Last night I was roped into playing The Messiah (and he won - b'doom ching).
But seriously, I was playing second violin in a rare attempt to use parts of Handel's most famous oratorio liturgically in an advent service.
I shall refrain from naming the church or the priest involved, but it was a high-churchman of some repute whom I have not seen these past 20 years, ever since I used to sing in the choir at one of his previous churches - a full-on 'bells and smells' Anglo-Catholic place.
My abiding memory of the style of his ministry was the post-Easter 'renewal of baptismal vows' service during which the officiant processes slowly to the back of the church, accompanied by an acolyte carrying what I can only describe as a bucket of holy water, from which the officiant flicks the congregation in a symbolic baptism. When this particular priest reached the choir at the back of the church, he handed his flicking-stick to the acolyte, seized the bucket, and threw the entire contents over the choir.
He now has a sign outside his church reading "The Marquess of Queensberry's Rules Apply to All Mobile Phones and Chiming Watches."
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2 comments:
Not unlike Rev Kilgore in Sindh, who used to baptise reluctant dacoits by immersing their heads in buckets of water until they confessed.
And what happened to my comment on your hedgehog post. Stalin!
Alas - for your hedgehog comment (presumably involving its foolhardiness in approaching one who looks genetically predisposed to bake it in clay) has been lost in cyberspace.
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