The Washington Capella Antiqua will be performing solemn sung Vespers on the eve of the patronal feast of St. Michael and all Angels, to include Dufay's Ave, regina caelorum and some Cistercian chant, among others.
The service will be held this Sunday, 28 September, at 5:00 PM at St. Michael's Church, 805 Wayne Ave., Silver Spring, MD, three blocks from the Red Line's Silver Spring station.
Laughter is good medicine and that makes Wesley Clark my podiatrist. If you saw Drudge yesterday you'll know what I'm talking about. Not only is the picture funny, but you'll also find out that Clark was recently (May, 2001) praising the Bush team: Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld.
So in honor of that, let's do a caption contest. Here's your subject. It may be familiar to you.
Let them in the comments boxes.
Field Marshall Wesley Clark, Ret.
"At the Pentagon, they have a plaque dedicated to my campaign in Kosovo that reads, 'Never before have we dropped so many bombs on so few targets.' As President, I would never send in a SEAL team to make a surgical strike when I can engage $500 Billion in air assets and make craters the size of the Great Lakes."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
"Until today, I bet most of you didn't even know what I looked like"
Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lieberman
Kerry: "Joe, you have the cutest dimples."
Lieberman: "Is that your real hair, or did a mongoose build a nest on your head?"
Sen. Edwards
"I would only give up my multi-million dollar per year litigation practice because I care about you, the voter, and potential asbestos victim that's just been involved in a hit and run with a Wonder bread truck. I'll be right behind the Ambulance. I mean... vote for me. "
Rev. Sharpton
"I'm recommending every American put a pinch of nutmeg in their Alfredo sauce."
All photos are from the AP and referenced from the WP site.
Radley "Yes, that is my real name" Balko has an article on NRO about the comeback of Opus from Bloom County. Entertaining read and a walk down memory lane. Not to cheapen it with a tired cliche or anything.
From the Washington Times:
Hillary incensed over Chinese censorship
The former first lady is demanding a recall of the Chinese edition of her memoir "Living History," which, translated into Mandarin, contains none of her criticisms of China's human rights record.
Let them pay high prices for over-roasted coffee, and let them enjoy it!
From WashTimes:
An overflow crowd of Episcopalians gathered at Virginia Theological Seminary last night and clashed with bishops and lay leaders of the Diocese of Virginia over the recent election of an openly homosexual bishop.
Those who disagreed with the ordination outnumbered supporters by a 4-1 ratio among attendees who got the chance to speak.
I have two words for you: Altar Girls. Word in the street is the Vatican is considering guidelines to crack down on liturgical abuses, and one of the items up for discussion is altar girls. As most of your know, Arlington Diocese doesn't have altar girls due to an administrative ruling by the late Bishop Keating. Keating's successor, Bishop Loverde, has not issued any directive related to the issue and many Arlington priests are not keen on the idea of altar girls.
We'll have to wait and see what the guidelines are when they are finalized, but in the mean time, here's the most meaningful quote from the article:
"'This premature news is creating a journalistic sensation that is not helpful,' [a] Vatican official said."
Our power went out Thursday night and came back on Sunday at 12:10pm. My wife and I had just sat down to eat grilled hamburgers when we heard the whirr of the A/C and heard people in the neighborhood hollering. We had started to get miserable we had nothing: no power, phones, running water, etc. Our kind neighbors across the street let us shower at their house because they had a generator.
I wish I could say that I made good use of the down time, but I ended up doing little reading and praying because I was busy feeling sorry for myself. So there's my confession for the day.
Here's a Dominion Power outage map, showing I live in an area where there's 1,000+ people who are without power. I'm at the office, where thankfully, we have power. But it's been 24 hours since I had a shower.
How many pets are too many pets?
Based on the massive freak-out of The Weather Channel and local DC-news outlets, much of DC is totally shut down. Federal Govt. Schools. Wachovia bank branches. Even the local food-by-the-pound buffet is closing at 2pm.
