Awkward moments during mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter vince2paul
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I was at a daily Mass a couple years ago as a new convert, where the priest clearly was half dead from the flu. He was leaning so far over the altar just to prop himself up, that we were worried the cloth would slide and dump him on the floor. After the consecration, etc, he managed to stumble back to his chair and collapse. That left the deacon holding both chalice and ciborium, and he was staring at me. Well, I was a very new convert, and besides that, I hate doing anything important like that without a dry run. I had no idea how to properly go up there and take the chalice, so I just looked down at my feet. It was a small group and everybody could tell he was looking at me, so they all hesitated. Another lady finally did go up and rescue him.
 
vz71 said:
Let’s not let it get hijacked…

How about this picture.
Visiting priest, is not used to the height of the altar.

Comes time to bow at the altar…WHAM.

We could hear his head hit the marble slab from 3 pews back.
Click to expand...
:rotfl: I feel so bad for laughing but that is one of those terrible yet hilarious situations.😛
 
mozier said:
At a recent mass, we had this visiting priest, an older man who was quite the Kumbaya Liberal. At this same mass, my good friend was sitting a few rows away. I personally have a reputation of being quite the orthodox traditionalist in my parish, but compared to my friend I am a guitar-strumming hippie women-priest supporting liberal!

Anyway, the priest gets up to do the gospel. He says, with his arms outstretched and a smile, “The Lord IS with you!” and of course the congregation responds, “And also with you.” The priest smiles and says, “Why thank you!” Some in the congregation giggle, and the priests tries to prompt everyone to say, “You’re welcome!”

Just then, my good friend shouts out, “WILL YOU JUST READ THE GOSPEL!!!” The priest, completely flustered, immediately launches into it!

Pure gold, I tell you. Gold!
Click to expand...
I would certainly think it and I would certainly never yell it . . . . . but I would also certainly laugh when it happened. Although I would likely comfort the visiting priest after Mass if I felt it necessary.
 
I watched an Altar boy that did not know exactly how to light the candles at Easter Mass.

He did not realize that the way he was holding his lighter was feeding a longer and longer wick to the flames and thus increasing the size of the flame at the end of his lighter.

In seconds he was lighting candles with what looked like the liberty torch.

:eek:
 
vz71 said:
I watched an Altar boy that did not know exactly how to light the candles at Easter Mass.

He did not realize that the way he was holding his lighter was feeding a longer and longer wick to the flames and thus increasing the size of the flame at the end of his lighter.

In seconds he was lighting candles with what looked like the liberty torch.

:eek:
Click to expand...
Well, some of us do advertise that an advantage of being an altar server is playing with fire 🤷 he was just enjoying the advantage. Actually one of three things were probably going on in his head: wow this is cool, :eek: what do I do, or complete oblivion.
 
The other day at Mass there was a strange noise. I didn’t even realize it was a cell phone until the priest interrupted his homily to turn it off…yup…it was the priest who forgot to silence his phone.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
The other day at Mass there was a strange noise. I didn’t even realize it was a cell phone until the priest interrupted his homily to turn it off…yup…it was the priest who forgot to silence his phone.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of one of the few Hellfire and brimstone sermons my priest has delivered.

Towards the end of the sermon came a point in which he was talking about each of us being called before God eventually for judgement.

Sure enough a cell phone rang at just that moment.

And the priest without missing a beat yells out “And that could be him now!”

We have since never had an issue with cell phones going off in Mass.
 
vz71 said:
Reminds me of one of the few Hellfire and brimstone sermons my priest has delivered.

Towards the end of the sermon came a point in which he was talking about each of us being called before God eventually for judgement.

Sure enough a cell phone rang at just that moment.

And the priest without missing a beat yells out “And that could be him now!”

We have since never had an issue with cell phones going off in Mass.
Click to expand...
:rotfl:

Perfect!
 
vz71 said:
Let’s not let it get hijacked…

How about this picture.
Visiting priest, is not used to the height of the altar.

Comes time to bow at the altar…WHAM.

We could hear his head hit the marble slab from 3 pews back.
Click to expand...
now that I can relate to. also like visiting priests who wear the wrong size vestments because they don’t have thier size, and during bows and such you can hear ripping sounds.
 
