TRIVIAL TRIVIA

Trivia Day!

 

Here are two bits of interesting trivia for a rainy Wednesday.  Did you know that the Church developed a means whereby music could be remembered and shared? 

 

Think on this:  A button box accordion is not a chromatic instrument.  Not only are the buttons next to each other in harmony, the change keys when you are pumping in and out.  Writing music for such an instrument is extremely difficult although my uncle did develop a method.  But by and large, you learn how to play this instrument and various tunes by sitting down with another player and copying what he was doing.

 

Now consider music before musical notation.  How does one pass on music or be assured that one’s music will be remembered after one goes on to playing harps in heaven?  There are no recording devices and it would only take one period of people moving on to other more contemporary things to cause them to forget an old song.  “How did that go again?  No, that’s not quite right.”

 

Along comes Guido of Arezzo, a Benedictine monk (leave it to the Benedictines) who gave us the famous do re mi . . .” of Sound of Music fame.  He took the pitches from a hymn to John the Baptists (whose birthday we celebrated yesterday.)

 

Ut queant laxis resonāre fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes.

Interesting bit of trivia #2:  Did you know that there are words to the Westminster Chimes, the song played on four bells at the top of the hour by your chiming clock – such as in the St. Sebastian bell tower?  According to my sources, “The music was inspired by a phrase from Handel’s symphony, “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth” and the words and music were arranged by William Crotch in 1793.”

 

Lord, though this hour,

Be Though our guide,

So, by Thy power,

No foot shall slide.

 

Westminster is also played unwittingly by “secular” universities, governmental institutions, and the like.  Please don’t tell them this.  Law suits will ensue.  And they can’t, for similar reasons, change to the St. Michael Chimes.  Perhaps they can go with the Whittington Chimes since their legend is more governmental.  Though they originated in a church tower, a young boy, who was running away from horrid conditions heard these bells and thought they told him Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of Londontown.  Later he found his fortune and indeed became the Lord Mayor.  But to ring this tune, you would need twice as many bells and that gets expensive, something most of these non-religious institutions can ill afford.  So let’s keep this story between us.

Interested in change ringing?  Here is an interesting site.
 

THANK GOODNESS FOR IRENE

Happy Feast Day of Saint Sebastian

 

(Though we celebrated it here over the weekend.)

 

Finding it difficult to come up with a good St. Sebastian hymn, we wrote our own.  It is to the tune of Thaxed by G. T. Holst (though I realize the wording can be a bit tricky.)

 

St. Sebastian, martyr, patron, your name we joyf’ly laud.

You were a Roman soldier whose heart was pledged to God.

Though the emp’rer Diocletian declared death to be the price,

you fulfilled your soldier’s duty while leading souls to Christ.

O Sebastian, martyr, patron, we lift our voice and sing,

please be our intercessor to Christ our mighty King.

 

When confronted with the martyrs choice of Christ or earthly king,

you turned your thoughts to heaven where saints and angels sing.

Sentenced to be executed for believing in the Name

your were bound and shot with arrows and earned a martyrs fame.

Saint Sebastian, martyr, patron, to you our thanks we bring

you are our intercessor to Christ our mighty King.

 

Though thought dead and left abandoned your noble heart still beat.

Nursed to health you earned the privilege to rest from danger’s heat.

But the Christians persecuted needed you to stand for them,

your confronted wicked rulers and faced martyrdom again.

Saint Sebastian, martyr, patron, your task continuing,

keep us close to Christ our Eucharist, our Savior and our King.

FULL OF A LOT OF HOT AIR, BUT MOST WELCOME

 The trucks are back again at St. Sebastian in Akron.  For the past couple of weeks, after a few months of an empty choir loft, a new organ is beginning to make it's appearance. 

The picture below is actually an old picture of the original console being removed.  The new one was put back in much the same way.  But the part I wanted to share with you is the back screen.  The original organ fit entirely behind the screen and there was little evidence (until it was played) that there was an actual pipe organ in the church.

The new organ is quite expanded and two division will now be visible to the congregation.  Below you can see one of the "flower pots" installed in front of the screen.  They did a fabulous job of matching the woodwork.  Below you can see the beginning of the installation of the pipes in this division.

Below is the installation of more visible pipes.

