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TheOldColonel
Guest
Oh no! My cover is blown!
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anon64350612
Guest
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Maximilian75
Guest
I was moving the Easter Candle from the altar to the baptistery after a funeral. I removed the candle, placed it on the altar rail (stupidly). I turn around… the glass candle topper that keeps the wax inside shatters. It was a miracle that the Candle didn’t shatter.
I was 12. Now i’m 17. My pastor still hasn’t let me forget
I was 12. Now i’m 17. My pastor still hasn’t let me forget
C
Cor_ad_Cor
Guest
Reading others’ has reminded me of a few smiles!
Daily Mass, an elderly gentleman whose hearing was nearly gone sitting next to me, every few minutes would shout, “what did he (Father) say?” I would have to repeat Father’s words at a yell for him. Father was good humored and paused each time long enough for me to attend to the shouts until he finally decided to speak up.
Daily Mass, an elderly gentleman whose hearing was nearly gone sitting next to me, every few minutes would shout, “what did he (Father) say?” I would have to repeat Father’s words at a yell for him. Father was good humored and paused each time long enough for me to attend to the shouts until he finally decided to speak up.
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TheOldColonel
Guest
Don’t worry. He’ll make a mistake one day and then you’ll turn the table! 
J
Jerusha
Guest
ROFL!!
As lector one Tuesday early evening Mass, I stumbled and stammered and mispronounced throughout my readings. That Sunday, our new priest, who I had previously experienced as confessor, lamented sloppy liturgy. The next Tuesday, I confessed negligence in not taking my afternoon nap. I struggle with accepting the tolls of ageing. That time, I got through the Act of Contrition without any problems. And others may have thought I would have written him off.
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edtaylor51
Guest
The priest was 10 minutes late for our wedding. He was old and in poor health, in fact we were his last wedding. He had a minor diabetic episode that morning. He passed away 6 months later.
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Allegra
Guest
- Bats.
- Raccoons disrupting an outdoor Mass at a college campus.
- Incense setting off the smoke alarm at Corpus Cristi. (Didn’t personally see it by my husband has related the story many a time.)
- Sacristy door with a fire sprinkler directly overhead + bridesmaid needing a place to hang her dress while changing+ someone opening the door at the wrong time = new carpet in the sacristy. (twice!)
- Dozens of medical emergencies including a boy who passed out or maybe had a seizure, clopped his face on the pew and proceeded to spray blood everywhere!
- A priest who was really trying to get the best possible range with the holy-water-sprinkling-ball-thingy and in his exuberance, unscrewed the ball and sent it flying into the unsuspecting crowd of parishoners.
- A candle-light Mass with maybe a few two many on the altar piece. One caught the linen on fire during the consecration. A parishioner jumped to her feet, crossed herself, ran up the steps to the altar, put out the fire with her bare hands and some karate-esque chopping motions, quietly backed down the steps, genuflected, and knelt again all without the priest even breaking his concentration.
- So many awful eulogies! (Do people know these aren’t required.) One of the worst funerals I sang at had a daughter “eulogize” her mother by listing every possible way she’d failed as a parent and a human being. (and I grant you, there were some doozies.) Another bad one was when a sister announced that the deceased had never liked her daughters in law.
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Allegra
Guest
Oh yeah! And the time the congregation started off saying the Gloria and somehow finished up saying the creed.
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TheOldColonel
Guest
That’s rather efficient.
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RandomAlias
Guest
When the lector mixes up the words immortality and immorality. It rather seriously mangles the meaning of passages like these:
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tad
Guest
I know it’s not funny, but your posts were hysterical. I can’t stop laughing.
God bless and hang tough!
God bless and hang tough!
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Maximilian75
Guest
My parish, on major feast days, has altar servers kneel and hold candles/incense the Eucharist at elevations. On Corpus Christi, I am the thurifer, and right after the bread is consecrated, the candle bearer to my right bites it and falls straight forward. He was fine, but the first thing I heard was his candle hitting the marble floor, which scared the daylights out of me
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Maximilian75
Guest
IMO, that’s the best way to go out. That’s a blessing for him.
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dochawk
Guest
A sippy-lid for the Chalice, perhaps . . .
I guess having a drinking game during Mass based on that would be wrong for so many reasons . . .
The Eastern Censer is similar to the thurible, but has bells on each chain. Twelve bells, but only 11 ring (the silent bell for Judas among the apostles).
We use incense several times during the Divine Liturgy. After use, we hang it with the top up a few inches (so that it doesn’t go out). One time when I was serving, the chains tangled with the bells putting it back. Not sure how long it would take, and being by myself that week, I went and got one of the older ones from the other side of the altar, and transferred the charcoal.
The next time, Father used it–and a bell flew clean off the chains and across the altar!
Fr. Serge Keheler of blessed memory blamed me for the oatmeal on his screen after he read that . . .
And another time when I was in the pews, the coal flew as father censed in the main aisle at the beginning of Liturgy. As he was right by me, I unceremoniously seized the censer from his hand and used it to scoop the coal from the carpet, and then returned it to him.
I apologized afterwards, but he said it was a good move–and mentioned that he’d once managed to toss a coal that landed between and archbishop’s feet!
When Our Lady of Wisdom across town had it’s fire, it was woefully underinsured. Understand that the icons in even a small byzantine church will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.I would never report any mishaps at my church. The Diocesan auditors may be scanning this thread looking for reasons to make the parish buy more insurance.
Fr. Vivona had been the state Chaplain for the Knights of Columbus for several years–and we came on forcefully enough that the insurance company didn’t wait for a negligence claim to be asserted against them for the underinsurance (OK, so they would have been facing a couple of the most powerful law firms in the state, with senior partners on the warpath over a favorite priest . . .)
