Church Memories

Some of my earliest memories of church are from when we lived in Mississauga, Ontario. We were able to walk to this HUGE church – although when I think about it, everything was huge when I was four years old. I always remember trying to have the same stride as my dad as we walked. I was always looking down at his shiny dress shoes and I tried so hard to match him step for step.

So one Sunday, we walked to church and settled into the front row. Dad didn’t sit down with us and the next time I saw him, he was coming up with the procession. That was pretty cool! It turned out that he was one of the readers that Mass. When it was his turn to head up to the lectern, the church was really quiet and all I heard was a squeak, squeak, squeak as he walked across. Not wanting to disturb him, I leaned over to my Mom and whispered “I think Dad has to oil his shoes, they’re really noisy!”

I’m sure he was wondering why the front pew were all hiding behind their prayer books. Have you ever heard a four-year-old’s whisper? It is quieter than the freight train going by, but not by much…

During my younger years, I went through the altar boy program at St. Cecilia’s Church. Yes, I did. I know it’s hard to believe. There are pictures to prove it. My mom says I look angelic in the red gown and white surplice – I’m not sure the parish priests were of the same opinion. I may have stretched their kind and patient nature a time or two.

One Sunday comes to mind. When I was a rookie altar boy, the altar candles needed to be lit and priest came into the sanctuary and looked around for someone to task. He saw me standing in the corner, all wide eyes and everything and kept looking around for a minute. Then he came back to me and asked if I had ever lit the altar candles before. I said yes because you just don’t talk back to the parish priest. Didn’t matter that I’d never lit a match before.

So out I went. I reached the altar and pulled one of the paper matches and got set to light the first candle. Now, remember, I was pretty short and the candles were pretty new, so it was a stretch to get the match to the wick. I gave a pull across the lighting strip and promptly flung the match across the altar. Okay, try number two. A firmer grip, another pull, and another match head bites the dust. As I put more and more concentration into actually getting a match lit, my hands started to get lower and lower, so I was striking the matches right next to the altar cloth. I was getting close to actually getting a match lit and apparently, lighting the altar cloth at the same time.

I’m pretty sure the priest didn’t see the char marks, but he was confused about all the match debris on the altar.

There was another memorable service I remember. This service I was given the task of carrying the cross in front of the procession, leading the parade, so to speak. All I had to do was carry the staff for the procession in, then the procession out of the Mass. Easy duty!

We walked out for the Mass and I put the staff in the tripod stand beside the chairs behind the altar. The chairs were the type that had a small cross piece along the front, just perfect for sliding your toes under when you were kneeling down. When us altar boys were relegated to kneeling there, we’d flip the chairs up with our toes and have it drop back down and up and down like that until we could get back to a sitting position. Well, I started to flip what I thought was the chair, up and down, up and down when I noticed everyone in the front pews was looking in my direction with huge, wide eyes. I took a quick look over my right shoulder, to make sure someone wasn’t sneaking up on me. Nope, nothing there. All the time, I was still flipping the chair up, and down, up, and down.

I flipped particularly well and there as a collective, muted gasp from the congregation and the priest finally cottoned on that something was going on. He turned back to look in my direction, so I whipped around to see what was happening over my left shoulder. At that moment, the staff with the crucifix on top was slowly toppling over.

Apparently, every time we had to kneel, I had had the staff waving for most of the mass. Very entertaining for the front rows. That’s probably why Catholics like to sit there…

That’s where I began to believe in angels. Caught the staff just in time. And, the priest didn’t give me a hard time. Just looked at me after Mass, turned a funny colour of red and walked away.