Well, mine was okay. I forgot what the first song was but it was half in Latin, which was an extremely unexpected but welcome surprise. The Chreasters were drowned out by the choir and the congregation, thankfully. The homily left a lot to be wanted, but I can’t expect a whole lot of the poor 83 year-old deacon. I was so looking forward to the Roman Canon, but, alas, EP 3 was used. I don’t know why, but this makes me immensely sad. Father invariably botched the Ecce Agnus Dei, he said something like, “This is the Son of Mary, the Son of God, be happy,” or something, at which I fantastically cringed. The recessional was Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Incense was used
, real frankincense! but only for venerating the altar at the beginning
The worst part was that Father spoke so softly. It was halfway between an EF secreto and an OF loud voice. One or the other please, but not halfway.
A logistical nightmare. There were three altar servers (boys in cassocks and surplices), a seminarian/MC (also in cassock and surplice), a deacon (in dalmatic, although
over his stole—anecdote: I thought he was wearing two albs!), and a priest. The church was PACKED. Standing room only, and people in the choir loft (we don’t have a choir at the moment, unfortunately).
At my parish, solemnity seems to be on and off. On every single day of the year, no matter how huge of a solemnity, it’s just two candles on the altar and a plant in front of the altar. On Christmas and Easter, though, it’s like a candle store and a flower store explodes into our sanctuary. There are
hundreds of live flowers, three nine–candled candelebras, six jeweled candles on the altar, six huge candles on the unused high altar, a jeweled chalice, and two sets of bells on each side of the sanctuary.
Anyway, the Entrance Chant was
O Little Town of Bethlehem.
And also with your spirit was rampant, despite the celebrants numerous exhortations to use the pew card. Kneeling at the
Et incarnatus est was disastrous. We only genuflected, but it made everyone so distracted that they reverted to the old translation for that part. Even me! Incensing at the offertory was a little weird. The way the priest does it without the deacon is that he incenses the altar, then the thurifer incenses him and everyone else. He washes his hands while he everyone else is being incensed. But, evidently he does it different with the deacon. He incensed the altar, had the deacon incense the people, then the servers, then him, and
then he finally washed his hands. So the other
Lavaboer and me were just awkwardly waiting for all that to finish. Quite awkward. Even more awkward, though, was during Communion, when I went with the seminarian to hold the paten while he distributed Communion to the choir loft. Have you ever jumped over a pew in a cassock that doesn’t fit you?
But there were smells and bells! The
Confíteor was used, and
so many people were there. I shall aimlessly pray that they’re all there next week! :nope: At least most of them didn’t leave right after Communion.
So, kind of meh. Not inspiring. It does, however, give me confidence to join the choir to expand their Latin repertoire! You?
Join your choir, since they won’t let you serve, if I remember correctly.
Merry Christmas everyone!