[continued]
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dochawk
Guest
[continuing]
That’s actually long been how I want to go. I always figured collapsing on the way back, but making it to the seat would be less hassle for those left behind . . .
Also, we hold a cloth below the chin as the priest drops the Eucharist in the communicant’s mouth. We catch one an average of one per month.
If it’s just me, instead of two, I cup my hand and line with the cloth. More than once, I’ve thought that a blessed first baseman’s mitt might be a better idea . . .
When one landed on the floor a few months ago, I grabbed a purificator to drop on it. Not one, but two people separately tried to hand it back to me, telling me that I’d dropped it in the aisle. :headslap;
When entering a byzantine church, there is no Holy Water. Rather, we reverence the icon placed on the tetrapod for that week, and then light a candle. There are two stands with lots of candles. I’ve long been scared that the dangling sleeve of my sticharion (robe) would get caught while holding the cloth at Communion.
Instead, during the Little Entrance (our first procession), it caught on an icon on the wall (hey, the aisles are narrow; we expanded a three car garage . . .) while I was carrying large candle or a cherubicon (those large fans on a stick) (oddly, I don’t remember which) and the sleeve pulled one from the wall. In horror, and my hands full of something heavy I couldn’t dropped, I put my shoulder to it, pinning it to the wall until someone else could grab the icon. (Understand that icons are prayers, not “merely” statutes).
Father’s response?
“Good catch”
hawk
Hail Mary, full of grapes . . .
That’s actually long been how I want to go. I always figured collapsing on the way back, but making it to the seat would be less hassle for those left behind . . .
Also, we hold a cloth below the chin as the priest drops the Eucharist in the communicant’s mouth. We catch one an average of one per month.
If it’s just me, instead of two, I cup my hand and line with the cloth. More than once, I’ve thought that a blessed first baseman’s mitt might be a better idea . . .
When one landed on the floor a few months ago, I grabbed a purificator to drop on it. Not one, but two people separately tried to hand it back to me, telling me that I’d dropped it in the aisle. :headslap;
When entering a byzantine church, there is no Holy Water. Rather, we reverence the icon placed on the tetrapod for that week, and then light a candle. There are two stands with lots of candles. I’ve long been scared that the dangling sleeve of my sticharion (robe) would get caught while holding the cloth at Communion.
Instead, during the Little Entrance (our first procession), it caught on an icon on the wall (hey, the aisles are narrow; we expanded a three car garage . . .) while I was carrying large candle or a cherubicon (those large fans on a stick) (oddly, I don’t remember which) and the sleeve pulled one from the wall. In horror, and my hands full of something heavy I couldn’t dropped, I put my shoulder to it, pinning it to the wall until someone else could grab the icon. (Understand that icons are prayers, not “merely” statutes).
Father’s response?
“Good catch”
hawk
Tis_Bearself
Patron
My mother told a story about a priest blessing the congregation with one of those holy water sprinklers with a handle and a ball on the end. When the priest was waving the sprinkler, the ball part detached from the handle and flew in an arc into the congregation. I wondered if that sort of mishap is why so many priests now seem to use a frond of greenery to throw the holy water rather than the metal ball sprinkler.
Once when I was about 13, our church had the door open for ventilation during Mass on a hot day and a happy-looking stray dog came in through the open door, proceeded straight down the middle aisle of the church, went up into the sanctuary and laid down in front of the altar table and started licking himself. The priest was a slightly confused type who I think had been sent to our church to recover from some illness, and he didn’t know what to do so he just kind of ignored the dog (he wasn’t to the consecration part of the Mass yet, I seem to recall this was during the homily or the Gospel). An usher finally took hold of the dog and led it out. The same priest on another day somehow managed to spill hosts all over himself during Communion and just continued distributing Communion with hosts sticking on his front and shoulders.
About two weeks back, one of our local deacons was preaching on refugees and told us all that we should be “welcoming them with great hostility”. I was startled for 2 seconds until I realized that the elderly man had meant to say “hospitality”.
Once when I was about 13, our church had the door open for ventilation during Mass on a hot day and a happy-looking stray dog came in through the open door, proceeded straight down the middle aisle of the church, went up into the sanctuary and laid down in front of the altar table and started licking himself. The priest was a slightly confused type who I think had been sent to our church to recover from some illness, and he didn’t know what to do so he just kind of ignored the dog (he wasn’t to the consecration part of the Mass yet, I seem to recall this was during the homily or the Gospel). An usher finally took hold of the dog and led it out. The same priest on another day somehow managed to spill hosts all over himself during Communion and just continued distributing Communion with hosts sticking on his front and shoulders.
About two weeks back, one of our local deacons was preaching on refugees and told us all that we should be “welcoming them with great hostility”. I was startled for 2 seconds until I realized that the elderly man had meant to say “hospitality”.
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Maximilian75
Guest
Stories like that with the Eucharist just make me cringe…
Another good one- Not at Mass, though…
I was checking the size of the luna (holder for the Blessed Sacrament within a Monstrance) , and pressed an unconsecrated host into it. The host stuck in, way too snug- So I had to break up and pull out this unconsecrated wafer from a luna… It felt really weird.
Another good one- Not at Mass, though…
I was checking the size of the luna (holder for the Blessed Sacrament within a Monstrance) , and pressed an unconsecrated host into it. The host stuck in, way too snug- So I had to break up and pull out this unconsecrated wafer from a luna… It felt really weird.
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Loud-living-dogma
Guest
Aspergillum is the word y’all don’t seem to know. “Liturgical implement used to sprinkle holy water”.
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Maximilian75
Guest
There are lots of good, obsure liturgical words like that… 
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