Sunday at Carmel

Back to Carmel for early Mass on Sunday morning, now Spring is here and daylight saving makes 7:30 am a more attractive time of day...

It was good to settle back into the way of things, and chant the simple syllabic Gloria in excelsis of Mass XV, plus the Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Our Lady's Mass, Mass IX, Cum jubilo.  (It had never struck me before, but is it the nuns' ardent Marian piety that moves them to choose and sing those chants?)

The priest even chose to use the Roman Canon, so all was well.  (It is always consoling, once the sermon is done, to realize the celebrant is devout and no friend of strange innovations or rubrical anomalies: then one can settle down to pray without having to endure banalities and worse.)

A stray thought that may turn out to be from the Summa Triviæ: Why is there a sermon at Mass? To remind us "that through many tribulations we must reach the kingdom of God" (Acts xiv, 22).