Sicut Cervus

An amazing thing happened last week at Mass.

Background info first: Very often, the choirs at St. John's will do a post-Communion meditation as the priest is cleaning the vessels at the altar. It's imperative that the director of each choir time the piece perfectly to finish before the priest is finished with the vessels; otherwise, the priest sits before the song is finished and everyone in the congregation will then rise from their kneeling position and sit down in the creaky pews. Between the shuffling, creaking, thumping of kneelers being returned to their upright position, etc., it makes for a brutal cacophony of sound right near the end of a meditative choral piece. Talk about ruining the mood.

Anyway, on Sunday, I cut our communion chant a bit short, as the priest presiding at Mass tended to be very "efficient" at cleaning the vessels, and I knew that we needed to start the post-Communion motet a bit earlier than usual. So the choir received Communion and then we started the piece. About halfway through, I started looking every 30 seconds or so to check to see where the priest was; at one point I got a sinking feeling in my stomach, as I knew that he was going to finish before we would, and the end of the piece would most likely be ruined by the congregation hurling themselves back into place. I turned back to the choir with a pained expression on my face and braced myself for the inevitable.

But it never came.

The ending of the piece was beautiful, and not a sound could be heard in the Church otherwise. I immediately looked back towards the front, and sure enough, Father had sat down . . . but the congregation stayed in place. No one had moved a muscle.

Now I've been doing choir stuff at St. John's for 7.5 years now combined, and this has NEVER happened. The congregation ALWAYS sits down . . . must have been the Holy Spirit not wanting to ruin this piece.

(No, this is not my choir! And we only did up to 3:33 of the video.)



Translation:
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God. (Ps. 41(42): 1)

Spring! Spring! Spring!

The last couple of days have been so wonderful here . . . sun shining, birds chirping, snow melting! Really, spring is on its way. Hooray! This winter has been long and was getting tortuous. I know that since we live in the Midwest, we are not out of the woods yet, but praise God for the glorious bit of warm-er weather we've had!!!

Every Morber is ready to get out and play, including our youngest, Sebastian, who is walking. For some reason, both my boys have been earlier-than-average walkers. However, they have also both been my "late" babies. Perhaps this means they are late to arrive, but ready to get in the action. ;)

Here is a haiku about our adventures on Thursday:

Look! Look! Spring is near . . .
Beckons us outside to play
In the mud, I fear.

Hope all of you are able to enjoy the first promises of spring as well!