 

 

 

 Above you can see almost all of the visible pipes installed.  There will be a few more ranks on the right side yet.  Below is evidence that space is much more at a premium behind the screen than it once was.  This is a shot above looking down at the pedal division.  The solid plank is a narrow cat walk for used for those tending to the organ.  All of the empty white circles you see next to it will have more pipes set in them.

 Below you can see where pipe have yet to be set.  E, F, and F# are the names of notes that each pipe will produce.

Few parishioners realize that behind the screen is three stories of space.  Here I was standing on the top story looking down to the floor of the choir loft.  It would be quite a fall!  To the left and top of the picture you can see spaces for many more pipes.  The ones to the left will be pretty small, perhaps the size of you fingers, the ones at the top will be so large that the half circles that you see are there to help hold them in place much like racks at the ski area hold your skis in place when you go in to have a hot cocoa

 Just one last early shot of the bass division going in. 

Today in the afternoon they will start the initial tuning of the instrument but they did fire it up so we could hear the first sounds that it would make.  My Mother always told me that the first music I should play on any new (to me) pipe organ is a hymn to Our Lady.  To that end, I asked our organist, Mrs. Lynn Frey-Steward to play "Lepa Si Lepa" as the first notes played.  This is a Slovenian song and the words roughly mean, "Beautiful, you are beautiful as a rose Mary."

 

Yesterday would have been Mom's birthday and it was Lynn's birthday.  What a happy convergence of events.

 

For anybody out there who might be interested in supporting this artistic endeavor, there is a matching grand for up to $100,000 for all donations to toward this project.  You may also purchase pipes.  You will recieve a certificate with the pipe's name (so you can hear it if you wish) and with the name of the person to whom it is dedicated.  For information please go to our parish website here.

MONDAY DIARY - BABY FATHERS

Ahhhh. Is there anything like ordination weekend? And this one was a wild at least for me. What are the odds that I would be named administrator of a parish that would be assigned a newly ordained parochial vicar at the same time that my cousin would be ordained a priest, who grew up at the parish at which I am administrator and where he was having his reception? With those kind of odds I think I would have rather won the lottery to pay for new parking lots and pew repairs. And to boot, they all broke Monsignor Manners Rule Number One: Please do not have all of your receptions and Masses at the exact same time. Which of course they did.

I believe I reported about ordination last year so I won’t go into too much detail except for two notable events. You know, priests sitting in their seats at Mass can tend to do exactly what drives them nuts from the congregation when they are presiding. (whisper*comment*whisper) But there was a hardy laugh from the first reading chosen by those being ordained. From Numbers, “He asked the LORD, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, 'Give us meat to eat!' 14 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin." Of course it goes on to become quite fitting but the mumblings back and forth at this portion were hysterical.

The other interesting change was that there was no sung closing hymn, it was all instrumental and that changed the entire dynamic of the recessional. Instead of being glued to books or programs the people were able to pay attention to what was going on. The entire time the many priests were filing out there was applause like a gentle rain. As we rounded the corner of the back of cathedral the newly ordained were leaving the sanctuary and the applause broke out into fever pitch and cheers! Even having gone through this ceremony as a priest for 11 years and as a seminarian for some years before that, I still got chills.

Because they all had their Masses of Thanksgiving at the same time and in the morning on Sunday my choice of attending one was rather limited. With the Masses I had to do at St. Sebastian the only hope I had of going was to Fr. Trenta’s. I must say I was proud of my cousin. He did right by the rite – fine and noble job. The most touching part came as he was surrounded by the priests in attendance and he began the Institution Narrative. Tears welled up in his eyes and his voice became just slightly shaky as he consecrated the Eucharist. Can you imagine how emotional that is – for a Catholic who believes this is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of His God? “On the night He was betrayed, He took bread in His sacred hands and looking up to heaven to You, His Almighty Father, He gave you thanks and praise. He took the bread, gave it to His disciples and said, ‘Take this all of you and eat it. This is my Body which will be given up for you.”

There was a pause as the new father mustered his inner strength and began again. “When supper was ended . . .” What a thing to ponder! How accustomed we grow to these magnificent words and mystical deeds! That we would all pray them with lumps in our throats always! Be damned the upcoming soccer game, the grocery list, the yard work, the breakfast buffet you hope to catch.

This is God.