Post Lent/Holy Week Blues Remedies
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Does anyone else crash after the huge push? Remedies?
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Well, I wound up with pneumonia this year, so I obviously need this post, too. Thanks, Francis.
    Feeling much better now, btw.

    As far as remedies...
    Let's just say I've come to appreciate the tradition of Low Sunday, with Low Mass and all. :)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    I suffered some kinda weird exhaustion two years in a row now. It's the adrenelene rush for a solid two weeks prior to the vigil that kills me.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    It could be post-paschal depression, I guess.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    not... done... yet...
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Kathy, why is it I can totally see you saying that with pink energizer bunny ears on your head?
    When you finally do take a break, please come to SD?!? :)
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I haven't found the time to crash yet. Junior recital, grading, jury accompanying, funerals...
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    I feel the same way...

    Attendance at rehearsals start to slip after Easter, despite the fact that there's important days coming (Ascension, Pentecost, Trintiy, Corpus et Sanguine Christi, etc) because of the nice weather and vacations. No matter how much you plan, you know there's going to be "important" voices missing that day (unless they're paid.. and even then......).

    It's a total downer.

    On top of that, wedding season is depressing for entirely different reasons.
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,021
    I'm just now slowing down some, although not strictly from Liturgy.

    I had a bad sinus infection going into Palm Sunday. That meant having to skip chanting a couple of the most beautiful chants in the book - Introit and Communion. I couldn't get a note out! I had scheduled familiar hymns, and I didn't even try to sing along with them.

    We rang bells during the Gloria on Holy Thursday and Saturday, and I had my voice back for the three Parish Hall English Masses Easter morning, and the Latin Mass at 5:30.

    Easter week I got back down to final stages of planning for our National Catholic Radiothon (14-16 April) - lots of work preparing stations and scheduling guests that included bishops and priests from all around the country. (Many of these were simply not available during Holy Week.)

    By Easter Thursday evening, it became apparent that we were having visiting bell ringers - from all around the US, a few from Canada, and even some from the UK. They were here to ring bells as a group - the oldest ringing society in the world, the Ancient Society of College Youths. But they also attended regular ringing practices, and scheduled extra practices for us locals who are really keen on learning more ringing skills. I rang every chance I could get, every day/evening from Wednesday through Sunday. Then we had three young ones make their First Holy Communion during the Low Sunday Latin Mass - with covered dish dinner following.

    Then came Radiothon week - five 12-hour days! Thursday and Friday included the Blue Angels practicing for a couple of hours each afternoon for the weekend shows - flying right over my office. I watched both the Saturday and Sunday shows from up in the steeple of one of the downtown churches.

    Now things are finally quieting down some.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    MA, if Kathy escapes to SD, let us know....I could use a homemade tortilla badly.
    Teaching in our parish school (and prior to that, in the public schools,) you get Easter Monday off, then you're back at it. The really, really nice thing for me is that my beloved choristers have been with me for, in most cases, a decade to 17 years. So, we don't rehearse for two weeks. They can sight sing Richard's propers Sunday morning, and sing various motets or anthems (from Sicut to Cantique de JR to...) with a simple vowel run-thru before Mass, and nail it at service.
    I did catch one heckuva cold this last week, but as George Harrison penned, "Life moves on, within you or without you."

    Kathy, I haven't heard back from you on email; are you conducting the solemn pontifical Mass?

    Oh, and Francis, remedies? I refer you to JT's excellent piece at INSIDE CATHOLIC. Party hearty, Marty!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Well, all of Jackson defects to some other land for the 'spring break' and it becomes a ghost town here. On top of that the pastor, deacons and active members (about 40 in all) all flew to Rome the day after Easter and are now stuck there. So I feel like I am in the twilight zone.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    The nice thing about having built up repertoire over many years, is that the choir knows some things so well, you can pull it all off with a Sunday AM rehearsal. I have a two-part arr. of Now the green blade rises, that I always use the Sunday after Easter, altho' this year since it was investiture of our new Rector, I saved it for this past week and a couple of two-part Communion anthems, familiar Easter hymns, Regina Caeli and you've got it.
    Donna
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    MA and Charles, let's make a playdate for the weekend of June 11-13th, when I'll be in SD for my mom's bday bash.

