1 week to chapel week

Two big things we do as Seniors (They try to not have you do both in the same semester):

1) Senior Litugy week - plan 4 Noonday chapel services in consultation with the Priest-in-Charge assigned that week, and

2) preach a Senior Sermon.

My Liturgy week is 1 Advent, the week after Thanksgiving break, so along with working on the sermon I preached yesterday, I've been busy planning and typing up my services. Some details about my week:

I get the feast day of St. Andrew, and my sponsoring parish is St. Andrew's. :) I decided to use incense for St. Andrew on my Wednesday after a group of us played with a thurible a couple weeks ago. It will be Rite I Eucharist (chapel switches to Rite I in Advent) because of the feast day, usually Wednesday is sung morning prayer.

For my Monday I got permission to go outside the Chapel Customary (guidelines for chapel services) so we'll do Morning Prayer (as short as rubrics would allow) with the Great Litany chanted (oh yeah, had to scour Michno and Stuhlman and rubrics to figure this one out). Monday is usually said Morning Prayer. I really wanted to do the litany for Advent and I wanted to try and do it early in the week as we have just entered Advent, rather than wait until near the end of the week. I'm going to have the officiant and the reader (woman and man) both as cantors, so they will alternate petitions, but the officiant will do the first few about the trinity and the end.

On my Thursday we'll offer anointing during communion (got permission for that too, not a normal part of Thursday service). Anointing actually was a suggestion of my Middler Assistant. I had been preoccupied by figuring out how to work in the Litany and what to do on Friday. When he suggested anointing I said let's try to work it in. Thursday prayers are to alternate English/Spanish per the Customary, so I found a Spanish version of the Litany for Healing and am planning to use the litany for my Prayers of the People.

Fridays allow us to experiment a little and try new things, so we can use services from other parts of the Anglican Communion, or Rite III, or Enriching Our Worship - often there is no sermon but different music, or liturgical dance, or silence. My Friday I'm going with an African theme. We'll be using an English language service from Kenya (in Our Modern Services, 2003) and a student from Zimbabwe is going to teach as many singers as I can get ahead of time 3 songs in Shona so we can help the congregation sing. We had a practice Friday that went well. She'd taught some of us the songs for a service in April 2004. She'll be graduating and leaving at the end of the semester.

Since I really like liturgy, I've loved the planning of it. But every Senior who's gone so far is finding it's more complicated and takes more time than you anticipate (both the planning and overseeing the services during the week). Which means it also cuts into time for coursework and other responsibilities. So, it adds extra stress for several weeks while you plan and execute it and try to keep juggling everything else. It also took much longer to play musical chairs with the people in my chapel group trying to figure out who to plug in in which day for what duties.

I'll be the first person to use Rite I services as we make the switch (we'll use Rite I through Epiphany I think). The music group (in consultation with Music Prof) will be the plainsong group, which is tricky, but he wants to use it for Advent. He says it's time to do it and we're a learning institution so we need to be exposed to it. I was leaning toward it anyway since Willan seemed too familiar, although I had Merbecke as an option. This means I may be the scape-goat for some grumbling as the community switches to Rite I language and to different/challenging service music. I think I remember some grumbling around this time of year for these reasons the last two years. Well, whatever. I'm still excited about my week.

~~bythesea