Semi-Annual Visit to St. Agnes

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I attended St.Agnes' Novus Ordo Symphonic Mass with Choir and Schola in St. Paul this morning. The Mass this morning was Joseph Hayden's Theresienmesse. [I could have hung with them on the Alelluia, given my 15 months of Scola experience.]

Father John Paul Erickson was assisted by two deacons (they have three) and the usual battalion of altar BOYS. But there were two older altar boys who probably were seminarians because one of them was the lector for the first reading. I'm guessing that he had been instituted as a lector. Our bishops recently sent off an urgent telegram to Rome requesting that women be allowed to serve as formal "lectors." A wag commented that that would be OK as long as they went through the "tonsure" step first.

Another interesting point, for the record: the homilist was a priest professor canon lawyer from the St. Paul Seminary who (a) gave a homily relating to today's Gospel, thus fulfilling that requirement, and (b) gave a money pitch for the Seminary that is being made at all the parishes of the archdiocese this month. Normally when money pitches are given, homilies on the day's Gospel go out the window around here.

The homilist also was a member of the Order of the Equestrian Knights of the Holy Sepulchre and wore his cape rather than cassock (de rigeur at St. Agnes) and surplice. He did not wear his beret, but a biretta.

But he carried the biretta in the entrance and exit processions. He wore it only when he was sitting at the side of the altar during the Mass, removing it at the appropriate moments along with the priest and deacons.

Just a little bit of lector/knight trivia that I thought should be noted someplace.