What do Reformed Episcopalians do, anyway?

I'm just back from Hamilton, where I visited St George's Reformed Episcopal Church for Communion Sunday on the Labour Day weekend. The 1962 BCP was followed pretty faithfully, although options such as the Agnus Dei were not used. The hymnal was that of 1938, but again with more Evangelical choices. There was some added congregational participation - such as during the Thanksgiving after Communion and the Grace, interpolated Mattins-style at the end of the recessional hymn. Most bizarrely, the Prayer of Consecration was read in unison congregationally from the after the Words of Institution to the Doxology. I didn't recognize the Gloria. The Sanctus and Benedictus was said, and I missed the Decalogue, so couldn't say whether the responses were sung. (Our bus driver on the Hamilton Street Railway decided to stop at Tim Hortons while en route, so we ducked in during the Epistle). The acclamations before and after the Gospel were sung to an unfamiliar setting, as was the blessing over the alms.

Although it was decidedly low church, I would have no trouble returning to St George's on future visits to Hamilton for a change of pace. The people there are very friendly and the service was reverently executed. And they really do celebrate at the north end in surplice and tippet (although all paraments, including burse, veil, and super-frontal, were green).

A field guide to Toronto Anglo-Catholicism with New York as a reference

*St Thomas's, Huron Street ≈ St Thomas, Fifth Avenue
*St Mary Magdalene ≈ St Mary the Virgin
*St Bartholomew's ≈ Resurrection
*St Martin-in-the-Fields ≈ St Luke in the Fields
*St Matthias, Bellwoods ≈ Trinity Church (?)

More about St Bart's

St Bartholomew's is the most traditional Anglo-Catholic parish in the Diocese of Toronto, looking away politely from St T's female servers, Revised Common Lectionary, and GABbing (though they do TARP). A full set of minor propers is sung, introit and gradual/alleluia from the BCP and the offertory and communion from the English Hymnal. Under the most recent rector (a former superior of Bracebridge monastery), the Angelus was sung to Anglican chant following the Sung Mass. An icon of St Charles Stuart, King and Martyr, greets you as you stoop to pick up a leaflet and add a name to the intercession sheet. It's one of only three churches (two others) where I've spotted a biretta. It's the only church in the Diocese to keep Corpus Christi on the Thursday (whereas the Bishop of Toronto, my own father in God, recently turned up at the very lovely Sunday celebration at St Matthias, Bellwoods, the mother church of Ritualism in the Diocese of Toronto).

This very awesome community is going to have a new website soon, to which I will be sure to point!

Patronal Festival of St Bartholomew

I went to the Sung Mass (what Ritual Notes would call a "Simple High Mass") at St Bart's today for their anticipated feast of title. We actually had a procession round the block while Father, a military chaplain who occasionally celebrates Mass in the parish, sported a biretta. An infant was baptised using the full BCP service; the Nicene Creed was still sung at Mass, interestingly. The celebrant "dressed for dinner," albeit in a splendid cope bearing symbols of the Blessed Sacrament. Interestingly, the cup was withheld from the laity by order of the interim priest-in-charge, something not done even at the Tridentine Mass I once attended at Trinity College.

Dream incumbencies

*S. Clement's, Philadelphia
*St John's in the Village, Baltimore
*Holy Trinity Cathedral, Havana
*Church of St John the Evangelist, Montreal
*St James, Vancouver
*St Peter's Cathedral, Charlottetown
*St Luke's ELCA, Chicago
*Parish of the Falkland Islands

Apologies

Sorry to have been incommunicado for a bit. I am entering my final year now, and things have been a bit hectic. Following posting on the Assumption at St Thomas's, regular service will again lie dormant until I return from youth conference to report on St Bartholomew's Day in Regent Park.

A weekend in the Diocese of Niagara

This weekend I ventured out to the town of Dunnville, Ontario, for a house party with some young Anglican acquantiances et alia. It's a hassle to get out there: the bus to Hamilton is fairly straightforward, but getting from Hamilton to Dunnville necessarily involves the mercy of someone with a driver's licence.

For the first several hours there was a sort of pre-party made up of the inner sanctum of friends, as it were. For much of this time, I was the eldest guest, and I hit it off with the locals quite well. No one seemed troubled by the presence of a big-city queen; indeed, one lad told me I was "a pretty cool guy." Later more people arrived and the intimate atmosphere changed, but I kept myself close to my new acquaintances from the afternoon.

On Sunday morning I went to Mass at the parish church. Unfortunately, this was a modern-language Sunday, and instead of the BAS, they use a form of service based on Common Worship. This meant an alternative "affirmation of faith" in lieu of a Creed, a terrible Elton John-like praise chorus solo instead of a gradual, and a metrical Gloria. The celebrant faced east in surplice and stole (no chasuble because of the heat, I was told). I'll be sure to come back again for a BCP Sunday - perhaps even for monthly Mattins.