Awkward moments during mass

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palmas85 said:
I was about 13 or so and had been serving for quite a while. I was really cool and very good at what I did:cool:

That summer I had grown quite a bit and had totally outgrown my old cassock. We had been in away for June and July and upon returning was issued a new one. It was about two feet two long, it seemed so I pinned it up. Or at least I thought I did.

If I remember correctly it was the Feast of the Assumption and the ladies from the Altar Siciety had placed a magnificent statute of the Blessed Mother near the communion rail. It was very beautiful, very big and very heavy,

Mass went fine with no problems. I naturally was in complete sync with Father, being one of the best, heck I’ll say it, the best Altar Boy in the program. I was inspirational to behold yes I was.

We were deep into communion and in my best silent stealth movement mode was shuffling along beside Father holding my trusty paten in one hand and gripping my surplice with the other… There were three Sisters at the rail, including my soon to be principal:eek: and teacher. They were kneeling right beside and slightly in front of the magnificent statue of the Blessed Mother, which was sitting on a pedastal of some sort…

As Father started to place the Host on my soon to be principals :eek: tongue, I realized that I was too far away and took a half step so I could properly place the paten.

BIG MISTAKE

My foot got caught the cassock and… I tripped, fell over the rail and stabbed Sister right in the forehead, gashing her pretty good. As I continued falling, somersaulting would be a better word for it I took out the Sister to her right, my new teacher, who was just staring to stand up, and landed right on top of my soon to be principal…👍 The second sister lost her footing and crashed into the magnificent statue of the Blessed Virgin, She, the statue, tottered precariously for a few seconds and then fell, landing on top of me.:eek: ) and partially on the second Sister.👍 my new teacher.

You haven’t experienced anything until you are lying on top of an elderly Sister, did I mention she was going to be my prinicipal in the upcoming year?:bigyikes: , on the floor in front of the Communion Rail, with a two hundred pound statue of the Blessed Mother pinning you down on top of her.

I didn’t live that one down for a longtime.

And yes, it was a long school year.:eek:
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Priceless!!!
 
:o This morning, our elderly priest started to say the Gloria, and when we were all in the middle, he forgot the words and started to leaf through the book. Well then we all stopped and got confused. :o except for one little old lady who didnt miss a beat. Was this a heavenly test to see who was paying attention?!🙂 :o 😉
 
dixieagle said:
Are you perhaps thinking of “confirmation name”? I’ve never heard of the middle name as the baptismal name…
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No. The confirmation name is the third name. And it is chosen by the person being confirmed.
 
Just remembered this from years and years ago, when I was an Episcopalian, disgusted by the whacky theology in my parish, I went to a Catholic Mass with an Episcopalian friend, a former Catholic thinking about reverting. During the homily the priest stated, “God needed someone to rescue the world, that’s why he made Jesus”. My friend and I froze,looked at each other and said in a horrified unison, “Deum Verum Genitum NON factum.” I think only those seated immediately around us heard us, but as soon as the homily was over, we scooted out of there quickly. Many years later,through several forays into various denominations, I finally became Catholic. I’ve lost touch with my friend over the years so I don’t know if he ever came back to the Catholic Church.
 
What is “Deum Verum Genitum NON factum”?

Anyway, at Mass the other week, there was this baby somewhere in the area who kept going “Thhpppppppppt! (pause) What!?” over and over again. I had to keep myself from laughing. 🙂 Then, after the homily, one baby (either the one in front, or behind me), let out an ear piercing squeal that echoed in the church.
 
Deum Verum genitum non factum: Very God, begotten not created.

It was Christmas season and Joe and I had sung Adeste Fideles together in Latin in our Episcopal parish the day before . . . we had joked earlier that the choir director had elected to avoid inconvenient truths by choosing to have us sing that verse in Latin rather than in English. It was what sparked us to attend a Catholic Mass but the homily there had presented us with a more blatent expression of that heresy. . .

God of gods, Light of Light, Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb. Very God, begotten, not created. O come let us adore Him . . . . .
 
Once in choir on a hot summer day, someone turned a badly-aimed fan on, and all the organists sheet music went flying all over the choir loft like big square snowflakes. 😃

Often times bees would come in the open windows, and once were flying around the organist’s head. How she kept on playing while we swatted at her face and she closed her eyes, I don’t know.

