Awesome share, ty for the laughs!!! My sibs n I played church too, I made communion with peantubutter and Quick mixed together n chilled them. Tasted much better than the church wafers, lol. I am sure my mother would've decried "blasphemy" if she knew we did that lol. Of course my older bro was the priest. One of my little bros was the greeter/handed out bulletins that we made up lolThe Mass is a very ritualistic, rote service. They stick to the same formula at every one. The priest will utter a few phrases and the congregation replies in the same rote manner. Very boring and lifeless service. A lot of Catholics, especially younger ones become “lapsed” Catholics and stop going to Mass because of the utter repetitiveness of it. I was one of them. Unfortunately, it turns off a lot of people from having anything to do with being a Christian and would rather pursue worldly things. Sure, they may still go to an Easter or Christmas service just to keep that connection with God intact, but overall, all interest gets lost in trying to follow Christ. Even the idea of a future in Heaven is not that exciting, thinking that our time there would be one long, boring Catholic mass. Why get enthused about that?
I can remember as a kid getting in trouble with my parents - strict Catholics - when I was attending Catholic grade school, about the boringness of the service. We were given these handouts in class with animated depictions displaying different parts of the mass in them. I think they were propaganda pieces (my take on it) designed for the children and the parents to see once we took them home about how wonderful the Mass was and how privileged we Catholics were to take part in it. Well, I had drawn balloons above the depictions of the priest doing the Mass and put my own words into the balloons to convey my thoughts about the service: “Okay people, now it is time to sit, kneel, stand, sit, kneel, stand for the next hour”; “Join with me as we pray in Latin” ( back when they were still using Latin in the Mass) and other nonsensical captions to convey my thoughts on the rote service. Needless to say, when my parents saw that, they were not amused.
We used to as kids, when we lived in Long Beach, CA, took trips down to San Diego to visit my grandmother and cousins, maybe a few times a year. I don't remember doing this, but both my mother and youngest sister recalled to me a couple of years ago while we were reminiscing about the “olden” times, that on one of those trips, I had a rolled up pack of Necco wafers and I was pretending that they were communion wafers. I would pass them out, but before I gave one away to my four other siblings, I would say the priest's words “The Body of Christ”, and they would have to say “Amen” - just like in a Catholic mass, before they received one. The kids were tickled, I guess ( again I don't remember that episode) but obviously my dad was infuriated that I was mimicking one of the phases of the Mass. No brownie points that day with him.
One last recollection of those Catholic grade school years. I was doing the “altar boy” thing for about a year, that would allow me to get out of class for about an hour and assist the priest in doing the daily Mass. I know, now the altar boy term sounds like something depicted in old movies about vestal virgins being used to appease the wrath of angry gods and make life cool again for the local citizenry. “Time to toss in the fire an altar boy!”.
We had a very stern head priest at our parish church and school. Always seemed to have a scowl on his face. An occasional smile that would visit his face seemed so out of place. I was doing the altar boy thing with him one day when our class came over for a daily mass. It was time to assist him for the Eucharist service. My responsibility during this sacrament was to hold the golden platen (I think it was called) under the recipient's chin, in case the wafer fell out of the priest's hand or it dropped from the receiver's mouth. Anyway, my “girlfriend” was next to receive one - we were always teasing each other and clowning around with each other - so when the time came for her to receive the “host”, I hit her Adam's Apple with the platen. she slightly laughed and then I suddenly remembered which priest I was standing next to - Father Stern. I quickly shot a glance at his face and he was burning holes through me with his glare. I quickly found myself on the receiving end of the altar boy unemployment line! At least he waited until the service was over to dole out his punishment. Now THAT recollection, I will never forget. It still cracks me up though because I was always pranking that girl and loving it. She did too.