Awkward moments during mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter vince2paul
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Well, this was at a Sunday, 9am Mass after a Red Sox game that went on until 1 in the morning…

I (the lector) was standing in the vestibule with the two altar servers, the priest and deacon. Now, the two of them had stayed up to watch the whole game and were practically falling asleep standing up…red in the eyes and everything.

The choir, also, had started singing the opening hymn before the bell to signify the start of mass was won. As Father said while rifling through the hymnal, “Darn (not what he said, but it wasn’t that bad), is that the opening hymn?!” then, to our deacon…“Ring the bell, make them start over!”

The 5 of us, including the priest had to refrain from laughter as we proceeded in.
 
Not exactly Mass… but I stayed up all night watching Blessed John Paul II’s beatification 😃 and I did a holy hour before Mass… as you might imagine, my kneel turned into a sitting kneel, I rested my hands on the pew in front of me, then set my head down on my hands, and I was out. In conversation after Mass I sheepishly brought up that I had dozed off, to which they collectively responded, oh we saw! :o

A family at our parish is teaching their very young children how to genuflect and cross themselves. (I don’t know about you, but watching little children try to cross themselves both tugs at my heart and gives me a laugh attack.) Recently, one of the girls genuflected to the back of the church in her haste to follow her father out 😛

At one local parish, during the canon, the littlest altar servers hold processional candles in front of them while they’re kneeling. Well, at one point there was a great boom and a shattering of glass - the poor little guy had fainted! :o

Oh - my first time receiving communion at an altar rail, the priest came up to me, I’m sitting there with my tongue out, staring at the ciborium, just waiting, until he enunciates, “Stick out your tongue more!!” 😊 I was mortified! Something similar happened recently - now I’m a crazy trad 😉 and always kneel to receive, and we had the same little stare down, until the priest said, move closer! It took a few seconds of awkward knee-shuffling to scoot that one inch further. I sort of got reproved from both ends of the spectrum :cool:

Btw - awesome thread! I’m laughing out loud… and probably keeping my sister from getting a good sleep 😛
 
Oh, and I forgot the best one!

I was in charge of the storytime at our parish’s vacation bible school - well the materials they gave us were worthless, so I rewrote one of the days (the story of the Garden of Eden.) Well, we needed trees for our garden, and we got them from inside the church. We chose a particularly foreboding tree, you know the one with the purple plastic leaves intermingled with the dark green? , to be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We hung all sorts of scary things from it, like spiders and other creepy crawlies. Afterwards we cleaned off the trees and returned them to the church.

A month later during Mass, my mother poked me, and with a grin on her face made a gesture towards the altar. Sure enough, there on the first step was the tree, with an ugly construction paper spider hanging from it!!! :eek:
 
I receive COTT in a liberal parish where the EMHC’s aren’t taught about it. Everytime I approach an EMHC it’s awkward. They don’t know what to do.
 
Phemie said:
We’ve actually had a reading from a letter of Paul to the Filipinos before and it was all I could do to not burst out laughing. Our pastor is Filipino and I saw his lips twitch when she said it. So far we’ve never had a letter to the Fallopians, which I understand has happened in more than one parish.

Thessalonians often comes out wrong too.
Click to expand...
I realize this is an old post, but I have frequently heard readings from letters of St. Paul to the Filipinos or to the Theologians. One particular lector at my parish is notorious for these mistakes.
 
When our new rector arrived, he re-instituted the use of incense. Lots and lots of incense :D. He spent time training the altar servers on how to be a thurifer–he uses the incense on the procession, incensing the altar, incensing the Gospel, incensing the gifts, and incensing the elevation of the host and chalice. It’s beautiful. 👍

One of the altar servers, serving as thurifer for the first or second time, launched several coals right out of the thurible onto the carpeted sanctuary floor, which started smoking. She then (brave and dedicated soul) picked up the coal with her bare hand and put it back in the thurible. :eek:

Sanctuaries are not supposed to be carpeted, and Father later told us that he had great hopes for that small blaze before the thurifer risked life and limb to pick up the coal. If the carpet was very badly damaged, he’d have been forced to remove it :p.

Since that episode, as a server I count my service at Mass as successful if I don’t throw any coals, incense, or sparks down Father’s chasuble.
 
PolyphonyChick said:
Oh, and I forgot the best one!

I was in charge of the storytime at our parish’s vacation bible school - well the materials they gave us were worthless, so I rewrote one of the days (the story of the Garden of Eden.) Well, we needed trees for our garden, and we got them from inside the church. We chose a particularly foreboding tree, you know the one with the purple plastic leaves intermingled with the dark green? , to be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We hung all sorts of scary things from it, like spiders and other creepy crawlies. Afterwards we cleaned off the trees and returned them to the church.

A month later during Mass, my mother poked me, and with a grin on her face made a gesture towards the altar. Sure enough, there on the first step was the tree, with an ugly construction paper spider hanging from it!!! :eek:
Click to expand...
AHAHAHAHAHA!

Bad luck! :rotfl:
 
Not awkward for me, but one past Mass, everything went wrong.

First, we didn’t have the usual choir (for some reason they weren’t there), so the cantor - who’s a tenor and can’t possibly hit the high notes - had to do all of the siinging. I think he may have been just getting over a cold (allergies and bronchitis seem common here this year).

