Two very busy weeks. (Part 3)

This is part three of a super-long post.  You now might be wondering, "Well, if you were going to break it up into so many posts, why not just make them individual posts to begin with?"  A good question.  The answer is merely that I wrote it all before questioning how long it might be and whether it should be divided, but since I tied paragraphs together throughout, I did not want to go back through to separate them.

You can find previous parts by clicking these elegant and finely-crafted links.  Part one.  Part two.

Wednesday, 5 June
The moment which I have been waiting for since May!  The priest retreat at St. Francis de Sales Oratory being in progress, today I was given the chance to come and serve for it.  I arrived early, around 7:40, in order to make myself available for whichever priest might need me.  I was hoping to serve on one of the altars I had built, but instead they needed me in the church, where the Superiors were saying Mass.  After verifying some rubrics with the sacristan, I stood by waiting for my chance, trustingly watching as the 8:00 Mass priest came and went, and soon enough Canon Matthew Talarico came to say his Mass.  After vesting him, we departed for the Infant King altar at 8:11:47.  During Mass three more priests came out, so we had five simultaneous Masses.  It was my first time serving in this context, and it was a challenge, not only practically because Canon was whispering all of the prayers, making it nearly impossible to discern the end of the prayers and respond, but also spiritually because it entailed ignoring the other Masses besides me, even when they were at the Consecration.  But being a faithful altar server, I did my best!

One rubric I have always found interesting is in the Ritus Servandus, article II, where it outlines what to do when processing through another Mass.  It says to stop and kneel only at the Consecration, and during distribution of Holy Communion -- very precise points, and unlikely to happen.  So at the end of Mass as we processed back, passing through two Masses, I was hopeful, but not surprised when it did not happen.  However, after helping Canon divest, going back to the Infant King altar to extinguish the candles, I could not help but notice that the Mass at the Mary altar was right at the Agnus Dei.  "Perfect!" I thought.  So I went to extinguish the candles, and made it back just in time to be passing by at distribution of Holy Communion, necessitating me to stop and kneel.  (Yes, liturgical nerds get their excitement in very strange ways!)

All being said and done there were 17 Masses that morning and an 18th at noon.  Afterwards the sacristan brought me over to see the altars we had built fully dressed for Mass, and then I was off to a busy day of school.

Friday, 7 June
Some days things are interesting purely because of how wrongly they go.  This morning being one of those days.  Friday mornings always find me at St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church for their 7:30 Mass, since I am the only morning altar server the parish has.  (In other words, if I do not show up, chaos ensues as people scramble to round up elderly women from the pews to serve in my stead.)

This morning I arrived earlier than usual, and similar to the previous Saturday, it is a good thing that I did. (Or perhaps my showing up early is what makes things go awry?  Hmm.)  Being the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Ordo prescribes two readings at Mass.  However, the sacristan had merely set the lectionary for the generic Friday.  So as I lit the candles, the lector approached me to question (rightly) the readings to which it was set, and asked me to help find the proper ones.  After digging through both the weekday and Sunday lectionaries for a few minutes to no avail, I translated myself to the sacristy in order to consult the Ordo for the exact reading numbers.  Enter Father, who sets it for me (albeit himself having to sift through the plethora of optional, votive readings to find the prescribed ones), and also decides we should erect a painting of the Sacred Heart in the sanctuary.  So heading back into the church, I pass the lectionary off to the lector and then proceed to erect the painting.  However, then the lector approaches me again, still confused.  To my dismay, with less than a minute before Mass was to begin, I found that she had removed all of the ribbons!  Being the very observant server that I am, I quickly scanned and found the proper readings by matching paragraph arrangements to what I recalled from my memory, then verified by checking the verse numbers against my memory as well.

That's enough for one Mass, right?  Nope.  Fast forward to the General Intercessions.  The parish's standard practice for daily Mass is for the server to do a head count during the sermon and then make sure that many pieces of altar bread are in the paten (N.b. this is a large paten which is more like a bowl than a plate) during the Intercessions.  However, for some reason the sacristan had put dozens of extra pieces of altar bread into the paten, presenting me with the problem of what to do with them, or even how to accurately count them.  Normally we store extras in a specific container, but there were too many and in the end a pile of them slid off and onto the floor, and some also back went into the paten, ruining my count.  Being now at the end of the Intercessions and out of time, I quickly made my best "guess" at the proper amount to be in the paten, and, for lack of a better place to put them, gathered the altar bread which had fallen to the floor and wrapped it in an extra purificator, leaving it on the credence table to be dealt with after Mass.

