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Today was Thaddeus' wedding. It had the feel of an SCA event; they wanted to do a "medieval" wedding and invited guests to come in garb, and they arranged for some very good SCA cooks to do the food. It was extremely tasty, even though the cooks had to contend with more dietary issues than normal. Thaddeus is allergic to wheat, and Dana is lactose-intolerant, as are some other members of her family. This made the cake especially challenging, but they pulled it off. (Rice flour, they said.) Johan told me I should go ahead and eat meat, as the dairy was sparse and well-segregated. It's been a long time since I've eaten meat at an SCA feast.
The wedding itself started off with an exchange of gifts and each of them having to satisfy witnesses that they were suitable partners. It was schtick, but fairly well done. They said this was based on medieval (or renaissance?) Polish customs. This then led to a fairly normal wedding (with the traditional vows except for "obey"). There was a very short mass done for the benefit of the couple only -- that is, the couple got communion but no one else did, and it took about 10 minutes. Apparently this, too, is in keeping with whatever they were modelling the ceremony on. Aside from some verbal responses in which I did not participate, there was no congregational involvement. (Not like Isabella's funeral a few years back where I got broad-sided by the "let's all take hands and sing to Jesus" thing that made me bolt from the room. That was embarrassing; fortunately, the family concluded that I was overcome with grief and didn't bother me about it.)
The priest was Father Klukas (Robert's priest), who is a very cool person. He has a tasteful sense of humor that he applied during the wedding. (Rabbi Gibson is the only other person I've heard pull that sort of thing off during services.) Father Klukas has a degree in medieval history (or maybe medieval liturature, I forget now) and is very friendly with the SCA. A couple of times when we've had events at his church, he has done a historical mass (strictly optional attendance) as part of the re-creation. Pretty neat. (He preceeded them with short lectures about the liturgy of the particular period he was doing, and produced good handouts. In other words, he was definitely in teacher mode more than priest mode, though of course he was doing real masses.)
The modern Episcopalian (sp?) mass is very similar to what I remember of the Roman Catholic mass. There are extra words at the end of the "our father" prayer (I think Protestants do those too), and I think there were some minor wording differences elsewhere (less significant). I couldn't see whether communion included wine.
I find that masses can be interesting from a liturgical-anthropological point of view, when I am comfortable being present. (I was today.) We all know that Christian liturgy was derived originally from Jewish liturgy; it's interesting (to me) to see what they kept, what they changed, and what they discarded. At one point today I remember thinking "hey, that's the Kedusha"; it was very close to the text we say, until it veered off to talk about the trinity. (Christians will know this as the "holy holy holy, all the earth is filled with God's glory" part, if I'm remembering the mass text correctly.) At the time I couldn't remember clearly what had led off this section, so I asked Father Klukas later whether this was modelled on the Amidah (the prayer set that includes Kedusha), or if that part was just a noticable borrowing. He said the latter. It's times like this when it would be really handy to have a copy of the generic Catholic or Episcopalian text to refer to.
I also got an answer to a minor question: the bells that get rung twice during that service are there to get the attention of people who are either lost in prayer or just not paying attention. This apparently isn't much of an issue now, but was when masses went on for much longer and in Latin. The two points are at "this is my body" and "this is my blood"; I wonder if that is the point where they are actually consecrated (and, if you believe in transubstantian, are altered). I guess it makes sense that you would want people to witness that rather than being lost in their own thoughts at the time.
The wedding itself started off with an exchange of gifts and each of them having to satisfy witnesses that they were suitable partners. It was schtick, but fairly well done. They said this was based on medieval (or renaissance?) Polish customs. This then led to a fairly normal wedding (with the traditional vows except for "obey"). There was a very short mass done for the benefit of the couple only -- that is, the couple got communion but no one else did, and it took about 10 minutes. Apparently this, too, is in keeping with whatever they were modelling the ceremony on. Aside from some verbal responses in which I did not participate, there was no congregational involvement. (Not like Isabella's funeral a few years back where I got broad-sided by the "let's all take hands and sing to Jesus" thing that made me bolt from the room. That was embarrassing; fortunately, the family concluded that I was overcome with grief and didn't bother me about it.)
The priest was Father Klukas (Robert's priest), who is a very cool person. He has a tasteful sense of humor that he applied during the wedding. (Rabbi Gibson is the only other person I've heard pull that sort of thing off during services.) Father Klukas has a degree in medieval history (or maybe medieval liturature, I forget now) and is very friendly with the SCA. A couple of times when we've had events at his church, he has done a historical mass (strictly optional attendance) as part of the re-creation. Pretty neat. (He preceeded them with short lectures about the liturgy of the particular period he was doing, and produced good handouts. In other words, he was definitely in teacher mode more than priest mode, though of course he was doing real masses.)
The modern Episcopalian (sp?) mass is very similar to what I remember of the Roman Catholic mass. There are extra words at the end of the "our father" prayer (I think Protestants do those too), and I think there were some minor wording differences elsewhere (less significant). I couldn't see whether communion included wine.
I find that masses can be interesting from a liturgical-anthropological point of view, when I am comfortable being present. (I was today.) We all know that Christian liturgy was derived originally from Jewish liturgy; it's interesting (to me) to see what they kept, what they changed, and what they discarded. At one point today I remember thinking "hey, that's the Kedusha"; it was very close to the text we say, until it veered off to talk about the trinity. (Christians will know this as the "holy holy holy, all the earth is filled with God's glory" part, if I'm remembering the mass text correctly.) At the time I couldn't remember clearly what had led off this section, so I asked Father Klukas later whether this was modelled on the Amidah (the prayer set that includes Kedusha), or if that part was just a noticable borrowing. He said the latter. It's times like this when it would be really handy to have a copy of the generic Catholic or Episcopalian text to refer to.
I also got an answer to a minor question: the bells that get rung twice during that service are there to get the attention of people who are either lost in prayer or just not paying attention. This apparently isn't much of an issue now, but was when masses went on for much longer and in Latin. The two points are at "this is my body" and "this is my blood"; I wonder if that is the point where they are actually consecrated (and, if you believe in transubstantian, are altered). I guess it makes sense that you would want people to witness that rather than being lost in their own thoughts at the time.