. The video camera was set up in the Lady Chapel so I tripped on the tripod on my way in after the censings, but there was so much smoke that it probably wasn't noticeable. The bride had insisted on no flowers, which was very odd. She said she didn't believe in distracting from the altar, which is a nice attitude, but weddings should have flowers, imho. Afterward the bridal party took pictures for close to an hour but never invited the clergy or altar servers to be in any of them. The MC had spent a few hours setting up, putting away and directing the flow of the service and the other four of us that were not clergy (who did get paid) had given up several hours of a beautiful Saturday to bring the service off for these people we scarcely knew, and not a nod, not a word of thanks from the bride or groom or any of the others in the party. Not that we expected money or anything, although it is traditional to give at least a small offering or gift to those in the altar party, but at least a word of thanks would have been a nice touch. I'll tell you, there are alot of people out there with no manners these days. I hope they have a happy marriage anyway. Next Saturday it will be a High Church funeral, and at least we can look forward to a nice reception afterward.

2005-09-30T20:33:00.000-04:00

The Great Mystery Worshipper in the Sky

Welcome to High Church

2005-09-30T14:20:00.000-04:00

Who am I and why am I here? I'll fill you in as we go along.