Altar Boying At St. Joe's

Yesterday the cardinals of the Catholic Church elected the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, as the new pope, Francis I. He becomes just the seventh pope during my lifetime. In honor of the this momentous occasion, it seems only fitting that I should take this opportunity to share with you reflections of my glory days as an altar boy at St. Joseph's School in Libertyville, Illinois. Yes, the same St. Joe's whose basketball team I played on and described here in my March 30, 2012 post (Hoop Dreams At St. Joe's). Actually, I am going to take the lazy way out, hoping that Pope Frank won't look upon my decision as a sign of disrespect.

I've already established in my November 21, 2012 post (Butter) that it is within the house rules to plagiarize myself, so that is my game plan today. In late summer 2005, about forty-five of my St. Joe classmates (Class of 1961) started sending group e-mails to each other, recounting memories of the old days, including anecdotes about lay teachers and the nuns, parish priests, church ceremonies, fellow schoolmates, and various funny things that happened around St. Joe's. A bunch of old pictures (none including me) were also transmitted. At first I wasn't going to write anything, but after enjoying my classmates' stories for a couple of weeks I decided to toss in my two cents' worth regarding altar boy memories, as that topic had barely been broached. A slightly edited version of my e-mail to my classmates dated September 9, 2005 appears below. Afterwards, several of them responded by adding an altar boy story of their own. My recollections give you an idea of what life was like as an altar boy in the pre-Vatican II days. Although there are a couple of examples of adults treating little kids rather badly (but certainly not criminally), most of it is on the light side. There is also a story involving my mom, Pook, which you might find humorous.

In case you are wondering, after two or three months of reuniting virtually via group e-mails, we did manage to congregate for a real class reunion in Libertyville in October 2005. It was something like Happy Days revisited.

May the Lord be with you.

***

Hello Everyone,

Thanks, Judy, for making the extra effort to find me, and thanks, Karla, for your warm words of welcome. I have often thought about St. Joe's, and all of you, over the years. In fact, every time I see a film clip of Bill Mazerowski's home run for the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth inning of the 1960 World Series, I think about St. Joe's. Why, you may ask? When we were in 8th grade, we talked Sister Zita into letting us watch the World Series on television in our classroom. Back in those days, all the WS games were played in the afternoon. Our room was located on the upper level, i.e., the new addition. Sister Z needed help transporting some textbooks to one of the rooms on the lower level, and I volunteered. During the five minutes I was gone, Maz stroked his homer, probably one of the three or four most famous home runs in the history of baseball. If only ESPN would have been around then, I would not have had to wait several years before seeing a replay.

I have thoroughly enjoyed being copied on the e-mails that have gone back and forth, and the pictures have stirred the memory pot. I was just going to lie low and be a silent reader, but I noticed a theme of religion developing (e.g., May crowning, hymns, genuflecting on cue, and of course the nuns), and it brought back so many recollections of "altar boying" (as Karla put it the other day) that I thought I would chime in.

Getting Started: The rookie altar boys were the third graders, and we had to memorize all of the Latin from little red booklets before we could actually serve. Our tutors were the wily veterans of the fourth grade who showed us the ropes. The fourth graders enjoyed playing the role of the priest on the altar when we practiced inside the church. I suppose it took me a few weeks to memorize all the Latin from cover to cover, and then I was finally ready to serve at Mass. For my first Mass, I prayed very hard that my fourth grade mentor would show up on time. Before he arrived, my knees were knocking from nervousness. Come to think of it, they never did stop knocking! Anyway... what I didn't realize until Mass started was that, although I knew all the Latin, I did not know when to stop/pause, so that the priest could interject his part of the opening prayers. With apologies to any Latin purists out there, the prayers spoken by the server at the beginning of Mass sounded something like this: "Ad deum qui lae tifficat, uven tutum maeum, quia tuis deus, et fortituda mea, quare me repuliste et quarre tristis incedo, dum affliget me in amicus..." I rattled it off all at once, not having a clue what any of it meant, like a runaway train. The poor priest could not get a word in edgewise until I ran out of breath.

The Book & The Bells: The altar boys usually served in pairs. To start the Mass, the two of us headed onto the altar from the sacristy single file in front of the priest. Whoever went out first from the sacristy would end up being the bell ringer. The trailing server would have more to do, such as transfering the book from the "epistle side" to the "gospel side," but, alas, he would not get to ring the bells. Therefore, if you really wanted to be the bell ringer, there was a definite strategy employed before Mass, jockeying for position at the sacristy door without making it obvious to the priest. Once we had been servers for a year or so, it was actually fun to serve Mass without a partner. That way, you could have all the action to yourself. The greatest danger in serving alone was that after you transferred the book before the gospel you would forget to move over to the right side at the foot of the steps below the altar where the bells were. Then you would look foolish when you had to switch sides later to get to the bells. That happened to me at least once or twice. After transferring the book I genuflected in the center, then unfortunately knelt on the left side. Pretty soon I realized, "Oh #@&*, I'm on the wrong side! How am I going to get over to where the bells are without anyone noticing my goof?" Answer: You can't. Just take a deep breath, slither over to the bells and do your duty. If the nuns were there, you'd hear about it.