:harp:
 
I spilled the incesense on the deacon who is alos my spiritual director. he still has the burn marks on his fingers. sooooo embarrasing! 😦 But he did smell good!!😃
 
I used to go to an old, historic cathedral whose pastor was a very reverent, very traditional Monsignor. He was truly in his element when celebrating Benediction, using up a veritable cloud of incense during the service and doing his best to remain in a prayerful posture at all times. One day, while he carrying the monstrance in solemn procession, he suddenly stomped his foot. In a silent, echoing cathedral, the sound made everyone jump. He turned toward the congregation and said, very appologetically, “Cockroach!”

Another time, Monsignor made a very impressive opening to his homily when he walked to the podium and sternly whacked it with a folded sheet of paper. Everyone sat up straight in the pews! Then he said in a humble voice, “Sorry, there was a spider.”
 
My cousin, who is a priest, now asks to see all eulogies before the funeral Mass because …

A couple years ago, a woman’s son-in-law delivered her eulogy.

It consisted entirely of mother-in-law jokes. Badly delivered and not an ounce of affection. Fr. George didn’t feel he could interrupt and everyone had to sit there.
 
A few months back I was sitting in front pew in church with my family. Father was getting ready to give the benediction and my 3 year decided he was done sitting. He started screaming as loud as he could and wouldn’t stop. My wife took him out, with him screaming the whole way. To add to the awkwardness, I served as a reader for the Mass and I needed to process out with Father, the other reader, and the two servers. I left my 5 year-old son with instructions to wait in the pew and I’d come back to get him. Everything after that point went well. He sat there and the screamer stopped screaming. When I went back to get my older son, there were two crowds of people waiting, the choir to ‘recruit’ my younger son as a tenor and people complimenting my 5 yo on how well he waited.
 
Sorry for the double post, thought of another to share…

When my wife was a girl, she in sitting the front pew with her family. He little sister had a stuffed “tweety-bird” doll. At some point during Mass, her sister yelled out “Tweety! You pooped your pants!”. Tweety didn’t come to Mass again.
 
This happened on Sunday at the 11am mass. As you may recall the first reading was about the seraph serpent. Well after Ft. X delivers his homily, we said the creed and I got up to read the prayer of the faithful. As I was going back to my pew after reading the prayer and botching a few names a gentleman stands up in the middle of church and starts talking. I thought I must have really messed up a name, but no he laid into the priest because his homily had neglected to elaborate or explain the OT reading from Numbers. He said most people are familier with John’s reading but not the reading from Numbers. And that the lack of explanation for the importance of the OT readings was way to common. Then he sat down and latter received communion from Ft. X. Ft X never did say anything about the incident at Mass.

And I was told at the 5pm Sat. vigil mass a small child almost climbed over the plexiglass near the choirloft, causing his father to yell “STOP” - freezing that mass and stopping the child from falling 20 feet.
 
Almost ten years ago, when I first started serving the mass, after I was holding the missal for the priest to say the prayers, the other two servers told me to place it on the altar. However, it had done it too early, the priest told me to get it, since it was not time. I felt so embarrassed, as this was the priest that gave me my first communion, heard my first confession, and it to this day a spiritual mentor for me. My mom and my grandma were also there. When he told me I messed up, I almost started to cry right there in front of everyone. He kept telling me its okay. I felt terrible, and never made any other mistakes when serving again. Nearly ten years later, as he is pastor at a different parish in a different city in the Archdiocese, when me and my Grandma went to visit on first friday for an EF mass, my phone rang while I was praying before mass. I was so embarrased, luckily father did not see me, and I started sweating. That was the first and last time for my phone ever ringing in Church.

Maybe a year or two after that, when I was serving midnight was on Christmas, I man who was clearly intoxicated walked in to Church, walked right up to the step of the altar, knelt down, and asked Father if he could talk to him. Me and my friends were there, and we started laughing. I tried to control myself, but the guy would say “Amen, alleuia” after every prayer or response. Father told him to wait at the entrance of the Church.

A very uncomfortable and weird mass for me was at the parish near my grandma’s house. The priest ranted on and on during the homily, and basically begged people for money for all the bills. This was pretty upsetting, and we no longer go there.

