Notes in haste – An Irish Pastor writes is a new monthly series detailing the busy lives of Irish parish priests
We ran out of hosts at Midnight Mass. Any priest in Ireland will understand what that would feel like. And it can happen so easily. We all know that the Christmas Eve Mass is about the only Mass all year guaranteed to pack the church — full of young couples and their little ones, whom we will not see again for 12 months.
Of course we didn’t actually run out of hosts at Midnight Mass. For one thing, it wasn’t really Midnight Mass. It was certainly dark enough to call it a night Mass, but it started at 6pm. We avoided having to use the dire Vigil Mass readings by gearing everything for the children, so child-friendly readings and prayers were substituted (just don’t tell Rome).
Some enterprising sacristy people anticipated the problem — not before Mass began unfortunately when we could have consecrated more hosts, but during Communion they realised we would be short. So they began improvising early, to make our supply go further. The first victim was the host we keep for exposition, that divided nicely into a dozen parts. Then someone hit on the idea of dividing up the coeliac hosts (which used to be called gluten-free, now they’re called low-gluten, though we’re not sure they’re any different). The last few to come for Communion received about one sixteenth of a low-gluten host — not exactly a lavish sharing in the eucharistic banquet, but at least no one was turned away. Those who received these hosts come so rarely, they may well think this measly offering is the norm now. Numerous notes were of course made for next year’s Christmas Eve Mass (though we also made notes last year — and promptly lost them!)
I had two weddings in December. It seems to be becoming the time for weddings – when the friends of those marrying are home for the Christmas from foreign parts. No one planning a December wedding seems to remember how atrocious the weather can be at this time of year, or how short the day is; party planning trumps all.
I only had to actually ‘do’ one of the two weddings, on the other occasion I was ‘flower-potting’ (which. as priests know, involves looking pretty while concelebrating). Flowerpotting at a wedding can be harder on the blood pressure than actually taking the lead. You see all sorts of things that might otherwise escape your notice — the photographer scaling the altar rails for a better shot, the music more suited to the foyer in the hotel than the church — and those Wedding Mass readings! Most couples plead that they heard them proclaimed at some other wedding, but the Word of God they are not. The recent wedding readings seemed to be composed by Mary Oliver and given to St Paul to insert into his Letter, lots of guff about communication and sensitivity that didn’t seem any bit Pauline. The clue to what was to follow was clearly indicated at the start: “A Reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Romans”, as noted in the Mass booklet. If that was what he really wrote in his first letter to the Romans, I’d hate to see what he had descended into by the time he wrote to them again!
Got no stipend for flowerpotting either, but at least I was spared from going to the reception, which was the ‘joy’ of the priest leading the event. He reported ooddles of speeches while waiting for food — and he is probably waiting for his stipend too. Weddings are taxing in every way, whether one is running the show or sitting pretty — but at least there are not many to endure now. The couples who used to break our hearts are venting their spleen on poor secular presiders now.
Another thing I learned this Christmas: never let an altar server carry the statue of the Baby Jesus for any length of time! Servers can be easily distracted, and poor Baby Jesus can be the victim. In a nearby church, the server took to rotating the poor baby’s (plaster) leg during a prolonged crib-blessing ceremony— until the thing snapped off! Oh dear. The key theological question followed: does super-sticky glue work on plaster? Better never to have snapped it off at all, was the general consensus!
Being responsible for multiple churches is hard on the priest in rural Ireland; I cover three parishes, with a good few more churches than that, all with a weekend Mass, so far (I have some help to cover all these at present). Not only is there massive mileage involved (and potholes to be avoided if one wants to keep one’s tyres), life seems to involve speeding between churches attended by few enough people. In addition, there are cultural differences to contend with. When a priest had one parish to deal with, its culture was relatively easy to understand and remember, as long as one had an ability never to forget what made a community unique.
I am sure some rural priests will think it a joy to only have three parishes to cover, since in some parts guys cover many more. We know numbers are small, and many rural parishes have many more animals, and rocks, than humans, but these humans are very keen to hold on to the church buildings they have paid for and built and maintained over the years, so older priests service smaller congregations of largely people older than themselves: not quite the ad for vocations we would wish to put out there.
The breaking point is coming towards us rapidly, but I am not sure there is a bishop in Ireland willing to take the flack involved in church closures — or failing that, to prepare lay people for parish leadership, including presiding at Sunday liturgies and other ceremonies including baptisms, marriages and funerals, and risk the wrath of Rome. Much better, it seems, to form bigger and bigger joint-parish areas, with many church buildings included, and leave priests carry the burden — till we drop?
What I want to know is: who hides all the stuff we need in the church? In the past, when a priest was responsible for just one church, or two at the most, remembering where vital stuff was stored was much easier (things like the Advent wreath and candles, the grains of incense for the paschal candle, the star for the crib, that sort of thing.) Now priests have multiple churches, and no one remembers a thing.
In our case, it was the three purple and one pink Advent candles that went walk-about. We found the wreath structure hidden in a corner of the crib, but those lovely imposing candles bought last year, which should last a decade, had disappeared. And no, we were not going to buy new ones. In the event, we took the new candles from Church B and hatcheted them in two, one set for Church A and one for Church B. Then, on Christmas Eve, we found the original set hidden under the baby Jesus in the manger. We might be able to use them next year in Church C…. if we remember……