where there's smoke, there's church

i went to my first "high anglican" mass today. now i will admit that am one that enjoys a bit of pomp and circumstance with her service, but in all honesty i do not see the attraction of this rite, nor do i understand the theology underpinning the liturgy and further more, i was bored to tears.

why has this form of worship been preserved? it is the strangest combination of tridentine somnolence and arbitrary bursts of calisthenics, like a step-aerobics class at a franciscan monastery.

as a minister-in-training, right off the bat I could sense a measure of anti-clerical cruelty to it all as well, an element I like to think of as “cranmer’s revenge”: the church was un-airconditioned, it was 32 degrees outside and the entire ministry team were piled into the contents of the sacristy closet: albs, chausibles, cassocks, maniples, stoles - the works! i know that likely means little to the layman, but lets put it this way: they'd be quite comfortable, if a bit ostentatious, building igloos dressed like that. still, the bermuda shorted, tank-topped congregants no doubt took a perverse amount pleasure knowing the priests were being made to suffer as well.

the ritual began with “the processional”, which appeared to be a warm up for the entire ministry team, choir and sunday school, to limber them up so they didn’t strain something later on in the ritual. as best as i could gather, the point of the exercise was a tour of the church, or perhaps a head-count of the congregation. at the inception of the service, everyone involved in the ritual marched solemnly into the sanctuary from parts unknown and settled themselves in, only to get up again a moment later as a fourteenth century hymn was struck up to form themselves into serried ranks like team canada parading into olympic stadium. there were rows of priest organized by title, weight and height (including one who was armed with a smoke bomb and clutching an eight-year-old girl. the only thing to distinguish it from a hostage taking situation was the fact that the girl had clearly been entrusted with the solemn duty of clutching an empty silver platter); ranks of choristers, curates, acolytes, servers, novitiates, and sunday school students followed, separated by heavily perspiring men bearing standards advertising everything from the name of the church to an invitation to visit the gift shop on the way out.

for ten solid minutes, the assemblage strolled in sweaty dignity down the center aisle, steaming gently as they passed, while the head priest held the congregation at bay with the smoke bomb (which my very expensive theological education has taught me is called a "thurible").

then they turned right.

this maneuver alone took five minutes and at least two verses of the hymn. they then proceeded with the same pained rectitude down the north aisle of the church to the foot of the sanctuary only to turn right, proceed across the length of the church, turn right again and parade up the south aisle of the church to the back and return home via the center aisle. the entire pageant took just under fifteen minutes to accomplish, left the congregation no more holy than when they had begun (as far as i could tell) and filled the church with an acrid, tinny tang.

then the pace of the service slowed.

for an hour and a half the ritual ground on like ‘matlock night’ at a senior citizen’s home. kneeling through the kyrie, i was afraid for one moment that it would never end, and that by the jubilate i would require extensive orthopedic surgery. by the gloria i was ready to cut my own throat just to lift the boredom. a priest that could not sing insisted on singing every element of the service, including the rubrics (the congregation will now staaaaaand for the reading of the gospeeeeeeeel) and i had no idea how fascinating and intriguing the schedule of upcoming services truly was until we hit the venite.

still, a key realization struck me during the service: "i don't really think people left the church in droves over the course of the last century.” i thought. “i think they just all fell asleep during the missa solemnis, and if anyone cares to look, they will still find them there, curled up under the pews, snoring happily as the priest drones on up at the front."

the implications for revising church attendance statistics is staggering, i thought.

of course, after an hour of breathing in incense, i understood why it was called a high anglican mass. i became utterly, and woozily, entranced by the precision drill-team spectacle of the priests up front: the head presider, splendidly arrayed in a cloak of gold, was wildly waving the smoke bomb to and fro and spewing frankincense like a SWAT team raiding a crack house as his equally splendidly arrayed assistants held his sleeves out of harm’s way. he bobbed up and down on the sanctuary steps in some strange sort of mating ritual and they followed suit, now turning to face one another, now genuflecting elegantly, now forming a human pyramid in front of the high altar.

i managed to regain some sense of lucidity during the creed at least, at which point the entire congregation joined in the still inexplicable calisthenics routine. like the thump of bodies hitting the floor, kneelers were dropped just prior to the creed so that half way through, the congregants could fall to their knees, only to rise up again two lines later, bob their heads at the priests a few times and then once more collapse to their knees in a further show of piety. i amused myself by grouping the people around me into two categories: “bum kneelers”, or those that rested their backsides on the pew and whose knees barely grazed the kneeler, and “pietans” who clearly had an orthopedic surgeon in the family.

sadly, the only thing that kept me awake during the service was the crazy lady in the next pew who brought her equally crazy child into the service mid way through for the express purpose of eating carrots and loudly exclaiming "i'm shaving mommy's back! i'm shaving mommy's back!"

*sigh*

this is why I am not catholic, I think.