Finally!

We went to the "other" parish we regularly attend – the traditional German parish (stations in German, etc). We like it, not just because the Gothic church is lovely and well-preserved, but because the liturgy is not self-serving, the liturgical ministers are not self-referential, and the whole thing is very restrained, just allowing God to work through the liturgy, without having to incessantly tell us what to expect or how to feel.

The snag this morning was that lightening had hit the church Friday night, zapping the sound system and the organ. They had an electric organ in to replace the pipe – and it was fine. Whatever they had jerry-rigged for the sound had a bit of a buzz going on, but as a whole they did great with what they had. Crowded (of course) church decorated with megaflowers around the altars (they still have the high altar) and bunting down the aisles. Music was traditional – Jesus Christ is Risen Today, and so on, with the Sequence sung as a solo by the cantor (there was no choir, just the faithful cantor – an older woman with a lovely, clear, strong, non-operatic voice), there was Latin a couple of times, including for the first Communion hymn. The homily was pretty strong, I thought – that Easter is the foundational feast for Christians, it’s one thing to have the belief in the Resurrection attacked from the outside, but the big problem now is how it’s being eaten away from the inside. He cited a poll  – I don’t know if it was local or national – in which only 36% of self-identified Christians said they believed in the resurrection of the body. After that I sort of lost him, because by that point I was standing in the back with a very fussy Michael the Baby, who found a friend in a baby that was about twice as big as he, but, turned out to be 4 months younger.