Up for some air

It's been a strange week in Lake Woebegun. . . oops, sorry, wrong initial cue.

Actually, it has been a wonderful time at St. Andrew's. Great and Holy Week was particularly good: after Palm (or Willow) Sunday morning Divine Liturgy, and a practice that seemed to go on forever, we had the Bridegroom Matins for Great and Holy Monday at 7:30 p.m. that Sunday evening, sung by a male quartet of rather good singers (if you don't count me). For Monday and Tuesday we had the Bridegroom Matins of Great and Holy Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening we had the Service of Anointing, in the musical composition written by our choir director, Gabriel Meyer, and in which we received an anointing of the Holy Oil blessed by the Melkite Patriarch Maximos. For Great and Holy Thursday we had the vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil and the Reading of the Gospels, and on Great and Holy Friday we read the Royal Hours at noon (note that all of these services were pretty much sung by the quartet). On Great and Holy Friday evening, the whole choir sang the evening Vespers service, and on Great and Holy Saturday Morning, we did the Matins service including the Lamentations. Finally, on Pascha evening, we sang the Paschal Nocturns in the composition which I had made for my 50th birthday, almost four years ago and then the Paschal Matins and Liturgy. At the Liturgy, we had four catachumens either baptised or chrismated. It was a wonderful service, and our new singer, William Goldin, an operatic quality bass (and one of the members of the quartet) was entranced with his first real Pascha.

I was also happy to find that on Saturday evening just before Pascha, I got my final paper back from the St. Stephen's program, and it was a pass plus, with a brief note ("Bravo, Bernard!") from the professor. Since there is no way now that my posting them will make any difference, I will be posting the exam questions and answers on my website. Those who are not interested in my attempts at theology may certainly ignore them.

May you all have a happy Pascha.