Fall 2007 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra
Bulletin Board: Annual Angels
Annual Angels
By Joan Morris McNally ’44
Early December (usually the first Sunday) is the time annual angels come into our valley to sing us into the holiday season.
Since they are modern, down-to-earth angels, I know exactly when they will come, and where they come from: various schools and colleges in this area. So, along with others, I wait in a line outside my own particular college chapel, ready to rush in (where my angels do not fear to tread) when the doors open.
The pale, polished-wood pews receive us, and I slide into the first available one, bulky-down coat scrunched between others. Excitement builds, even as the sound decibel builds to the vaulted ceiling, as seat-searchers crowd their way into already crowded pews, and first-on-line, quick-moving seat-savers stand in the aisles waving their lagging friends to lucky finds.
Smiling, I arrange myself for the coming of angels. There is time for me to admire the Advent wreath hanging at the front of the chapel, and the bright poinsettias a-top each side pillar, as I listen to waves of the organ prelude rolling out over us all. An unseen English hand-bell choir from high up somewhere (heaven?) further sets the mood, and when the chapel lights gradually dim into utter darkness, the chapel’s bustle is silenced as suddenly as if it, too, is on a switch. The time is at hand. I am ready for angels.
Just so, they come, two by two, each carrying a lighted candle against the dark, singing a cappella a Latin plainsong whose echoes reach to the ceiling above, curve in on us from the walls, surround us. We are inundated with angels in quiet black skirts and innocent white blouses, their heels clacking in the marble aisle as they move forward toward the chancel, music held in one hand, lighted candle in the other. Each small stab of light etches a profile—eyes cast on music, mouth forming notes—and reveals a range of ethnic beauty that enriches the blending of voices and hearts on this musical occasion ,and other occasions beyond it.
This glow is light enough for these angels-for-an-hour who have walked that aisle before, and who know their music well. For me, now watcher in the dark, once-walker in that same aisle with similar music in hand and young voice raised, the candlelight gives a sweet, old-world quality to these strong new-world women for the length of that Processional. “Hodie Christus natus est,” they start, as if one, those seventy-some voices, and at the final Amen, are all in place in rows facing the audience when the chapel lights come up.
And the angels sing then, and again, and more, the splendid and often little-heard Christmas music from around the world and from years past, with the great precision and beauty of well-trained fine-honed togetherness. The Swedish “Gaudete” (Rejoice!), the Norwegian “Stralande jul” (radiant Christmas), the French “Le Divin Infant”, and others, and the young voices find a high and mighty crescendo in “Wolcum Yole!” In between, we in the audience join the angels in singing more traditional carols, including at concert’s end, the Recessional, “Joy to the World.”
Unlike some angels, who never get quite the recognition they deserve, these, after a less measured march back down the chapel aisle on their way to their own real world again, get a standing ovation from those of us in the pews—many still so moved that we remain unmoving. When I finally do reach the vestibule, I literally bump into a few lingering angels, and hasten to compliment a clutch of them on their performance.
“Thanks, thanks,” they chorus as we start out the door. Over her shoulder one calls out, “Have yourself great holidays!”—plain-speak indeed after all the recent uplifting, but appropriate for where we are at the moment. Angels and ex-angel no longer, we go down the chapel steps and out into the cold, rainy, blustery evening together.
