The choir for St. Anne parish in San Diego has been asked to sing a solemn high Mass on Friday, December 8 for the 100th anniversary of its neighbor, Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, run by Jesuit priests.

St. Anne, staffed by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) since 2008, features five Sunday Masses and two daily Masses in the Extraordinary Form (Latin). The choir is led in chant and polyphony by Mary Ann Carr-Wilson. Wilson, sent by the parish to Solesmes (France) to further her knowledge of chant, has been called on by Archbishop Cordileone to teach chant and polyphony to San Francisco seminarians.

The two parishes are neighbors in the Logan Heights area of San Diego. From St. Anne’s, on Sicard and Irving,  you can hear reveille and taps from 32nd Street Naval base and crowing from neighborhood roosters. A mile north, 100 feet from Interstate 5 across Kearney Avenue at Our Lady of Guadalupe, you have to strain to hear the nearby roosters. Five Sunday Masses and two daily Masses in Spanish. One on Sunday in English, one bi-lingual.

According to announcements at St. Anne, the pastor at Guadalupe, Father John Arthur, S.J., asked Father Gismondi, FSSP to have the St. Anne choir sing at the December 8 Mass. Choir director Wilson is used to choosing traditional Spanish hymns for the St. Anne’s 12:30 Mass, where the homilies and some hymns are in Spanish. But as of November 20, all she was sure of was that they would sing “Immaculate Mary” in English for the 100th anniversary Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The 6:30 p.m. Mass on December 8 will be followed by pan dulce and hot chocolate.