All sounds well, right?  Since no one would know that except me, no issue, right?  Well, it ends up that the amount of altar bread in the paten was the perfect amount for Father not only for Mass, but for his First Friday sick calls.  So after distribution of Holy Communion, he leaves the extra consecrated Hosts on the credence table, on the paten and covered with the corporal.  So suddenly we have three piles of "hosts" sitting there: one consecrated, one unconsecrated in the container and one unconsecrated in the purificator, and only one person (me) being aware of this potential disaster.  So, Mass ending, I immediately jumped up with the double purpose of absconding with the unconsecrated altar bread, and preventing the Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion from absconding with the consecrated Hosts.  In the end there was no issue, but the Mass as a whole certainly falls under the category of "liturgical mishap".

This evening at St. Francis de Sales Oratory, there was a Missa Solemnis for the closing of the priest retreat, celebrated by Monsignor Gilles Wach, founder of the ICRSS.  Not being scheduled to serve, I merely sat in choir as a flower pot (a technical term meaning an extra server whose purpose is merely to sit there making the sanctuary look pretty).  But the Mass itself was very beautiful, with a full choir, a composed Mass setting, and magnificent organ music.  The homily was given in French by Monsignor Wach, with Canon William Talarico translating as he went.  Regrettably, again, my memory is fading with time, but I do recall being amused during the Gloria.  Every once in a while, our choir will use a specific Gloria which doubles the "qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis", generating confusion amongst the servers and clergy who bow for the second one, expecting the "suscipe deprecationem nostram".  We used this one tonight, and being the only person not to bow, I could not help but to grin, thinking about how often this happens.

After Mass I was given a peculiar assignment by the sacristan.  He wished for me to arrange the side altars for the morrow's Masses, but told me that all of the cruets and liturgicals could be found . . . in the confessionals.  So in what must have been an interesting spectacle, I kept marching back and forth from the altars and confessionals, putting out books, wine, and patens in each trip.  Each time, too, walking past two young women kneeling by the side altar, who eventually approached me to talk.

It was their first time at the Oratory, and they had questions.  Apparently they had driven by for years and, in what cannot be a coincidence, being unaware of our schedule, decided tonight to stop in "to see what the church looks like", and came upon our Solemn Mass.  Needless to say, they were in awe.  A nice touch to end the day, for sure.  Hopefully we will see them again!

Sunday, 9 June
As a conclusion to this very long post, this morning was another adventure.  Arriving at St. Francis de Sales Oratory, I intended to sit in choir for both Masses, eating breakfast betwixt the two, as is my custom.  The sacristan informed me, however, that there would be a private Mass around 9:00 and asked if I could serve it.  The 8:00 first acolyte, additionally, asked if I would take his place.  Doing a quick time calculation, I figured this would work out and still leave me time to eat, so I agreed to both.

Well, either the 8:00 priest was running late, the 9:00 was running early, or both.  Arriving back in the sacristy after the 8:00 Mass, I found the second priest vested and about to head off sans an altar server.  However, the timing worked out just perfectly.  I bowed to the Cross, then to the 8:00 priest, knelt for his blessing, then stood, scooted over about three feet, bowed to the Cross again, then to the 9:00 priest, and headed back out to the Mother of Perpetual Help altar.  Could not have been more than a minute in the sacristy, tops.  The sacristan himself was not yet ready for us, and barely lit the candles in time before we arrived.

Mass itself was about normal, with the same dilemma from Wednesday of being barely able to hear the priest, who was whispering.  Since I had already received Holy Communion and there was no congregation, this was the first Latin Mass I had ever served in which there was no distribution of Holy Communion, which is a unique experience unto itself.  Towards the end of Mass, the laity started saying the rosary in the pews right next to us, further complicating my job of hearing the priest.  The Leonine prayers, as on Wednesday, were said in Latin.  Thankfully I know most of them by heart, but the Sancte Michael Archangele I had to simply listen to in silence. 

