How shall I keep from singing?

Nobody could accuse our church of not being up-to-date when the opening hymn (Guide me, O thou Great Redeemer) so clearly celebrated Wales’ outstanding Rugby victory. The Welsh organist got rather carried away, with a rather strange arrangement on the last verse, and another Welsh parishioner was asked to read the New Testament lesson. I’m sure his accent was much stronger than usual. I’m also not sure what the visiting Youth Leader made of all that Welsh fervour appearing in a rural Devon backwater. I expect he began to think he’d made a wrong turn off the Motorway.
As a total contrast, our anthem, ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ (Byrd) – sung on this occasion by a quartet – was almost as old as the stones surrounding us. We were told afterwards that we sounded ‘positively Mediaeval’ – I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or not…..

Evensong was made rather interesting by a number of minor mistakes, both spoken and sung (each member of the choir and clergy appeared to be trying to outdo each other – what is the closest mistake you can make to a major mistake, whilst still keeping it as a minor mistake?). In the midst of all this near-madness and mayhem, our anthem ‘Cantate Domino’ (Giuseppe Pitoni) shone out joyfully, even if the name does make it sound like a brand of pizza.

Everyone needs a break once in a while – not least because then you enjoy coming back again. It was an easy return, with only one (morning) service and no evensong. The anthem was in unison – Litany to the Holy Spirit, Hurford, with a solo first verse. We then trooped over to the parish centre for a wonderful Lent Lunch (which could in no way be described as a ‘Hunger Lunch’) of home-made soup, delicious cheese and baguettes. After eating our fill, we listened to an interesting and informative talk by Rev. Dr. Mark Chapman (Ripon College, Cuddesdon) entitled ‘The Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Church: what’s all the fuss about?’ I hope we have more lunches-with-speakers as the year goes on – food for the mind as well as the body.

Wednesday saw the biggest ash crosses I have ever seen. I’m not quite sure whose handiwork they were, as the three clergy (well-choreographed, in splendid purple vestments) ashed the congregation in threes, before moving on to each next group of three. I was glad I had a fringe, as the bald-headed and high-foreheaded congregants looked the strangest. We did not sing an anthem as there are not normally many people at the Ash Wednesday service. However, this year there were 16 in the choir and about 30 in the congregation.

Every few months I’m in need of a Cathedral ‘fix’. This weekend we deserted our posts and travelled up to Bristol cathedral for the morning Eucharist and Exeter cathedral for evensong. Both cathedrals had their girl choristers singing; both groups were very impressive. The Bristol choristers were older girls (one with a nose ring!) who sang an enchanting Missa Brevis (upper voices only), the Exeter girl choristers being aged 8 – 13, singing with the men. Bristol’s Eucharist was surprisingly like our own Church Eucharist, with a responsorial psalm and Gospel Acclamation (rehearsed beforehand with the congregation), a young acolyte with an alarmingly large hem on her alb, and a little procession of toddlers (called ‘Happy Hippos’) part way through the service. An obviously very chummy ‘core’ congregation made their way to the very decorative Chapter House for post-service coffee, which was accompanied by shortbread biscuits. I felt very at home.

The church looked very pretty, bedecked in candlelight for the last time before next Christmas. This will be the last week the choir have to dodge around the crib and it will be a very short journey from here to Lent – three days, in fact. I wondered how many of the congregation grasped the significance of the choir singing the ‘Nunc Dimittis’ (Stanford in C).

There were several unintended attempts to scupper Evensong, both musical and spoken. However, nothing irredeemable occurred and, if nothing else, enabled us to sing ‘Lift up your heads’ (Mathias) with a smile.

We have a quiz evening and grand supper of sweet and savoury pancakes to look forward to on Shrove Tuesday, before Lent starts in earnest with a choral Eucharist on Ash Wednesday.