The religious life

For a while now, I've been toying with the question of whether I might be called to the religious life. I'm nowhere near the same stage of self-understanding on that score as I am with regard to the priesthood (where I'm convinced myself and am working to convince others and the Church at large). I go back and forth on it quite a bit. My involvement as an *Associate of Holy Cross began on the premise that I wanted to test such a vocation, and assumed that I would either conclude I was so called, or else wish to be a friend of the religious life.

These are the communities I'm investigating.

Christian Communities
*Oratory of the Good Shepherd
*Brotherhood of Saint Gregory (which one interlocutor dismissed as "religious life lite for slutty gay men." "Where do I sign up?" was my retort.)

Religious Orders
*Holy Cross Monastery (Order of the Holy Cross - West Park, NY)
*Julian House Monastery (Order of Julian of Norwich - Waukesha, WI) (But their Rule scares the shit out of me.)
*St Gregory's Abbey (Order of St Benedict - Three Rivers, MI)
*Society of St John the Evangelist (Boston, MA)
*St Joseph's Priory (Order of St Augustine - Springfield, NS)

St John's, Detroit, on YouTube

Website

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at Detroit's 1928 BCP Anglo-Catholic shrine. The O Salutaris was sung to a tune other than "Verbum supernum," and Jesus wept.

A "Frankenmass" with an odd setting of the Preces. And with the second set of preces ("O God make speed to save us...") missing, 1979-style. Still, I know where I'd go to Mass if I lived in Windsor (we won't even entertain the notion of my living in the US).

Ye who own the faith of Jesus

My induction into the Society of Mary has been postponed again. Last year, I was prepared for admission, until at the last minute it was revealed that I hadn't been to enough meetings. This year, due to a confluence of a number of things not going as planned, it wasn't able to take place on the Feast of the Visitation once again. It was too bad, since Bishop Victoria Matthews was there this time. I've been told I can be admitted in the fall, but I prefer to wait until next Visitation. (Technically, the Visitation won't occur next year as it is displaced by Pentecost. In practice, I suspect SOM will keep it on the last Saturday of May as usual, and bump Roberta Elizabeth Tilton, Founder of the Anglican Church Women). In any event, I was glad to get to St Mary Mag again for another outdoor procession. The weather cleared up just in time!

I will note briefly (now that I've seen it twice and know that it's not a one-off) SMM's odd practice of switching the places of the Te Deum and Benedictus at Morning Prayer.

Detail of the Solemn Mass and Outdoor Procession below.

***

The Mass was Willan, of course: Mass 3 (except Gloria and Credo, de Angelis). The motets were also Willan. Two motets preceded the Mass: "Fair in Face" and "Rise up, my love."

The Mass itself began with the Introit, not the traditional one, but a generic one of unknown provenance ("Rejoice we all, and praise the Lord, celebrating a holy day..."). No smoke, as the principal celebrant was in the nave for the wreath ceremony. He blessed the wreath and sprinkled it, and placed it around the base of the statue of Madonna and Child.

The Ritual Choir had the wrong gradual with them, but improvised valiantly. The sequence hymn, which blew me away, was "Virgin-born, we bow before thee" (Mon Dieu). Offertory hymn was "Sing we of the blessed Mother" (Abbot's Leigh). Another Marian motet by Willan: "I beheld her, beautiful as a dove."

In addition to the principal celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, there were two concelebrants. And when I say "concelebrants," I mean they wore discrete chasubles and extended their hands in a vague, Anglican fashion during the dominical words (which one of them, but not the other, murmured along with the principal celebrant).

The Communion proper was sung as an antiphon on the Magnificat. After the post-communion, we embarked on a procession with the statue of Our Lady. Lots of favourites for the hymns:

*"Sing of Mary, pure and lowly" (Hermon)
*"Hail Mary, blest Mother" (French)
*"Hail, O Star that pointest" (Ave Maris Stella)
*"Now in holy celebration" (Oriel)
*"Ye who own the faith of Jesus" (which during the May Festival is sung to "Daily, daily")
*"Sing how the age long promise of a Saviour" (Coelites Plaudant)
*"Tell out, my soul" (Woodlands)
*"Be joyful, Mary" (Regina Caeli - sung more slowly - and with an odd pause - than the way I learned it. "Alle-luuuuu-ia.........Rejoice, rejoice", etc.)
*"For Mary, mother of Our Lord" (St Botolph)

Upon returning to the church, we repeated "Sing of Mary, pure and lowly" and said (alas) the Angelus before being blessed and dismissed.