Finally given a moment to eat, I did so quickly (without divesting, even) and then got ready for the 10:00 Mass, which was a Missa Solemnis celebrated by a newly ordained priest.  The music, again, was very beautiful, but what excited me the most was Canon's use of the Prefatio de sanctissima Trinitate in tono solemniori, found in the back of the Missal.  After Mass, Canon gave us his first blessing, and we as altar servers exercised our privilege to be first in line, avoiding the long queue which the laity faced.

And with that, the numbing of minds is concluded!  If you stayed with me this whole time, I thank thee greatly, and laud your endurance.

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Datum S. Ludovici, die XXVII mensis Maii, in festo S. Bedae Venerabilis Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, anno MMXIII.

Two very busy weeks. (Part 2)

This is part two of a super-long post.  Why did I break it into three parts?  Purely for psychological reasons!  If you are anything like me (a pity if true), coming across a 17 page, 4400 word blog post, your brain will shut down before even making it through the first paragraph.  But coming across three, shorter blog posts, you are probably more likely to read them.  I guess.  I have no real data to back up my claim, but gut feelings count as empirical evidence, right?

Anyway, you can find part one by clicking this elegant and finely-crafted link.  Now, onwards to part two!

Saturday, 1 June

Saturday held in store for me a very busy morning, necessitating me to forego serving at St. Mary of Victories Chapel.  Instead, I heard an 8:00 Mass locally at St. Henry's Catholic Church.  Whilst my usual manner is to show up three minutes before Mass starts, quickly vest, and serve, this morning I showed up an entire eight minutes early.  Quite an accomplishment, right?  Well, it's a good thing I did, because the lector had not shown up, compelling me to take both positions, and to spend time pre-reading the Epistle and Psalm.  

From there, after a (regrettably short) time of thanksgiving after Mass, I hurried home to eat before having to head down to St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church (different than the one shown in the blog header) for 9:30 altar server training for the Sunday Corpus Christi procession.  Being senior altar server of the parish, M.C. for the Mass, and person in charge of arranging the entire event, I had to be there not merely to iron out details of what we were doing, but to tell people what we were doing!  As happens yearly, we were only able to scrounge up a bare minimum number of servers, so part of the time was spent reassigning and nixing roles and ideas.  Alas.  Training went relatively smoothly, but due to my tight schedule I had to leave early for my next destination, trusting that Father would fill me in on any significant changes to our plan.

My next destination was St. Francis de Sales Oratory, where I was scheduled as thurifer for an 11:00 Missa Cantata pro sponso et sponsa — i.e. a wedding.  My ornate, antique altar cards still being in my car from the previous evening, and not wanting to leave them there during Mass, I carried them into the sacristy with me, pretending it was a totally normal thing for an altar server to do.  (Though from me I doubt much surprises them, anymore.)  From here I must regrettably say that my memory has largely faded due to the delay in writing this, except that our organist decided to play an amazing postlude, which went on for quite some time and required two assistants (not that I stopped to watch him or anything as I was cleaning up . . . ahem), and that I was called upon to help distribute Holy Communion after Mass to people who had missed it the first time (during which the postlude may or may not have still been going on).  Alas, such vague memories give me little opportunity for humour or commentary!

In the evening, however, preparing for the morrow's procession, I spent a significant amount of time shaving and modifying uncooperative processional candles, including having to fabricating wicks for them out of truncated toothpicks.  Tedious, but fun times!

Sunday, 2 June

Now, for the big event!  With much to do, I started the day early with 7:00 Mass at St. Teresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church, at which (in accordance with my normal practice of "showing up and serving however needed, and if not needed suggesting extra roles so that I can be needed") I was thurifer.  After Mass I made a quick stop in the choir loft, and then hurried home to repeat the previous day's schedule ("eating before having to head down to St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church by 9:30").  Arriving before the end of the 8:30 Mass, I vested whilst happily singing along with Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus (K. 618) (which pleased me greatly to hear it being used) and then hovered in the back of church awaiting Father's blessing.

When the 8:30 Mass ended, it was straight to work preparing!  Lots to do, coordinate and arrange.  When the thurifer arrived, I pulled her aside (and outside) to walk through the rest of the training I had missed the day prior.  As thurifer, she was the "next in command", so we needed to have our signals straight.  Compared to other years things actually went smoothly, and we were not rushing until the last moment to prepare.  Additionally, all of the scheduled people actually showed up!  In fact, right before Mass a second flower girl even appeared, solving our dilemma of having an overabundance of rose petals.  One thing which was not resolved, however, was the processional music.  In the end, it fell upon me to do all of the chanting myself.  Thankfully I had anticipated this though, and brought multiple books of chant along with me.

