Cathopalian Mass

 

I meant to blog about this yesterday: when we got home, we watched the Lions-Commanders game. I was really hoping the Lions would win, but they totally choked. I was surprised today by how many Packer fans on social media were celebrating this, like they couldn't stand a division rival doing well. Personally, I think since the Packers have seven championships and the Lions have never even been in the Super Bowl, it would have been great to see them get there, and maybe win. So I guess now I'll cheer for the Commanders, who have had a crazy season. Who could forget their Hail Mary pass to beat the Bears? Or that insane game against the Cowboys where the two teams scored 31 points between them in the last three minutes? At least they changed their highly offensive name, so if they make it to the Super Bowl, it would be poetic justice if they beat the Chiefs, who have yet to change theirs. And while you can argue that "chief" is a generic term for a leader, the fans who wear Native American headdresses obviously don't think that.

Today Travalon and I had a very relaxed morning, because we didn't have to go to Mass. We went with Cecil Markovitch and the Single B-Boy to an Anglican Rite Catholic Mass at 2:30 in the afternoon at the Basilica of St. Josephat. I love that it's such a beautiful church.

And I love that it's named after a Polish saint who was himself named after the Buddha, who somehow got into the liturgical calendar. (Look it up if you don't believe me. Josephat is a corruption of Bodhisattva.) But most of all I loved the liturgy, which had things I remembered from my Cathopalian childhood. It was very high church, and for the communion piece, the wonderful choir sang Byrd. The only way it could have been better is if they'd sung Tallis. At the offertory they sang Viadana, who is of course Italian, not English, but still wonderful. Even the music they used for the ordinary seemed vaguely familiar. They do this quarterly, so I put my name on the email list to be notified. Travalon didn't even mind that much that the Mass was longer than what we're used to. 

Afterwards I bought a rosary at the gift shop (I know, you're stunned), and then there was a reception downstairs with crackers and cheese and homemade treats, so I did indulge. The thumbprint cookie was delectable! If they'd only had boughten treats, then I would not have been tempted at all. We drove home, but I was already going to be very late for band practice, so I just skipped to join the others for dinner at Fabiola's. They said there was a half-hour wait so we went next door to Leopold's, and the bartender made me a pandan ice cream drink that was even tastier than the original one I had about this time last year. Suddenly our table was ready, so we just brought our drinks over. (Travalon loves their Earl Gray hot toddy, and the other two are negroni fans.) The Italian food at Fabiola's is so good, and the ambiance is wonderful, with the low lighting and soft music. I just love that place!

Last night as we were coming home, we went to Delafield to see some Christmas lights that are still up.

(Oddly, the church was still decorated today for Christmas, as you can kind of see in the lower left of the photo at the top of this post, although we are back in Ordinary Time.) 

Then we stopped at Lapham Peak for a bathroom and steps, and I saw these planets in a line.

And some more, and I'm not sure what the odd stripes are. Were there actually Northern Lights going on? Are those weird clouds? Or just some strange photographic effect?

There is supposed to be some alignment on Tuesday, when all the planets will be in a row in the night sky, so it must already be starting. I have heard no astrological chatter about this at all on social media, only astronomical chatter. Then again, I'm subscribed to an astronomy site but no astrology sites. I have also seen photos of a comet, but they all seem to be from Australia, so is it only visible down there? Nobody local has posted a photo of it. I do love me a good comet!

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Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to my readers! He is risen indeed! I had sort of a weird Triduum; Holy Thursday was fine, but Good Friday after Travalon and I took a hike at a place right near our condo called Jackson Landing, he dropped me off for the service at our church. However, the priest was sick, and instead of calling in another priest, they just canceled the service and had Stations of the Cross and a rosary instead. The choir still sang several pieces. Afterwards several of us had a small, vegetarian meal at Himal Chuli, sitting outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. After that Travalon and I turned on the Uber app, but we didn’t get any requests as we explored the islands in Monona. In the evening I met Rich, Luxuli, Prairie Man, and Cecil Markovitch to hear the Madison Bach Musicians perform Bach’s “St. John’s Passion,” so we got to hear the reading anyway, since we hadn’t during our non-service. It was a very beautiful performance, and they projected the words in English on the wall behind the performers, who were of course singing in German. To my surprise, I could usually pick out which phrase they were singing matched with the English phrases. Maybe it was a waste to study Romance and Celtic languages, since obviously Germanic languages must be what come naturally to us English speakers!

