Sunday, June 10, 2012
I got up early this morning (not quite early enough, as it turned out) to go to a mass at the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn (or Tyn Church for short). After seeing the outside and hearing their choir rehearsing, not to mention finding out that Tycho Brahe is buried there (with or without his pet moose), I was determined to go to at least one mass there while in Prague.
The inside is just as beautiful, if you can believe that, though it's somewhat less understated than the outside. I don't think I've ever seen so much gilt in a single building.
I remembered the opening time wrong, so I ended up getting there after the gates were shut, but they still let visitors stand in the narthex and watch the mass from there. I did get there in time for the last reading; it was in Czech, of course, so I could only understand a word here and there. The same was true for the following prayers, though I'm familiar enough with the Catholic mass that I could usually identify the prayer by its length, cadence, and position in the mass.
Unlike the Catholic churches I've been to in the US, they seemed to actually sing all the verses of the hymns. I didn't recognize either of the ones I heard, but they were beautiful. I hummed along with the bass parts anyway.
After a somewhat less exciting trip to the laundromat, I took the Metro back to the Institute, where I wrote and drew comics all day. It was a good afternoon.
