We had the opportunity to attend Mass at San Fortunato yesterday, which was quite a funny event somehow. To begin with, Jeremy had to go to the Duomo to retrieve his alb in order to serve. When we showed up with James about 5 minutes before the Mass, our lovely deacon (whose name we still don't know) said quite happily that James could serve. Chuffed, James went into the vestry and came out with a rather long alb that the deacon had tied up using an enormous tassel around his waist. So handsome!
The girls and I got to sit in the choir stalls. These were constructed in the 15th century, maybe? Eleanor can't quite remember -- in any case, we're talking old. Beautifully carved dark wood, and rather uncomfortable seats. They certainly promoted good posture! As it turned out, we were the choir: only one other person showed up besides the organist. When the organ started, the organist was wriggling on her stool in a most unaccountable way. I finally looked over in an agony of curiosity; it turned out to be a pedal organ -- she had to keep pumping the bellows!
As the priest and his three altar servers processed in with the deacon (to organ music but no singing, as we could never figure out where to come in -- the choir books have words only, meaning no music to catch onto!), I had to look again after figuratively rubbing my eyes: the third server was in jeans and a T-shirt! I guess they didn't have an alb that would fit him...
Little notes that occurred to me: there were holes in the wall that looked remarkably like pigeon roosts. Were these available in case besieged people had to take refuge in the church? Florence thought they might have been intended for beams, but I'm not convinced. On the other hand, I'm not sure about holy pigeons, either. There are marble (don't know the correct word -- urns?) thingamajigs at the entry way that hold holy water; as you enter the church, you dip your fingers & then make the sign of the cross on yourself. In any case, what was touching about these was that the corners where people would normally dip their fingers were all worn down -- more on the side near the central aisle than the others. This erosion represents centuries of the faithful whom we were joining in our celebration -- very neat.
Love,
Alexandra
I saw that too in a Spanish-built church on Cebu in the Philippines. Like the holy water fonts at San Fortunato, the feet of the statues were worn down. The Catholics there place a hand on the feet of the saints as they offer a prayer. Those statues were on pedestals about as tall as the people so they had to reach up to touch those feet. Their church, however, was a little less than 300 years old.
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Happy Birthday, Ashley! I can't wait to hear about your special day and how you celebrated it with family and friends in Todi.
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Glad you had a good Mass experience, but a little sad that you were the only ones there, in a Catholic country. Happy Birthday, Ashley!
ReplyDeleteWhoops! That wasn't clear; sorry about that! No, the church was actually reasonably full. It was just that -- being August, with everyone gone -- we were the only choir members other than the one I mentioned!
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