Empathize with me please, friends, you who have ever:
* Winced watching an altar boy (especially if he was related to you) trying to set the church afire while lighting the high Mass candles.
Let us say it together: Look out there! Child, playing with fire!
* Leaped over several children during Holy Saturday ceremonies to reach the kid at the end of the pew who is about to catch on fire the chapel veil of the woman in front of him .
I Say Again: Look out there, child, playing with fire!
* Sent up heartfelt prayers for the Holy Ghost's intercession as the smell of burnt hair wafted past with the First Communicants carrying their lighted candles as they processed up the aisle.
Say it, friends: Look out there! Child playing with fire!
* Watched helplessly from the back pew while a young person, uninitiated in the ways of fire and physics, tried to re-light a half-burned seven-day candle by putting her hand in the jar with a short paper match.
I Say: Look out there, child, playing with fire!
And let us have peace among us, because we do have one consolation:
WE KNOW THAT AT LEAST THEY WERE ALL BLESSED CANDLES!
:) One of my scariest moments was when my daughter went to get the cross at the end of Mass. She normally carries a candle, but that day was the oldest one (for the first time) and was to get the cross. It was more top-heavy than she expected and it almost went down before she corrected. Whew! We laughed later (relief, it wasn't funny), but it was a bad moment! She has waist length hair, so for a long time as a server always wore it in a pony-tail because she was afraid she would catch it on fire. She has become more comfortable with experience.
ReplyDeleteOr then there are the Keller boys who (not all at once, but individually) set the carpet in the sacristy on fire when the censer tipped over, thus the title, The Arson Squad! SIGN! There was no serious damage to the carpet, but it was embarrassing. Cathy
ReplyDeleteoh, cathy ... that's so funny.
ReplyDeletethe first time our middle son served he carried the candle during the procession. when he got to the altar he bowed his head ... and he took his job so seriously that his bangs started smoking ... that's how closed he bowed to the flame.
yikes.
then there was the time that our son (the very same one) was lining up in the aisle before the recessional, and when the music starts he proceeds to lead everyone down the aisle to the back of the church ... only, no one told him that at this special mass the priest and altar servers were going to leave by way of the altar. so there was my son, leading the way down the whole aisle with no one behind him. finally, someone at the back of the church pointed, he realized what happened, and he had to walk all the way back up -- alone. but he was grinning the whole time and caused more than a few chuckles in the congregation.
thanks for sparking the memories, lisa!