Ship of Fools: St Michael & All Angels, Exeter, England
The Mystery Worshipper
Shipmate
Ship of Fools: St Michael & All Angels, Exeter, England
Very high worship service, plenty of incense, but no spirit or joy
Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here
Comments
As to the Report itself, I think it just goes to show how a person's view of a service might be coloured by their own preferences. An Easter Sunday High Mass in a full-on Anglo-Catholic church like this would be somewhat lacking if there weren't clouds of incense, and the ringing of bells (presumably at the Consecration).
A choir (duly praised), and a half-full church, might well have resulted in the hearty singing of traditional Easter hymns, but probably without the *ahem* spontaneous gestures to which the Reporter may be accustomed!
BTW, a half-full church (how many? 80? 100?) would not be a bad attendance if there had also been a well-attended Easter Vigil Mass the evening before (or much earlier that same morning).
Not at all. However, someone more accustomed to spontaneous informality in worship might interpret traditional catholic formality and restraint as a lack of joy. Reading between the lines I suspect that the MW was unfamiliar with that tradition.
There are churches where everything is done 'by the book' but you can sense the joy and commitment of the congregation; there are others, apparently of the same tradition, where the liturgy is performed flawlessly but mechanically. And there are those where everything goes 'wrong' because people are enjoying the worship too much to worry about details, and there are those where they just don't care.
I haven’t worshipped at this church for more than a couple of decades now and it was not my home church but I would say, peering back through the sepia, that it was never a coldly formal place and the congregation couldn’t have been warmer or friendlier. It’s a fair, decent size too so, although I have only ever seen it packed to the rafters for a patronal festival, I would imagine that half full before the days of social distancing could easily be 100, if not more.
Finally, the thurifer is a good and old friend of mine and, if I know him, incense will have been copious indeed!
Mind you, the term *high worship service* to describe what I guess the church would call Solemn or High Mass, is perhaps a Clue...
The question of how much incense should be used is rather subjective, and has been discussed on these boards in the past, but I doubt if it was used other than in the Western tradition's customary places in the liturgy - again, this would doubtless seem excessive to one not used to Holy Smoke, especially if the church has a particularly enthusiastic thurifer!