Pentecost in Piqua

In a bit, the Easter Season will be rung to a close (when the pastor leads -- or prays on his own -- Second Vespers). Of course, the various decorations will be attended to tomorrow or Tuesday. I am reminded I have to dig out my ordinary-time breviary, which -- since I moved recently, and have packed things up -- may be hard to do. The Latin Sanctus will, as planned, take a rest -- we used it from the first Sunday of Lent until Pentecost. Overall there was good participation, clearly more at some Masses than others. If there was anyone still saying, "we don't know this," all I can reply is, that's because all this time you refused to participate in a good spirit, and that's a shame. The Easter Candle moves, and we'll reduce the number of candles.

Oh, and of course I did the fancy dismissal, but not at the Vigil, I think it's only called for on the day.

If you click on the link to your right, indicating our music ministry, you can see the music that was planned. Our fine music director made some last-minute changes, at least at the Masses I celebrated, so I don't know what became to the opening hymn he had in mind. I am sure he has a good reason. The choir did do a nice setting of Veni Creator Spiritus -- not the entire prayer, but a repetition of that theme. Not the Taize chant either.

We sang the sequence at most Masses. The Adult Faith Formation committee did invite folks to wear red, so a number did so. Both churches wore red -- a bit more at St. Boniface (the martyr). Both churches had plenty of tongues of fire (candles). When I saw an item online about the dropping of red rose petals into the Pantheon (now Sta Maria ad Matyres), I was a bit envious, and also thinking, hmmm, could we do that?

Thanks to the seminarians, we had incense at all "my" Masses. And I was -- as I like to tell the kids, a "sing-a-saurus." I chanted the Gospel, and at one Mass, chanted the entire Eucharistic Prayer (Roman Canon of course, given the day), and parts of at another Mass.

The challenge, of course, with Pentecost is that it is a longer Mass, but I'm not sure folks expect that and are mentally prepared for it. On the other hand, Pentecost ranks as one of the three or four most significant feasts (along with Christmas, Epiphany and Easter), so should be treated as such, I think.

We also had prayer cards to give to folks, each one having a gift of the Spirit--everyone got a different "gift."

At St. Boniface, the major components of the new sound system were in place, for their first full use. It seemed they needed some fine-tuning, especially at the 10:30 Mass, when there was very high-pitched feedback happening somewhere. I said the new system was so good, it picks up the angels!

I am sorry to say we missed out on the plenary-indulgenced singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus, but I didn't get with our music director in time, that was my fault.

But there's always next year, along with the rose petals!