Innovation

During Eastertide, the Paschal Candle, carried into the church in the darkness of Easter morning (at least at Swanvale Halt) to represent the light of the risen Christ, stands by the main altar for every Sunday mass. Then, after Ascension Day, it moves down to the font where it remains for the days leading up to Pentecost, being extinguished and put away after that apart from baptisms and funerals. 

It was at Lamford that we felt there was something of a missed opportunity in the Candle's unremarked passage from the front of the church to the back, and at the end of the Ascension Day mass one year I and Il Rettore solemnly carried it and its stand to the font where it would remain for the next few days. Then it occurred to me that that little motion needed something to cover it, and so decided to chant a few lines from Psalm 47:

God is gone up with a shout of triumph,
the Lord with the blast of the trumpet:
sing praises to the Lord, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises. 

At Lamford the choir sang Gerald Finzi's anthem God is Gone Up to splendid effect, and I admit to pinching the first few notes of my little chant from that rather more extensive piece. This doesn't happen at any other church, so far as I know, but that's how liturgy changes - a lack is felt and something bodged together to meet it.

We are rather concerned about our Paschal Candle this year, which is burning down rather rapidly. I ended the Ascension Day mass with my hands spattered in green wax from the disappearing motif on the Candle, and I suspect the particular well-known church supplier we got it from will not get our custom in 2017.