Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Worthiest Art Thou at All Times to Be Sung

Comes word of welcome early fruits of Anglicanorum Coetibus:
Solemn Evensong & Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will be celebrated by the Oxford Ordinariate Group at Blackfriars, Oxford, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 15 June, by kind permission of the Prior and Community.
For those not aware Evensong is an Anglican institution, an amalgam of Compline and Vespers, that dates back over 500 years and is perhaps the loveliest service in the Anglican provenance. It may now be celebrated in the Catholic Church and that is happy news. If you are fortunate enough to have taken in Evensong at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (Episcopal) in Manhattan you surely understand why. If you not, you may do so at the church's website (click here to hear a recent celebration). The Anglican musical tradition is unlike any other; "ascetic opulence" might best describe it, glorious and soaring but without a trace of sentimentality or excess (some might even say it's chilly), unlike that heard all too frequently (though less so these days) in St. Peter's Basilica.

Couldn't possibly happen, of course, but how pleasant to imagine St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue becoming an Anglican Use parish.

h/t Inigo Hicks

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