Midnight Mass when I was a kid meant a Solemn High Mass; and as I hit the age of being a server I went through the positions of candle bearer (6 of us, or at least until one might pass out and be hustled out of the sanctuary), server, thurifer, and finally in high school, Master of Ceremonies. That, however, was not my focus so much as later (college seminary) when I considered either becoming a Benedictine (missed my calling, I think from time to time) or a Trappist.
Since sometime I think in college, our family has been attending Midnight Mass at the Trappist abbey in Lafayette, Oregon. From Mass behind a grill, with a small door about 18" x 18" through which we received Communion, to no grill and overflow sitting in the monks’ choir, to a new church in a cross formation with the altar in the center of the cross, with the monks’ choir on one side and the laity on the other.
Their censor has no lid on it; a bowl about the size of a tennis ball and they do make serious use of it - I keep watching every time I go to Mass there for some incense or embers to come flying out of the bowl.
One year of serious ice and snow (hey - this is in Oregon!), with power out literally for miles, I was one of a handful of people who made it to the abbey, and with no power, they had Midnight Mass in the refectory to candle light, and no organ to accompany.
A kid? Perhaps not a kid, but still wondering if I really had a call to be a monk.
I am hoping to go with Catholic relatives to midnight Mass while they are here in town. I have to admit I do enjoy it. 