So the 10:30 Mass begins, and all is going well.  Being the standard Ordinary Form, there is not as much for a Master of Ceremonies to do, so I largely just stood to the side, doing the little which I could (e.g. opening the Missal before the server brought it to Father, rather than him having to do it himself).  During the homily I snuck over to the organist to discuss the chants, and then into the choir practice room to match my pitch to his sheet music.

Now, the plan was for all of the extra people for the procession (baldachino bearers, flower girls, etc.) to congregate in the ambulatory after receiving Communion, where they could prepare for the procession.  At the same time, the thurifer and I were to carry candelabra to the altar.  Candelabra perfectly positioned, returning to the ambulatory I came across a sight which will strike fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned Masters of Ceremonies:

A liturgical dancer.

Immediately, a wave of panic came over me.  "What the heck is going on here?  What did they decide yesterday after I left?  Do I really want to be here anymore?!"  Thinking it out rationally, I soon realised that they intended to have her carry a banner in the procession, and she simply decided to . . . dress in a leotard and skirt.  I suppose that's okay . . . relatively speaking.

Now came time for the procession, and naturally things fell apart as we tried to coordinate the servers, flower girls, et al.  But we eventually got underway, processing as we sang O Salutaris Hostia until leaving the church, at which point it fell upon me to cantor whilst simultaneously being M.C.

This year our procession route had two Stations, giving me three legs during which I needed to cantor.  For the first leg, I went with Father Frederick Faber's classic and beautiful hymn, Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All.  However, I noticed the people in procession were instead saying the Rosary and ignoring the hymn, so for the second leg I opted instead to stay quiet and let them pray.  However for the final leg, I had pre-arranged with the organist to sing Pange Lingua, repeating versus 2–4 until reaching the church, at which point he would pick up with accompanying the chant and we would incense the Blessed Sacrament during verses 5 and 6.  After 10 verses we finally made it back, and amazingly I had stayed on pitch the whole time!  However, the organist informed me that whilst I was in the right key, I was singing an entire octave higher than the music was scored.  Gotta love being an alto!

Arriving back at church we had Benediction, along with the standard prayers and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.  No one fainted, nothing was damaged, and we had a good turnout.  So all together, it was a success!

Enjoying a nice afternoon with my family and friends, then I made my way to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis to serve at their 17:00 Mass and procession, as I have done in previous years.  However this year, showing up in the sacristy, I found a sea of altar servers and was informed that they did not need me, so turning around, I went back home.  Oh well!  A wonderful day, regardless.

You can find part three by clicking this elegant and finely-crafted link.

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Datum S. Ludovici, die VII mensis Iulii, in festo Ss. Cyrilli et Methodii Pont. et Conf., anno MMXIII.

Two very busy weeks. (Part 1)

I have been extremely busy these past few weeks, and have developed a considerable backlog of posts.  So herein I will try to consolidate them all into three, mind-numbingly tedious-to-read posts.  Enjoy!

Thursday, 30 May
The feast of Corpus Christi!  One of my favourite feasts of the year.  A feast to which I look forward, for the beautiful Solemn High Mass we have at St. Francis de Sales Oratory, sometimes followed by a procession.  But alas!  This year, the Mass was cancelled.  My morning Mass being in the Ordinary Form (which does not commemorate it), I was suddenly faced with the prospect of missing the feast entirely.  Yet, there was still one option:

Every Thursday evening at 19:00, St. Bernadette's Catholic Church has a Young Adults group which meets for a Holy Hour with confessions and a spiritual reflection (when a cleric is available to come).  I am a founding member of this group, and have been their altar server for the entire time, giving me some influence over the running of the group.  Additionally, the leader of this group is very traditionally minded, so we work together well.  So, a phone call was made:

"Heeey.  Tonight for our Holy Hour, since we have a priest, if I make the handouts and provide an ombrellino and coordinate everything, can we have a Eucharistic Procession pretty please?"  Amazingly, it worked!  Having a large turnout and three servers, we were able to pull off a procession with bells, a candle, incense and an ombrellino.

I also got free reign to arrange the candles on the altar.  You can say I had fun.

Also, today is the day when my article was run in the newspaper.

