Sherry Hour

This morning we attended St. Michael and All Angels Church in Observatory, a neighborhood in between where we are staying now and the downtown.  The service that Sonia and Humphrey normally attend is a high mass (Anglo-Catholic) with lots of sung liturgy, but today there was unfortunately no organist, so it was a sort of high mass without music (unless that's an oxymoron...).  Liturgy that is based around Scripture, as this one was, has a beautifully unifying effect – regardless of any number of denominational, cultural, or demographic differences, we are all speaking and praying God's Word together. 

 

Inside the church were two amazing stained glass windows.  The creator of both is named Gabriel Loire, a 20^th-century French artist whose windows are quite modern – rather than the typical church window with details painted onto larger pieces of glass, these windows were made of many smaller pieces that formed a subtle picture without painting.  The effect was similar to an impressionist painting.  It took a few minutes of looking at a scene before the story emerged, and the details seemed to pop out one by one.  Andrew especially enjoyed studying Loire's technique.

 

Here are some pictures, first of the window showing St. Michael slaying the dragon (can you see the spurting blood?  Can they do that in church?) and the angels worshiping Jesus, and then of the window portraying Psalm 150, praising the Lord with all kinds of music.

 

After the service, during what our home churches might call “Coffee Hour”, members of the parish served not only coffee, but sherry!  We wonder how to get churches in the States to adopt this practice of “Sherry Hour”.