    Charles, my parish's Youth Classical Schola is joining with several other area children's scholae to provide prelude music during the procession for the Pontifical Mass. It's a great honor--a ton of work, a joy, a pleasure.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    After I play the never-rebuilt 60-year-old Schantz console for all the Holy Week and Easter masses, my whole body generally hurts to some degree or another. Although I did get through it better this year than most. However, I am two years older than the Schantz! The school schedules a week off after Easter, so that really helps me recover. I am looking forward to Pentecost. After that, school is out for the summer, the choir goes to one rehearsal per month, and a leisurely pace sets in for everything. Summer is wonderful.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Kathy, super weekend for me. Please thank your Mum for having a birthday.

    We have to have Wendy in the mix, Charles.
    Will email you both and get planning. :). Woo hoo
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Wendy's B-Day is 6/14. Looking good.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    yes, the post-pascha blues! Isn't it strange to only see your church friends once a week now? I'm sure you're all tired from managing music programs during holy week, but still. Whenever I see people at church I'm like, "whoa, I haven't seen you in forever!!"
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    What is so rare as a day in June? Then if ever come perfect days.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Kathy

    sounds like you are writing poetry
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Haha, I wish! Quoting. Like this, from Henry Vaughan, for all of us grumpies:

    EASTER-DAY.

    Thou, whose sad heart, and weeping head lies low,
    Whose cloudy breast cold damps invade,
    Who never feel'st the sun, nor smooth'st thy brow,
    But sitt'st oppressed in the shade,

    Awake ! awake !
    And in His resurrection partake.
    Who on this day — that thou might'st rise as He —
    Rose up, and cancell'd two deaths due to thee.

    Awake ! awake ! and, like the sun, disperse
    All mists that would usurp this day ;
    Where are thy palms, thy branches, and thy verse ?
    Hosanna ! hark ! why dost thou stay ?

    Arise ! arise !
    And with His healing blood anoint thine eyes,
    Thy inward eyes ; His blood will cure thy mind,
    Whose spittle only could restore the blind.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Good poetry remedy indeed, Kathy.
    For all my faults I am rich in friends. :)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Thank you Kathy

    perfect remedy
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    Post-Paschal depression may account for the name Low Sunday for the first Sunday after Easter. But the new rite has changed that a bit, since the octave of Easter now includes the singing of the sequence Victimae Paschale laudes and of Its missa est, alleluia, alleluia, signs that this is a particularly festive day.

    I sometimes give my choir the first week's rehearsal off, but then embark upon some ambitious project just to keep the attention and focus. I learned many years ago that after the intense activity of the Spring Quarter at the university, I was subject to a terrible let-down afterwards, and that the remedy was to have an engrossing project ready to undertake immediately after the quarter ended. That has always worked well.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    My good Dr.

    An excellent prescription! I will definitely remember that one. We had schola rehearsal this morning and that is definitely a lifting experience.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Kathy, at first I thought I was reading this poem instead of the one you cite:

    AWake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
    Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
    Unfold thy forehead gather’d into frowns:
    Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:
    Awake, awake;
    And with a thankfull heart his comforts take.
    But thou dost still lament, and pine, and crie;
    And feel his death, but not his victorie.

    Arise sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
    Christs resurrection thine may be:
    Do not by hanging down break from the hand,
    Which as it riseth, raiseth thee:
    Arise, Arise;
    And with his buriall-linen drie thine eyes:
    Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
    Draws tears, or bloud, not want an handkerchief.

    (The Dawning, by George Herbert, 1633)

    I love this poem. Especially when i am depressed or grieving a loss.
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