Friday, 31 May
This evening's adventure brought me out to St. Charles, Missouri to the Chapel of the Eternal Father, a private chapel erected at a mansion with the permission of the Archdiocese.  For the feast of the Queenship of Our Lady, the chaplain of St. Mary of Victories Chapel was invited to say an evening Missa Privata, and being his altar server, I was invited to come along. (Read: invited myself along.)  The Mass was scheduled for 19:30, but Father was invited to join them for dinner beforehand (which meant I got to, as well).

One thing which was very special about this Mass was that in our company was an actual relic of the veil of Our Lady, which was obtained directly from the Vatican over a century and a half ago.  In his sermon about the Queenship of Mary, Father pointed out how this veil, in a way, was the crown which Our Lady wore whilst on Earth.  Quite amazing, when you think about it!

 
After Mass we were all individually blessed with the relic and given a chance to venerate it.  (Just as a side note for those who wish to venerate relics, or to receive the Precious Blood at Mass: please remove your bright red lipstick before doing so.  Thank you.  Sincerely, the sacristans of the world.)

But, I am getting ahead of myself.  So, vestments, antique altar cards and a raincoat in tow ("there's a chance of thunderstorms tonight"), I hit a traffic jam en route to meet Father, delaying our departure.  In spite of this and a second traffic jam, however, we still somehow arrived exactly on time.

Upon our arrival we were given a tour of the chapel, and I thoroughly inspected it for rubrical compliance, making adjustments as necessary.  The biggest issue to be seen were two large pillows left out for the servers to kneel on.  Being faithful to the rubrics I insisted on their removal, but had to mentally cringe whilst doing so because the altar steps were uneven, and made out of  brick.

Leaving for a delicious, meat-free dinner (Friday, remember), we returned to find the chapel full of people, including a former seminarian of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, who had received tonsure.  Being a cleric, I let him be first acolyte, and after briefly discussing a few rubrical points, we begin Mass.  It is only a few moments though until I realise the large differences in serving styles between the FSSP and ICRSS.  At first I assumed he was simply mistaken, but soon realised this and, as an obedient second acolyte, deferred to his customs.  Whilst slightly disconcerting . . . some of them I found a hard time objecting to.  "Oh, we're going to stand for the Credo instead of kneeling on the hard, uneven, brick step?  Well, I suppose, if you insist . . . "

During the sermon, I held a brief whisper-conversation to verify the FSSP customs, and then stood attentively listening.  Soon however, the atmosphere changed, when outside of the chapel tornado sirens started sounding.  My interior meteorologist was inclined to say, "Cool!" but immediately instead my mind started churning through rubrics.  "Okay, if the power goes out, we will need a candle for light.  It cannot look too similar to a bugia, however.  Oh, there's a candle over in the corner there, we could grab that along with the (unlit) sanctuary lamp for the (empty) tabernacle.  Hm.  What if the tornado hits though?  De Defectibus X.II covers that . . ." and so on.  Working this all out in my head, I whispered to the other server my plan, who after a brief moment of, "Huh, what?" understood and nodded in agreement.  At points during Mass you could see the rain horizontally streaking across the windows, but thankfully otherwise our Mass was not disrupted. (Though at least one person decided to take shelter huddling in the hallway outside of the chapel, as we on the altar continued as if nothing were happening.)

Unfortunately, this was not the case elsewhere.  Being a meteorologist I excused myself after Mass to check the weather, and saw that a large tornado did in fact form and came within roughly a mile of the chapel, leaving devastation in its wake.  ("Chance of thunderstorms")  More concerning to me though was that it came within only a few blocks of a friend's house, but thankfully all was well for her.

Afterwards when all had left, Father was invited to stay for dessert, and we chatted for a while before departing back to St. Louis.  As we drove, a second, massive storm descended upon us, making for a very unpleasant and noisy drive, but also presenting me with one final obstacle.  Remember the antique altar cards I brought?  The fragile, ornate, century-old altar cards?  Well, they needed to somehow make it into my car through the intense rain.  Pulling up right alongside my car, wrapping them, and using an umbrella we were able to make the transfer safety, though the two of us were soaked in the process.

All together, it made for a very interesting experience, both as an altar server and a meteorologist.

You can find part two by clicking this elegant and finely-crafted link.

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Datum S. Ludovici, die VII mensis Iulii, in festo Ss. Cyrilli et Methodii Pont. et Conf., anno MMXIII.