Saturday Mamastep and I had some girl time while Travalon gave people Uber rides. She and I went to the Crema Café and then walked fifty steps over to Fired Up, where we made some fused glass pendants and painted small ceramic figurines. She painted a green VW Beetle like the one she used to own, and I painted a little hedgehog to go with my flop-eared rabbit. Afterwards Travalon and I went to the zoo, since it was such a beautiful day. In the evening Travalon and I went to the Easter Vigil at the little country church near our house, which I did not find satisfying. Generally the Easter Vigil is my favorite liturgy of the entire year, but l want to hear the Exultet chanted, not spoken by a priest with a strong foreign accent. There were not that many people there, and when we started outside, my candle kept getting blown out. Is that a bad sign? Maybe I’m not living my life right. On the other hand, it was the shortest Vigil Mass I have been to, only an hour and a half. It just felt like any old Mass but with candles and extra readings.

Yesterday was the most gorgeous day yet. After Mass Travalon and I went to the Nau-Ti-Gal for brunch, then we were planning to visit his mother, but she has a bad case of the flu. Instead we went for a hike at Cherokee Marsh, and I discovered you can see the island in Cherokee Lake from one of the observatory stands. In the afternoon Rich had a dinner at his house, and about a dozen people were there. We had some really interesting conversations, like one guy was from Iran and one woman was from Pakistan, so they were talking about the different types of Islam in the two countries. Also, did you realize that in the 80’s a large number of Iranians moved to Japan? I had no idea! Miss Heartsong showed up around nine, and that was the first time I had seen her in eons! She is engaged now, so I suppose at some point I’ll have to refer to her as Mrs. Heartsong.

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The One-Eyed Angel Song

Today's Lenten reflection is on beauty in the liturgy. There is an unfortunate movement to remove beauty from the liturgy because it is "extraneous" and we should focus on what is important: God. My reply to this school of thought is, "Would you want an ugly house? Then why would God?" After all, He gave us our senses of sight, hearing, and smell so it only makes sense that He doesn't mind us engaging them all in the liturgy. Think of a Greek Orthodox liturgy, which is an all-out assault on the senses with the riot of colors on the iconostasis, the polyphonic chanting, and the furls of incense. I'm just saying, if I were God I'd rather hang out there than at some bland, ugly suburban parish with bland, ugly music and only the scent of too much perfume on certain parishioners.

When I was a little girl splitting my time between the Episcopal church on Sundays and Catholic Mass on Wednesdays, I was torn between the beauty of the Episcopal service and something deeper going on at my bland suburban Catholic school's church. One thing does stand out: that in neither case did they water things down for us children. God is a mystery no adult can grasp, so why would we think we can make Him so small and simple that children can understand him? He made Himself small and simple as a child at Christmas, and that is as simple as it needs to get. Children love mystery as much as adults; when we steal it from them and make Jesus a nice guy who healed sick people, they just tune out. My experience from years of teaching catechism is that children love mysticism and deep concepts, even if they cannot fully understand them.

I remember a hymn we often sang after Communion at the Episcopal church, full of mysterious words like "vesture" and vanguard" and imagery of spiritual battles and seraphim in the thralls of worship. The tune was minor-key and haunting, but it was the words that really made the hymn; to my childish mind, they were the closest description of Heaven any human could find. I loved that song and would ask my mother if we were going to sing "The One-Eyed Angel Song" at church, but she had no idea what I was talking about. Of course, being a child, I was literal-minded to the point of ridiculousness, so when we sang a line in this song that went, "Cherubim with sleepless eye," I envisioned strange beings with a single eye they veiled from His Presence. I'm sure the poet who penned the words to "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" was not imagining cycloptic angels, but after all, in the line before he had written about "six-winged seraphs," so he had already stood my image of angels as young women with two wings on its head. And for that I will be eternally grateful, because even if he led my childish imagination astray, at least he led it away from the cloying and mundane toward the strange and mysterious. He gave me a lifelong understanding that the things of Heaven are beyond our human power to envision. During the liturgy, when the angels of Heaven bow around the altar, we should feel some of that beauty and mystery, which is much easier to do when a schola is chanting than when someone is playing lounge music on the piano during the Eucharistic prayer.

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