So, it started off with him singing a bit off key during the Gloria. Apparently, that’s when an elderly gentleman became ill and someone had to call for an ambulance. That in itself wasn’t a bit deal since the church is on a busy intersection, but this one sounded really close, like it was 30 feet away (I didn’t notice what was happening until after Mass). So, that’s about when the cantor lost his place, which then caused the organist (who probably didn’t know what was going on) to lose their place, then 5 seconds of odd silence when the organist finally realized what was going on. Then, the congregation started singing (probably those who didn’t know what was going on). The cantor struggled with the high notes throughout the Mass.

Then, after the Eucharist, when they were going to clean the chalices, an altar girl took the chalice - with the Blood of Christ still in it - a little too soon (which the priest wasn’t too happy about). Then during the closing prayers, instead of saying “Now bow your heads…”, the priest started saying, “Now let us offe-” then realized he was at the wrong part of the Mass and said something like, “Opps, wrong part of the Mass”. When Mass was over, he said, “It’s just one of those Masses.”. :rotfl:
 
A couple of Sundays ago I was serving Mass (EF) for Monsignor, who’s a very… “old school” character :p. Before the Ablutions I had went up to Msgr. and started pouring the wine into the chalice. Now I still hadn’t picked up on the signal the celebrant makes to say “that’s enough” which he does by raising the chalice. I thought he wanted me to keep going. Eventually he had to say rather seriously “enough!” I was absolutely mortified. There was no wine left for the Ablutions.

I apologised in the sacristy and Monsignor were kindly enough about it and explained how to avoid it in future.

Haven’t made that mistake since and was even complimented on my solo-serving when the senior server didn’t show up for Mass last Sunday.
 
Te_Deum said:
Haven’t made that mistake since and was even complimented on my solo-serving when the senior server didn’t show up for Mass last Sunday.
Click to expand...
Nice! I’m trying to teach myself to serve the EF, but it’s hard!!
 
TheMc said:
Nice! I’m trying to teach myself to serve the EF, but it’s hard!!
Click to expand...
I really cannot stress the senior server’s method of “baptism by fire” enough! I wasn’t given any preparation outside of observing from the pews when he called me up to start serving. I also strongly recommend focusing on the Low Mass at first. Its simplicity helps.
 
I’ve been a church musician for many years – once I was at the rehearsal for a Protestant wedding. The bride and groom had been living together for 23 years and their five teenage children and four grandchildren were attendants. The pastor asked the bride what music she wanted me to play during the lighting of the unity candle, and she said, “I didn’t pick anything out. Just open the hymnal and play something.” The pastor was right behind me when I opened the hymnal and saw the hymn “Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy”. We didn’t dare make eye contact for fear of cracking up laughing.

By the way, whoever posted the thread about the horse dropping dead during Pachelbel’s Canon – I played this at a wedding two days after I read this thread and the image of that horse kept popping into my mind. Thanks a lot!!😃
 
I’ve been at a few Masses where the priest forgets the names or mixes the name order of the babies to be baptized, and either the parents, Godparents and/or the congregation has to remind him of the correct name.

I do remember being a Godparent to my sister’s kids when they received all 3 sacraments at Easter Vigil (at ages 7 and 9), and the priest baptized my nephew first in the immersion font, and started to call my nephew by his sister’s name but then corrected himself.

One priest apologized after Communion that he meant to lead us in the creed instead of jumping right to the intercessions after the homily was finished.

One parent had a preschool aged boy, and they usually sat near the front of the church. He would often imitate the priest’s gestures. Its been many years, I wonder if he truly has a vocation to be a priest himself now.
 
A visiting priest told us a story. When he was serving as an altar boy for the first time, he was incensing (the Gospel maybe?) and he accidentally hit the priest in the face with the thing that holds the incense (thurible?) and gave him a bloody nose!
 
Beachcomber said:
When I was a teenager, the church I attended had a Mass on Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, I think. People called it the last chance Mass.

It was a favorite of tourists and teenagers. Well, we live on the California coast and there is a lot of surfing. And, this one particular Sunday, there were a lot of surfers there at Mass. For some reason, they brought their surf boards into the church. (I guess they were afraid they’d be stolen otherwise?)

They were lined up against the confessionals in the back and during Mass, somehow, they all slid to the floor, making the most awful racket. Just like dominos, one after the other.
Click to expand...
That is terrible… Hahahahahahahahaha
 
During school when we’d go to mass all as a group my sister would always faint when there was incense being used, it was so awkward!! Her teacher would tell the two biggest boys in the class to stand on either side of her so they could carry her out when she fainted… And then she would, on cue. xD
 
anp1215 said:
A visiting priest told us a story. When he was serving as an altar boy for the first time, he was incensing (the Gospel maybe?) and he accidentally hit the priest in the face with the thing that holds the incense (thurible?) and gave him a bloody nose!
Click to expand...
Oh my God, I was so terrified of doing that when I was an alter boy. 😦
 
convert999 said:
i’ve been a church musician for many years – once i was at the rehearsal for a protestant wedding. The bride and groom had been living together for 23 years and their five teenage children and four grandchildren were attendants. The pastor asked the bride what music she wanted me to play during the lighting of the unity candle, and she said, “i didn’t pick anything out. Just open the hymnal and play something.” the pastor was right behind me when i opened the hymnal and saw the hymn “come ye sinners poor and needy”. We didn’t dare make eye contact for fear of cracking up laughing.

By the way, whoever posted the thread about the horse dropping dead during pachelbel’s canon – i played this at a wedding two days after i read this thread and the image of that horse kept popping into my mind. Thanks a lot!!:d
Click to expand...
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top