A Former Alter-boys Perspective on Paying Attention to Pontifications (and Other Relics): A Primer on Knowing Your Place in the Pecking Order and Finding Your Path Around it.

Author modeling alter-boy apparel
around the time of anti-protestant warning. 
Photo by authors mother. 

When the Pope (or his cardinal, bishop, priest, celibate deacon, brother, monk, married deacon, nun, or lay catholic teacher) speaks – you listen, in that order.   Otherwise, you suffer the consequences of a staunch verbal warning, followed up by some stronger reminders – if the inattention continues.  That was the primary lesson I learned from my years of going to Mass and attending Catholic School.  One of my introductions to this indoctrination on the importance of paying attention to holy voices from on high, came from the words of Father Herman, who was celebrating the Mass one early morning when I was a fourth-grade altar-boy in-training at Our Lady of Sorrows (OLS) Catholic Church. 

Father Herman interrupted the beginning of his recitation of the Eucharistic Prayer.  That Prayer is the part of the Mass where the Priest mysteriously transformed the common bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, or Transubstantiation for short, through muttering a series of prayers using the holy powers invested in him by the Bishop, who got his superior holy powers direct from the Pope, who got his Papally Infallible powers direct from Jesus.  He walked over to me and reminded me – in a somewhat softer, but clearer sterner tone then what he had previously been praying with –  “kneel down you dirty protestant!” 

The rebuke came when I forgot to take my place on the kneeler in front of me and instead remained standing while my mind drifted off – while I stared at the cracks in the concrete block walls of the OLS school gym (where the Mass was being held, because the original white brick church had to be torn down because it no longer met the needs of the parishioners and apparently was falling down as well) wondering what the hell all the mumbling was about.  

Later I learned through some laity gossip that the mumbling coming out of Father Herman’s mouth, may have been a result of the hangovers he often prayed through due to his previous night’s celebration with intoxicating spirits, rather than any mystical powers passed down from the hands of the Holiest of Fathers through the ages.  But then again, maybe Father Herman was simply pointing out what appeared to be a sign of my future papal skepticism.  Or maybe he was concerned whether I did a good job cleansing the sins and inequities from his dirty hands, earlier when I poured holy water over them so he could wash up before he served Communion.  Or maybe he just wanted to make sure I really paid attention when he would be placing the Transubstantiated unleavened white circular bread wafers (with his hopefully cleansed hands) onto the soon to be waiting waging tongues of the eligible faithful. 

My full attention would be needed to catch any wayward crumbs, or heaven forbit a whole host of Jesus’s flesh, that missed its intended target of the protruding fleshy glistening pink or sometimes off white center sweet- spot of the tongue, and veered off course from the sanctified path down and through the recipient’s dark digestive track, and instead was diverted by the evil power of gravity towards the dirty OLS gym floor where Mass was being held.  I was to accomplish this task by holding a gold colored communion crumb catcher (paten-on-a-stick) below the communicants stuck out tongue and drooping chin.  Then I prayed I wouldn’t accidently strike the windpipe below the tongue in the process of trying to intercept any of the falling Savior’s flesh before it hit the ground.  Sacred tasks such as those, meant there was no time for daydreaming for a young altar-boy in-training. 

After this early indoctrination to the ins and outs, and the ups and downs of the core of the Catholic Mass, I spend a few decades hanging out down in the bleacher-like seats of real Catholic Church’s that had not yet been torn down, mostly staring at walls, sacred statues or icons, or other distractions while sporadically attending these Masses and attempting my best to participate with the other apparently faithful masses.  About a decade or so ago I had had enough and decided to give up my practice of a religion that relies mostly on blind faith in mysterious practices and mythical tales whose belief in, was enforced by various forms of coercion, in exchange for a practice that seemed to work better for me, sacking-religion. 

Brick path constructed
 in authors yard.

The past year, I found a relic from those earlier times spent learning lessons in the OLS gym, while looking for bricks to use, to build me a path, to keep me on track, and off the grass, in the yard where I now spend much of my time trying to learn more meaningful lessons on how to live a whole-ier life.  I found the reminder in a pile of old bricks that my real perhaps not-so-holy father had accumulated over the years for construction projects in his own yard.  It was one of the old white bricks he salvaged from Our Lady of Sorrows old church when it was torn down many years ago. 

Closeup of brick amalgamated step with
white cornerstone from old church.

I salvaged this brick along with some others my Dad had collected from the torn down A&W drive-in restaurant in the town where I grew up.  The A&W was another place the townsfolk used to gather to seek nourishment.  It was a place where as long as you had money, you weren’t turned away for any of your personal beliefs, disbelieves, or practices.  It also had a much larger variety of tastier choices offered on the menu, and offered more enticing rewards in this life in it's advertising.  I sorted through the bricks and began creating a pattern for the stepping stone brick path by combining the white OLS brick, with the red bricks from the A&W, along with some gray ones I found strewn under the lilac bushes in my yard by the previous occupants. 

I washed the dirt from the bricks with water from the hose, and then strategically cemented the matrix of bricks into place in the holes I had dug out of the lawn to form each stepping stone.  The single white remnant brick, tinted green from the moss that drank the moisture that collected in the pores of the old sandstone like brick, was located in the corner of the stepping stone, located in the middle of my new multi-colored brick, multi-stepped path.  Maybe, that single white brick, from the wall, of the old OLS Church, would help guide me to the right course, until it was time once again, to find a new path.  Or maybe the thought of root beer hitting the sweet spot of my tongue, and cursing through my veins, would give me a renewed faith in life.     

Closeup of just another white brick from the wall.

The old white brick brought back another memory for me as well, that of my younger brother chasing me around the yard trying to hit me with a different  white brick salvaged from the same old OLS church, and dole out some likely deserved stoning (or bricking in this case) for provoking him with one of my sins.  Fortunately, I believe, the threat of meeting my maker earlier than expected, inspired me to outrun my brick bearing younger brother.  But the lessons from this Cain and Able like tale regarding another brick from the wall of the old OLS church will have to be told another time.