The only time where I ever considered walking out of a mass was twice, both times with the same priest, the president of my Catholic high school. There was a luncheon in the cafeteria to start out the varsity baseball season. I knew we would have a mass before lunch, but I hoped it would have been in the chapel or at least the auditorium. This priest just says mass in the cafeteria and takes an ordinary table to say mass. He was not correctly wearing the vestments, and his phone rang in the middle of mass, but he made a joke about it. I was pretty upset. He acted as if it was nothing, and stopped mass to say a story/joke. Another time was during our sophomore retreat. We were at a center run by a pretty “progressive” group of nuns. It was the last day, and he came to say mass. We had spent the retreat in one big room, and apparently it was also the chapel, sans an altar or tabernacle or crucifix. So father brings a little table and says mass, but says that since we are on a retreat, we could recline on our stomachs or on our backs for the mass. I just decided to reverently be seated, as I did not want to start anything. And the mass was very awkward. He just wore an alb with the stole over it, and the prayers he used were from this little tiny book, which were not from the missal. He just invited irreverance during the Holy Sacrifice. And one of the teachers that distributed the precious blood of Christ at the end just drank it as if it were a bottle of Coke. That was so disrespectful and irreverant.
 
At a local mass a few years ago, the young priest’s forgettable homily was about when Christ descended to hell. As a finale, he said he thought it would be a good idea if we all told each other to go to hell at the “sign of peace”. The lady next to me and I just exchanged disgusted glances and said peace be with you. I go to the Latin mass now.😦 :mad:
 
There were a few in my parish that mentioned to Father that we would like to hear a Latin Mass once in a while.

So, this past Sunday, Father decided to do the Eucharistic prayers in Latin and interrupt himself every other line to translate for us.

It worked out very well…untill my youngest announced to the entire church “Hey! those are the wrong words!”
 
palmas85 said:
I was about 13 or so and had been serving for quite a while. I was really cool and very good at what I did:cool:

That summer I had grown quite a bit and had totally outgrown my old cassock. We had been in away for June and July and upon returning was issued a new one. It was about two feet two long, it seemed so I pinned it up. Or at least I thought I did.

If I remember correctly it was the Feast of the Assumption and the ladies from the Altar Siciety had placed a magnificent statute of the Blessed Mother near the communion rail. It was very beautiful, very big and very heavy,

Mass went fine with no problems. I naturally was in complete sync with Father, being one of the best, heck I’ll say it, the best Altar Boy in the program. I was inspirational to behold yes I was.

We were deep into communion and in my best silent stealth movement mode was shuffling along beside Father holding my trusty paten in one hand and gripping my surplice with the other… There were three Sisters at the rail, including my soon to be principal:eek: and teacher. They were kneeling right beside and slightly in front of the magnificent statue of the Blessed Mother, which was sitting on a pedastal of some sort…

As Father started to place the Host on my soon to be principals :eek: tongue, I realized that I was too far away and took a half step so I could properly place the paten.

BIG MISTAKE

My foot got caught the cassock and… I tripped, fell over the rail and stabbed Sister right in the forehead, gashing her pretty good. As I continued falling, somersaulting would be a better word for it I took out the Sister to her right, my new teacher, who was just staring to stand up, and landed right on top of my soon to be principal…👍 The second sister lost her footing and crashed into the magnificent statue of the Blessed Virgin, She, the statue, tottered precariously for a few seconds and then fell, landing on top of me.:eek: ) and partially on the second Sister.👍 my new teacher.

You haven’t experienced anything until you are lying on top of an elderly Sister, did I mention she was going to be my prinicipal in the upcoming year?:bigyikes: , on the floor in front of the Communion Rail, with a two hundred pound statue of the Blessed Mother pinning you down on top of her.

I didn’t live that one down for a longtime.

And yes, it was a long school year.:eek:
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Ha ha ha, not to laugh at your expense- but this made my day. I was rolling! Ha ha, and I thought it was bad when I lead the lectors to the wrong side of the alter during Pope John Paul II’s memorial mass…

Your experience definitely tops mine!
 
sskelly said:
Once in choir on a hot summer day, someone turned a badly-aimed fan on, and all the organists sheet music went flying all over the choir loft like big square snowflakes. 😃
:harp:
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Ah, church ventilation. One warm, humid Easter Sunday morning, I was singing at one of the Masses with the chamber choir and the string quartet. We were suffering through the humidity quite well, I think, until someone decided to kick on the AC about halfway through. The downblast from the ceiling vents was such that it blasted all of the sheet music off of the string quartet’s stands. :o
 
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