There’s a new schedule out for services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church — instead of Vespers and Benediction on Wednesday nights at 6:00 pm, now there’s Vespers at 5:30 pm and a Latin Mass at 6:00 pm. I’m not needed to play Vespers since it’s all sung unaccompanied, but last night was my first time to attend and/or play a Latin Mass… ever!

Luckily I found the service easy to follow because there was a side-by-side translation of everything in the service leaflet. The whole service was in Latin except for two lessons in English and the hymns. Last night’s service was in commemoration of three Chinese women saints: Agnes Tsao Kou Ying, Agatha Lin Zhao, and Lucy Yi Zhenmai, three Roman Catholic nineteenth-century martyrs. They were all canonized by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000.

Agnes Tsao Kou Ying (1821 – 1 March 1856 was a Chinese layperson who was martyred for preaching the Gospel to the Chinese in Guangxi. Agatha Lin Zhao also was born into a Catholic family, in 1817. She became a school teacher in Mao-ken, Langdai, Guizhou, but was arrested for her faith. She refused to renounce Christianity and was beheaded on Jan. 28, 1858. Lucy Yi Zhenmei (December 9, 1815 – February 19, 1862) was a Chinese Roman Catholic saint from Mianyang in Sichuan.

I was interested to hear Father Paul Lillie use “ecclesiastical” or “church Latin” when speaking the texts. That’s the same pronunciation choirs use when singing Latin — as though speaking or singing in Italian. It’s the way I’ve learned Latin ever since college. The Google AI answer to this question is:

To pronounce “Church Latin” (also called Ecclesiastical Latin), generally follow Italian pronunciation rules: “c” before “e, i, ae, oe” sounds like “ch” in “charm,” “a” is like “a” in “father,” “e” like “e” in “egg,” “i” like “ee” in “see,” “o” like “o” in “tone,” and “u” like “oo” in “boot”; most stress falls on the penultimate syllable of a word; “g” is usually soft like in “gem” before “e, i, ae, oe” and hard like in “go” before “a, o, u.”. 

So it was quite interesting to hear the names of the three Chinese saints pronounced as though they were Italian!

My part in the Latin Mass was playing two hymns, giving pitches to the cantor (Yuko Nakagawa), accompanying the Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, playing during the distribution of Communion and ending with a postlude. I had one small boo boo — when I turned the page after playing the first part of the Sanctus, the top part of the next page was cut off, leaving me only with a bass line for the Benedictus! I had obviously not memorized the melody, so I was in trouble!

YIKES!

I Googled “Latin Mass” and got a list of churches (on Yelp, no less!) that are deemed “Best Latin Mass in Honolulu,” including:

1. Blessed Sacrament Church
2. St. Peter & Paul Church
3. Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace
4. St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church
5. St. Ann’s Church

St. Mark’s hasn’t made the “Best” list . . . yet! But I dare say we have priest who has the most beautiful voice for chanting, Fr. Paul Lillie! (Did you know that he used to be a paid section leader in a choir?) At one point when I gave him the starting pitch for the Dominus vobiscum … it made him sing at the very top of his register, so I told him next week I’ll let him find his own pitch. Yet even when singing in the stratosphere, the sound was lovely. I daresay most priests couldn’t do this!

Yay, Father Paul!

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the repositioning of the organ speakers at St. Mark’s. Here’s how Fr. Paul described the move in his letter to the congregation:

On Sunday if you thought the organ had a greater presence within the church, your senses were correct. Last week the organ speakers in the choir loft were repositioned. Years ago when the electronic Walker organ was installed, the majority of speakers were placed along the southern wall, where they were completely hidden by the defunct pipe organ. When the pipe organ was removed during the pandemic, the organ console was placed where the old pipe organ was positioned. The positive effect of this move was that the growing choir had additional room in the loft. The negative result was that the speakers were directly behind the organist. Thus, the organ often seemed too loud to the organist, and yet too soft for the congregation.

The good news is that with some creative repositioning of the speakers, the problem has been resolved, and even more wonderful, the speakers have been placed to better support the singing of the congregation. I noticed an immediate difference in how the organ sounds throughout the church. I am also happy that our organist will no longer have the speakers blaring right behind her. Our organist, Kathy Crosier, mentioned in her online blog that it was as if she was playing an entirely new instrument.

By the way, I recently found a photo I had taken of the historic Henry Willis organ (yes, from England!) at St. Mark’s to which Fr. Paul alluded above. Here’s what it looked like:

Although the organ dated from the turn of the 20th century, it was not installed in St. Mark’s until 1956 and had only 9 ranks. No idea where it spent the first fifty years of its life. For further information, check out the Pipe Organ Database of the Organ Historical Society. I did play it a few times and have to admit it was “clunky” with the key action making a lot of clackety-clack noise.