You'd think that the eye of the storm is stalled somewhere over 14th and K in downtown DC and is blowing the Capitol Rotunda over to Union Station.
Meanwhile, my 60 minute commute was 35 minutes. The phone has rung about 3 times since 9am. Most of my customers are closed, which means I can get some serious work done today. I'm looking out my window and the winds are picking up a bit but as of 10am it's a breezy, cloudy day.
We're probably shutting down in time to hit the buffet before they close...
The few times I've been to Mass is that diocese can only be described as liturgical mayhem. It's a place where I've been to Mass, and then wondered if I actually went to Mass. Everything else I've heard about Richmond is pretty frustrating. It's a place where Gather Comprehensive is used more widely than the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The language is so inclusive it excludes anyone who thinks that God became a man.
One can only hope some discipline and obedience can get applied there over time, but who knows who'll get appointed...
In the mean time...
Top Ten Slogans of the Liturgy Office of the Diocese of Richmond.
10. Smile and Build Community Or We'll Club This Baby Seal.
9. Home of the Raisin-Nut Altar Bread
8. Putting the "YA" in "Kum-ba-ya" for Over 29 Years
7. Instead of Vatican III, Let's Have Richmond I!
6. We Have Altar Girls and Our Backward Neighbor To The North Does Not. Na-na-na-na-na-na!
5. Welcome to Richmond, Here's Your Leotard
add more in the comments boxes.
Update as of 9:41am Wednesday: A big, scary new hurricane path map.
The current path of Hurricane Isabel has it bearing down on the DC-area, where 60% of the CL contributors reside. Luckily, our in-house Canonist and our up-north Catholic Light-kateer* should be out of harm's way. And the Catholic Light network operations are within a weather-proof, bomb-proof, lunch-meat stocked network center in an undisclosed location. Much like VP Dick Cheney.
*That would be RC. RC - help me with a new nickname.
Recovering Choir Director pointed me to this post by Elinor Dashwood.
She says, "Nobody ought to be paid a dime for assisting in the liturgy" and compares paying music directors with paying actors to be lectors and paying boys to be altar boys.
The big issue here is that music directors should have specialized skills and education that go far beyond those needed to perform other roles in the liturgy. Money isn't the only factor that drives quality, but it can be an influencing factor, particularly when it's an issue of someone actually making a living as a church minister. I've been on both sides of the fence here as both an paid choir director and a volunteer. When I was just starting out and still in school, the compensation was a huge help to me. When I got a real job with decent pay, the compensation wasn't something I needed and I was able to volunteer.
So it's not the pay, it's the focus of the program. Elinor points out in a later post that yesterday, on the celebration of the Triumph of the Cross, her music director didn't pick anything hymns that actually had a text related to the Triumph of the Cross. It wouldn't matter if that organist was paid or not - obviously that person needs to go to music planning 101 and get a clue about what's appropriate.
Here's another nugget:
"How any Catholic can bring himself to take money for assisting with the Mass is incomprehensible to me."
So the organist at the Cathedral who has a Doctorate in Organ Performance and has 30 years experience in leading parish music programs should work full time at the local hardware store to make ends meet? That's absurd.
It does sound like Elinor and I have the same taste in music (We did sing "Lift High the Cross" yesterday) but when it comes to pay for musicians, we'll have to disagree.
Part of his welcome address to the people of Slovakia:
"Do not be satisfied with the sole quest for economic advantages. Great affluence, in fact, can also generate great poverty"
It's a interesting paradox that nearly all good things can be turned on their head to become something disordered, misused - an object of sin. I'm sure many worldly people will think this quote is referring the struggle between the rich growing in their riches and the poor staying poor, but I'm sure he means more than that. Anything placed before God can create a poverty in our lives: the poverty of having love for things that will pass away.
I'm glad to hear that the Holy Father is persevering in the adversity of his failing health. He is striving to do the work of the Lord even to the end.
Here's some background info for the St. Blogs musicians & liturgists. I think it shows that having prayerful liturgies that draw from the musical tradition of the church is bigger than one person.