Confiteor Races: A few minutes into the Mass, the two altar boys would be on their knees and would bend forward at the waist as far down as they could go to recite the Confiteor in Latin. The Confiteor was, by far, the longest prayer we had to say. The idea was that the two servers were supposed to finish the prayer simultaneously, and then "unbend" (or in other words, "pop up") when done. One sacriligious thing we did was to race with each other to see who could say the Confiteor the fastest; whoever popped up first was the winner. Sometimes we cheated by leaving out a few words or phrases. Who would ever know?

The Good Sisters: There is no question that the best altar boy gigs were the weddings and the funerals, because we would make tips. There was one undertaker in town who was particularly generous, but I can't recall his name. Unfortunately there were not a whole lot of those money-making opportunities. As I recall, St. Joe's had three week-day morning Masses, at 6:30, 7:15 and 8:00, and the altar boys were assigned to serve the same Mass time for the entire week. You might think that getting stuck with the 6:30 Mass was the pits, but I always thought the worst assignment was the 7:15 Mass. That is the Mass the good nuns attended, and they sat right in the front. Some of the nuns were really cool. (I had a crush on our beautiful fourth grade teacher, Sister Janetina, as did most of the other guys in the room.) But the sterner ones had the uncanny ability to follow the Mass in their missals, pray the rosary, and keep a watchful eye on the altar boys, all at the same time. Quite a trifecta! You all probably recall that people knelt at an altar rail to receive communion, and the altar boys' job was to hold a patten (a circular metal plate at the end of a short wooden handle) under the chin of each communion recipient so that if the host fell the server would catch it on the patten. It wasn't bad enough that the 7:15 servers were under the scrutiny of several nuns; we also had to try to figure out how to get the doggone patten under their chins, which were almost totally encased in their habits. There were two other problems (minor by comparison) encountered at communion time. First, it was tough not to giggle when the nun who was your teacher stuck out her tongue to take the host. Second, the servers had to walk backwards along the communion rail while the priest moved from left to right, and all decorum was lost if your heels caught on your too-long cassock, sending you flying.

Sister Clotilde: This happened when we were in fourth or fifth grade, as I was in the sacristy taking off my cassock and surplice after serving a 7:15 Mass. Sister Clotilde, who was in charge of the altar boys and who (I think) was also the principal, came back there to see me. I foolishly thought she was going to compliment me on my serving, as my scheduled partner was a no-show that day and I didn't think I had made any major screw-ups. Instead, she told me that she had been observing me for a few days, and if I didn't get my folded hands up right under my chin during Mass, she was going to give me the heave-ho off the altar boy squad. I was totally crushed, but you can bet I made it a point to get my hands up there from then on. I was mostly afraid of what my Dad would say to me if I got the boot. I did not want to find out.

Father Loughry: This is really the only other negative... One week day, probably in about fifth grade, I was serving Mass by myself for Father Loughry, the crotchety old pastor. When he got to the offertory, he turned around and told me to go back into the sacristy and get him "the paper." I couldn't guess why he needed a newspaper in the middle of Mass, but I dutifully went into the sacristy to look for the paper. There was none to be found, so I timidly went back onto the altar to give him the bad news. He stormed down the altar stairs, went into the sacristy, and came back with a little piece of scratch paper which I hadn't seen, and on which apparently was written the name of a deceased parishioner for whom the Mass was being offered. When he made eye contact with me, he literally called me stupid. When I got home from school I told my Mom about it. My mother revered the priests and nuns, but when she heard what happened she reacted totally out of character. She called Father Loughry and chewed him out over the phone. Not bad for a little lady who was about 4 feet 10 and weighed about 90 pounds. To show Father Loughry had a heart after all, though, there is a post-script to my relationship with him, and ironically it has to do with a real newspaper. A few months after the "paper" incident I was again serving Mass for Father L on an extremely cold and snowy Saturday morning. After Mass he gave me a quarter and asked me to run over to the drugstore on Milwaukee Avenue to buy him the Chicago Tribune. I got the Trib, brought it to the rectory and handed over the paper and the fifteen cents change to the housekeeper. About thirty minutes later, Father Loughry called my house to tell me he had intended for me to keep the change, and that the next time I was near St. Joe's I should stop by to pick it up.

Father Burnikel: I've got to finish on a high note. My favorite part about being an altar boy was getting to serve for Father Burnikel, the young assistant pastor. What a great guy. It was customary that after Mass the altar boys would kneel down and the priest would give them his blessing. When Monsignor Koenig was the celebrant, you really felt like you were almost in the presence of God, as he blessed you and then laid his hand on your shoulder very reverently. On the other hand, after Father Burnikel blessed you, it would not be unlike him to muss up your hair or push you over with a laugh. He frequently had us cracking up at his jokes in the sacristy. This could be a problem when you were going for the "solemn look" on the altar. One time (I believe it was) Mark Morrison and I were about to serve Father B's Mass. Mark headed out the sacristy door onto the altar, and just as I was following, Father B told me to "sic 'em." I could not help but laugh out loud in plain view of the congregation. Thankfully, it was not a 7:15 weekday Mass, so you know who wasn't there. Thus, I lived to tell the tale.

Well, I guess I got carried away. I just returned from my high school reunion, so I must be in the "remembrance mode." If you read this far, thanks for sticking with it.

My best to you all.

Sincerely,

John P