Since this Sunday was Pentecost, the St. Ann Choir performed a full Renaissance mass, Missa Osculetur Me by Orlando de Lassus, along with the Gregorian sequence Veni, Sancte Spiritus.
No Rainbow sashers, thank God.
There was one little girl making her First Communion, very charming in her white dress and veil, the only one of her group of 170 in this three-church parish to learn all the required prayers in Latin! And so she wanted to have her First Communion at St. Thomas, where Latin is used and honored.
There's hope!
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