Read on...
Tonight on NRO, lots of great stuff:
Stephen Moore writes about all the trouble with Tom Daschle's mansion on Foxhall Road in Washington DC. I used to drive down Foxhall all the time to get to American U, so I've seen how the other half lives.
Also, The Krugman Truth Squad strikes again. They even gave Tim Russert some ammo this time.
I just wanted to give a link back to A.A.E. for making CL a daily visit and linking back here. We have a bit in common in terms of our involvement with music ministry and are only 4 years apart in age. There you have it. I'm only 31. But I'm in to my 10th year of directing a choir at my parish.
I'd like some advice. This year November 2nd falls on a Sunday, so we celebrate all Souls during a Sunday Mass. I'm aware of two schools of thought for All Souls music: one is saint-music, the other is christian burial music. The saint-music people will sing things like Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones. The christian burial people will do more somber music.
Can I get some thoughts on tone for that liturgy?
We have the Stanford "Justorum Animae" in our repertiore and I'm inclined to plan to do that:
"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God;
there shall no torment or malice touch them.
In the sight of the unwise they seem to die,
but they are in peace."
FYI, I haven't reviewed the reading for that day yet.
Teresa and I were in Corolla, North Carolina last week for our first beach vacation together. Though we've been married 4+ years we've never made it to the beach for an extended stay. We had a great time in spite of the fact we both can't totally escape from work. Here's some tidbits from the vacation.
We brought the dog. It's the first time she's been to the beach, so when we walked down the deck that goes over the sand dune and she saw the ocean for the first time, she totally flipped. She didn't quite know what to make of the noisy, salty, cold-water in the vast expanse in front of her. She finally got used to walking on the beach with us after a couple of days.
She had to sleep under the bed because that's what she does at home. Of course, she has about 10 inches of space under the bed at home and had 4 inches at the beach. She managed to squeeze herself under the bed and slept there every night.
Corolla has a 6pm Mass on Wednesday that counts for the coming Sunday obligation. By special indult from the Bishop of the diocese, there's an evening Mass on Wed. that makes it so you can hang out on the beach on Sat. in the late afternoon, sleep late on Sunday and still be totally set in terms of your Sunday obligation. We thought we were going to a simple daily Mass but when the parking lot was packed I knew something was up. The priest was an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales who gave a beach homily. A radtrad would say that it was all fluff and feel-good stuff about how God doesn't make junk, someone else would be able to see the merit in confronting your own broken-ness with the realization that everyone has a true dignity in the sight of God and God call everyone to healing.
Some liturgical mayhem: in the diocese the bishop has declared everyone should stand until all have received communion. With no kneelers in this chapel, it wasn't a physical problem, but it sure is weird to me that with the options for posture after receiving communion and with all the other postures that are mentioned in the GIRM but not done widely this bishop would make a big deal of standing (definately not kneeling) during communion. After pet-peeve - "Through Christ, With Christ and In Christ..." instead of "Though Him" - that's just silly gender-revisionist claptrap. The guitar player did his best with City of God, etc. and the priest made a huge deal of the fact we would sing only one verse at the end of Mass. I'm assuming it's very important that at the beach Mass only last 45 minutes, even if it fulfills a Sunday obligation and gets you home in time to watch Jeopardy. It's musical poverty to pare down the verses to next to nothing. It makes the music unimportant and ultimately discourages participation.
On Sat. evening, we went to Holy Redeemer in Kill Devil Hills for the 5pm Mass. The priest was AWOL (reason unknown) so we had a rather reverent communion service. Another parade of Haugen & Hass that wasn't very inspiring, but we did sing "I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say" at the opening and closing (vs. 1 & 2 at the opening, vs. 2 & 3 at the closing.)
We did some grilling, had some nice meals out, visited some friends and when we weren't on the phone or doing email managed to relax. Someday I'll be able to leave work totally behind, I hope. Same for Teresa.