OK, our parish is often very neglectful of making up real schedules for the Altar servers.

One Sunday, a couple of Altar servers show up. The priest dutifully puts them to work in one area of the church.
Then another couple shows up. Our absent minded priest does not realize it is another two, and sends them off to the rectory to get more books.
And another two show up. And the priest still does not notice.

Until Mass is about to begin and the priest realizes we now have six servers.

Not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, the priest doesn’t dismiss any one of them.
And instead opts to press on and do the Mass with all six.

Now this is in a church that normally seats a maximum of 75 and regularly has 30 people. The front is maybe 20 feet across.

It was like watching some kind of bizarre pinball game as all of these Altar boys bounced off each other for position trying to do a job best suited to only one.
 
I serverd Mass as a kid. One year our Church building was being renovated so, MAsses were held in the school gym. Now this placed our makeshift “Sacristy closet” in front of the double door entrance. This created a signifcant draft everytime someone came in before Mass. So everytime I took the uh…long metal candle lighting tool (oh my gosh, I can’t remember what it’s called, but you know what I mean), up to the Altar to light the candles someone would walk in and the draft would blow out the small flame on my wick…it took me like four or five attempts to make it to the Altar and get the candles lit. GRRRR! :rolleyes: 😃
 
Layp3rs0n said:
I serverd Mass as a kid. One year our Church building was being renovated so, MAsses were held in the school gym. Now this placed our makeshift “Sacristy closet” in front of the double door entrance. This created a signifcant draft everytime someone came in before Mass. So everytime I took the uh…long metal candle lighting tool (oh my gosh, I can’t remember what it’s called, but you know what I mean), up to the Altar to light the candles someone would walk in and the draft would blow out the small flame on my wick…it took me like four or five attempts to make it to the Altar and get the candles lit. GRRRR! :rolleyes: 😃
Click to expand...
The Lucifer
 
zab said:
The Lucifer
Click to expand...
I don’t think thats the name for it.
that was the name of one of GOD’s most beloved angels, and it broke his heart to have to make him leave heaven many many years ago.
even his brothers who remained in heaven will not speak the name of thier lost brother anymore. wow, talk about a broken family…
 
FrCorey said:
I don’t think thats the name for it.
that was the name of one of GOD’s most beloved angels, and it broke his heart to have to make him leave heaven many many years ago.
even his brothers who remained in heaven will not speak the name of thier lost brother anymore. wow, talk about a broken family…
Click to expand...
I overheard one of our altar servers calling it “the Lucifer”. I don’t know if he learned the term during his training at our church or somewhere else. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time researching this but I did find this explanation from an altar server manual from an Episcopal Church: (At bottom on left side column)
Lucifer- This basic tool for lighting and extinguishing candles incorporates an adjustable wick and a “bell” extinguisher.

images.acswebnetworks.com/1/1196/TheChurch2004web.pdf
 
zab said:
I overheard one of our altar servers calling it “the Lucifer”. I don’t know if he learned the term during his training at our church or somewhere else. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time researching this but I did find this explanation from an altar server manual from an Episcopal Church: (At bottom on left side column)
Lucifer- This basic tool for lighting and extinguishing candles incorporates an adjustable wick and a “bell” extinguisher.

images.acswebnetworks.com/1/1196/TheChurch2004web.pdf
Click to expand...
wow, lucifer, the giver of light.
I’ll bet his brothers never let him live that down.
 
in all our roman rite books it is just called a taper.
i.e. light the candles before mass with the taper.
sometimes also called the long thin candle thingy around here.
 
OK, I am not certain that this really applies to awkwardness in Mass, it is more like humor in the church in general.

For several years, right at the parish council elections my dad and I would show up for the Men’s club election. The rest of the Men’s club would also show up.

If there was a member absent, he was nominated and duly elected president of the men’s club. So attendence by the men’s club members was really high.

On occasion when all showed up, there was often a childish game of ‘Not It!’ done in which the loser was elected president of the men’s club.

Now before anyone thinks this horrifying that no one wants to participate, they all did.
It simply was that no one wanted to be in a postion where they had to deal with the politics of the rest of the parish organizations.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top