Saint Augustine Prayer Book

Tip of the biretta to Fr Tay Moss, from whom I received this morning, to my surprise, a copy of the Saint Augustine Prayer Book. Subtitled "A Book of Devotion for members of the Episcopal Church," the prayer book was originally published by the Order of the Holy Cross in 1947 and revised in 1967 to reflect changing liturgical norms. Even in its revised form, however, it's quite traditional, and follows the basic shape of the American Missal in its order of Mass. A table of contents can be found on Wikipedia. Many of these prayers are much "higher" than anything I've encountered at Holy Cross Priory in the twenty-first century. (Nonetheless, the Marian Antiphon is unfailingly sung at Compline and I understand that Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament does occur on occasion at the mother house in West Park, NY).

I've been pouring over the little volume all day, and it's quite a treasure. There's much in here to enrich my practice of the Daily Office and of private prayer. Many thanks to Fr Tay, whose thank-you note has already been dispatched. Now I really must return my parish priest's copy to her, as it's been on loan to me for too long! It's quite frail and makes me rather nervous.

Revising the Marriage Canon

An excerpt from the minutes of Council of General Synod, 24 May 2008.

Revision of the marriage canon

Lela Zimmer asked on behalf of the committee if COGS could clarify whether it wants to consider a revision of the marriage canon, or a process to consider such a revision. She also requested clarification on whether this work is to include all legally qualified persons, or the particular category that includes same-sex couples.

*Resolution

As a result of the conversation, the following resolution was adopted: the Council of General Synod

* concurs in the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee's understanding that it is to address the particular category of "legally qualified persons," i.e. same-sex couples at least one of whom is baptized Christian;

* agrees that development of a theological rationale for the marriage of such couples should precede the preparation of any draft amendments to or revision of the Marriage Canon;

* requests the committee to report to the COGS no later than November 2009, and

* directs that, if the Faith, Worship and Ministry Committee develops such a rationale, it should, in conjunction with the Handbook Concerns Committee, prepare draft amendments to, or a draft revision of, the Marriage Canon for consideration by the COGS in March 2010 for possible submission to the 2010 session of the General Synod.

Corpus Christi at SMM

As Jack Benny would say: Well!

Solemn Mass, Outdoor Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, and Benediction at the Church of St Mary Magdalene.

The "Gathering of the Community" omitted the Asperges, but otherwise was the usual Introit-Greeting-Kyrie-Gloria-Collect sequence. The Mass was Willan's Mass 12 (the Gloria and Credo were de Angelis).

After the First Lesson, Gradual verse, Epistle, and Alleluia verse, the choir and congregation took parts in the proper sequence (Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem) from the New English Hymnal. The deacon chanted the Gospel, and the rector/celebrant preached. After some announcements about renovations (moved up in the service because of the ensuing Procession), the deacon led the singing of the Prayers of the People, which was followed by the Kiss of Peace.

The offertory hymn was "Let all mortal flesh keep silence" (Picardy) which was too fast and loud for my liking. The offertory verse was sung in Latin. The motet was Tallis' O Sacrum Convivium. The Orate Fratres was interpolated.

After the postcommunion, the MBS was exposed in a monstrance, which the celebrant held up for all to see. It was taken under the ombrellino, and we proceeded outside, with two of Toronto's finest escorting us down Bathurst Street. We sang several hymns, not all of them Eucharistic-themed.

*Alleluya! sing to Jesus (Hyfrydol)
*Eternal Monarch, King Most High (Deus tuorum militum)
*Jesus, gentlest saviour [Caswall (Wem in Leidenstagen)]
*Once, only once, and once for all (Albano)
*Of the glorious body telling (a familiar but unidentified tune, attributed to St Thomas Aquinas)
*The Church's one foundation (Aurelia)
*(I think the last was) Though art the way, to thee alone (St Magnus [Nottingham])

When we returned, we were treated to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the motet for which was "Ave Verum Corpus" (Martin). The Divine Praises were said (no Precious Blood, no Assumption, "noble" Joseph). The Angelus was omitted.

I did regret the omission of "Lord enthroned in heavenly splendour" and "One bread, one body," but look forward to singing them at St Matthias, Bellwoods's observance of Corpus Christi next Sunday (they did their Patronal today).

I thought my mother would faint when we were done. "You didn't tell me it was going to be two and a half hours long!" she cried at me. Her initial reaction of "I'm never doing that again!" was ultimately tempered to "Now that I know what to expect, I can handle it once a year." She also agreed that Benediction, which she had been worried about participating in for the first time, worked well.

A heavily-disguised illiterate

The top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers