Categories: uncategorized
Date: 26 February 2007 16:40:34
It was interesting to borrow someone else's Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday this year, 200 miles away from Creamtealand.
The Tuesday saw me in Olney (home of the first pancake races, 'running since 1445' and also home of the famous hymn writers Newton and Cowper). The annual Shriving Service was a strange mixture of traditional hymns from the pen of these two writers and prizes presented to this year's pancake racers. I was impressed by the number of times the choir sang a descant - they couldn't wait until the last verse of each hymn. And the surreal sight of the choir processing in followed by a procession of young women in aprons and scarves carrying frying pans (containing various remains of well-tossed pancakes) will remain with me for a long time.
Ash Wednesday was celebrated late in Leighton Buzzard - a full Eucharistic service starting at 8pm, complete with Ashing and the Allegri Miserere (competent high notes from the young soprano soloist). And so to bed, with my forehead still signed in ash.
Normality returned on Sunday back at my own church - we began to use the Greening Mass setting, starting this week with the Kyrie, and the anthem was, 'Turn thy face from my sins' (Attwood), sung much slower than we were used to, causing it to sound rather muddy (the mire of sin, obviously).
At Evensong we were complimented on our diction in the Psalm - our choirmaster will be pleased as he often sounds like a stuck record on that score. Whether the congregation could hear every word in the anthem (O for a closer walk with God - Stanford) we were never told. It was difficult to sound cheerful during the service as we had just been informed that one of the church offering holders had been stolen during the afternoon. Sunday is a quiet day in our town, obviously too quiet sometimes. I hope we never get to the stage where we have to lock the church.