Church Review: St. Peter

Part 1 of the adventures of Sunday the 12th, backdated from Friday

St. Peter
313 2nd St., SE 
Website

The church on St. Peter on Capitol Hill is quite literally on the hill - it is across the street from one of the annexes of the Library of Congress, which is in turn across from the Capitol itself.  It is also a block and a half from Capitol South Metro, so getting here is no problem at all - I could probably walk it if I wanted to, but I came down to Capitol South after running some errands in Columbia Heights and intended to run more errands before Mass, so I didn't feel up to walking.  Still, this is one of not too many Catholic churches south of the Mall, and the third closest to me (give it a 4).  The other two are St. Dominic, which I've been to numerous times now, and St. Vincent de Paul, which only has one Mass in English, at 8:00am (blurgh); the other, at 10:30, is in Ge'ez, which even I'm not adventurous enough to attend.  What's Ge'ez, you ask?  I didn't know either, until I looked it up.  Turns out it's an ancient Semitic language which was once the official tongue of the Kingdom of Axum and the Imperial Court of Ethiopia; nowadays it's used just about exclusively as the religious language for Ethiopian Orthodox and, in St. Vincent de Paul's case, Ethiopian rite Catholics.  Washington has the nation's largest Ethiopian diaspora, remember, and great food to match; those which are Ethiopian rite Catholic (rather than Roman rite) must go to Mass somewhere.

Howevah, this review is not about a Ge'ez Mass on Sunday morning at St. Vincent de Paul, but an English Mass on Sunday evening at St. Peter.  The church was recommended to me by some friends of K&R (through K&R, since I haven't met these friends, although really I should), who reportedly say that it's quite tolerant.  I was afraid that tolerant meant, as it so often does, hippy and inclined to sloppy modern music, which is why I've put off going for so long (and they do have a folky Mass on Sunday mornings), but it seems silly to look farther and farther afield for new churches to visit when this one is so close.  So I arranged to do some shopping here (more on that in future posts) and then end up at the 5:30 Mass.  I have loved Sunday night Masses ever since I got in the habit of attending the 8:00pm at the cathedral in Freiburg when I studied abroad in Germany, and thought that if I could find something even half as lovely, I'd be set.

The most striking thing about the outside of St. Peter, which I realized as I came upon it after exiting the Metro into a cold rain, is how tall it feels.  There are two reasons for this - the most prominent, of course, is the tower which, as I discovered over the course of the afternoon, can be seen from several blocks away on many sides.  It's also reminiscent in more ways than one of a lighthouse, which is quite fitting for a church, I think.

Second, and less noticeable in a photo than it is in person, is how high up the main church is from the street.  Look at the front steps in the photo up top (sorry about this one - it has the full tower, but also raindrops, apparently).  It's a good five feet vertical difference between the street and where you enter the church.  This has an interesting effect - rather than just stepping into the church from street level, or climbing up a couple of steps, you have to ascend as staircase, a bit like climbing a mountain in terms of symbols.  Other churches have had this (St. Patrick, Sagrado Corazon, and the Cathedral, to name the most prominent), but because St. Peter feels so vertical already, I think the effect is heightened.

Once you step inside and past the swinging wooden doors, you find yourself face to face with something Palladio would find quite pleasant.  I have very few photos because when I entered the priest was saying Vespers (!), and by the time Mass ended I was too hungry to stick around (I was also damp from the afternoon's adventures and wanted nothing more than to go home and eat the pork and potatoes waiting for me in the refrigerator), but I intend to return to take more.  Please forgive my rather poor specimens this time around.

The church does not feel modernized - intentionally, like St. Stephen, or tragically, like St. Dominic - but neither does it feel so old, like St. Mary Mother of God, that the very walls resent the use of the vernacular.  It's very much like St. Patrick, but less grandiose (recall the size of the apse there vs. the size of the apse here).  The coloring, as you can see, is very tastefully done - cream walls with tan accents, lots of light, and a bit of colored marble and gold, but sparingly used.  There are rounded arches everywhere, but the setting off of those arches with clean straight lines (look up at the top of the apse, and the lines that run backward to the choir loft) given a feeling of airiness and clearness that I thought was refreshing.  I felt like the modernist folds of St. Stephen were trapping - this, on the other hand, felt fresh and open.  Ah, Palladio (who?) - and Brunelleschi too, come to think of it (see).

The rear of the church is also quite nice - the choir loft is one of the prettiest I've seen in this country.  Feels like it ought to be in London somewhere.

Aesthetics, a 5.  I seem to be handing those out quite a bit lately.

The liturgy itself would qualify for run of the mill.  It was a forgettable sermon, and nothing particularly interesting in the rite except that the servers -both girls, which is great - wore the old surplices, though without any patterns, rather than the typical white albs.  But I probably would have thought things pretty average had I not come in early and stumbled upon the second half of Vespers.  There was the priest, standing with the cantor, chanting Vespers, in an elaborate gold cope.   I thought - mistakenly, it would appear - that American Catholics had given up on Vespers and left it to the rich Episcopalians who could afford to hire an organist on weekday afternoons.  Turns out St. Peter has made do without the organist, and substituted in a talented pianist (!) instead.  During the Mass he did some modern but classical-feeling settings of "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel," and I was pleased to see that the hymnal had some older hymns in it.  4s for both Liturgy (since I'm feeling generous, and since this was the best attended Sunday evening Mass I've ever seen in this country, complete with quite a few young adults) and Music.

This means that St. Peter averages 4.25 (4+5+4+4=17/4=4.25), pretty good.  I'd be interested in attending another of the Masses, though I'd be willing to make a Sunday evening Mass my tradition, just as I did in Germany.  And, you know, I have to go back so I can get some better pictures!