This is a completely true story that happened to me and my family last winter.
A couple weeks ago my wife mentioned to me that we would be going to mass this Sunday, something we don’t do every week. In retrospect I must confess that I may not have given this discussion my full attention, but I do remember, “something something kids, something something candles” and figured that this was one of those weeks where all the kids come up to the altar and light candles or sing a song or something along those lines.
So Sunday comes and my wife is frantically trying to get everybody showered, dressed and ready for mass, and as we get closer to the starting time she is getting more and more agitated. Being the thoughtful, helpful husband that I am, my main contribution is to make sure I am ready and to occasionally make a comment along the lines of, “it’s not the end of the world if we are a few minutes late.” Hard as it may be to believe, my helpful comments did not seem to ease her stress levels. At the last second I threw on a sports coat.
So we get out the door with 5 minutes to spare, make the short drive and arrive pretty much right as mass is supposed to begin. My wife is half-running across the parking lot and urging the kids on. For my part, I am holding up my watch to show her that we are actually fine on time, which is again earning me some very un-church-parking-lot looks. I am a little confused because this is really pretty darn good for us to be there right on time, and I can’t understand why my wife is so worked up.
We walk into the church and the first thing I notice is my wife’s parents standing just inside the door looking very anxious and upon seeing us they say, “thank goodness you’re here.” I notice that the priest and altar boys look relieved to see us too. This is my first clue that I may have missed a detail or two.
The priest steps back and guides me and my family into the space between the altar boys and him, shakes my hand, leans close to me and says, “when we get to the altar you go left.” Then he claps me on the shoulder and says, “ok, everybody ready. Let’s go.” The organ music swells, and we begin walking down the aisle of the church. In the processional, with the priest and altar boys, and everybody in the pews watching us.
In 30 seconds I went from a guy who wasn’t particularly worried about being late for mass and slipping in the back, to walking down the aisle with the priest and my whole family, and we are heading for the altar.
And I have no idea why this is happening to us or what we are supposed to do. But I know one thing for sure. When we get to the altar, go left.
So we’re walking down the aisle, and everybody is looking at us, and I’m feeling pretty good about the decision to wear a sports coat, but other than that I am totally clueless about my circumstances and starting to experience that out of body, “this is just a dream feeling.”
And then it hits me, candles. "Something something candles." We will probably light some candles. Ok, that sounds easy enough.
At this point I should probably tell you that I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools from grade school through college, was an altar boy, the whole deal. None of that seemed to be helping, as we got closer to the front of the church I was still trying to figure out why we were there.
We get to the front of the church and the priest goes right and we go left, and the music is playing and even more than walking down the aisle, we are now on the altar and the whole church can see us.
And then I see them. The Advent candles. “Something something candles....”
We are here to light the Advent candles!
I glance around and quickly spot a long handled lighter that is clearly there for me. I pick it up and with a quick look at my wife to make sure I’m doing the right thing start to light the Advent candles.
There are four Advent candles, three purple and one pink. One is lit each week during the Advent season, in a specific order for reasons I’m still not clear on. Not being sure what to do, I went ahead and lit all the purple candles.
At this point the crowd began to murmur and as I looked up I could see my mother and father-in-law shaking their heads and waving their hands at me. It was pretty clear I had done something wrong, but I really didn’t know what it was. This is not an unfamiliar emotion for me. From the crowd I hear my mother-in-law whisper quite loudly, "the pink one, the pink one." So I lit the pink candle.
But this did not stop the murmuring from the church, and in fact it seemed to grow louder. I looked from my mother-in-law to my wife both of whom seemed to be re-thinking my place in the family, and I heard, "lose a purple candle."
So I leaned forward and blew out one of the purple candles, which seemed to please the crowd and my in-laws who were now looking more than a little embarrassed. I looked out into the church and the thought running through my mind was, “Well the good news is that not too many people know us here….”
And it is at this exact moment that I hear the priest say, “we’d like to thank the Riley family for lighting the Advent candles for us today.”
At least I was wearing a sports coat….
A couple weeks ago my wife mentioned to me that we would be going to mass this Sunday, something we don’t do every week. In retrospect I must confess that I may not have given this discussion my full attention, but I do remember, “something something kids, something something candles” and figured that this was one of those weeks where all the kids come up to the altar and light candles or sing a song or something along those lines.
So Sunday comes and my wife is frantically trying to get everybody showered, dressed and ready for mass, and as we get closer to the starting time she is getting more and more agitated. Being the thoughtful, helpful husband that I am, my main contribution is to make sure I am ready and to occasionally make a comment along the lines of, “it’s not the end of the world if we are a few minutes late.” Hard as it may be to believe, my helpful comments did not seem to ease her stress levels. At the last second I threw on a sports coat.
So we get out the door with 5 minutes to spare, make the short drive and arrive pretty much right as mass is supposed to begin. My wife is half-running across the parking lot and urging the kids on. For my part, I am holding up my watch to show her that we are actually fine on time, which is again earning me some very un-church-parking-lot looks. I am a little confused because this is really pretty darn good for us to be there right on time, and I can’t understand why my wife is so worked up.
We walk into the church and the first thing I notice is my wife’s parents standing just inside the door looking very anxious and upon seeing us they say, “thank goodness you’re here.” I notice that the priest and altar boys look relieved to see us too. This is my first clue that I may have missed a detail or two.
The priest steps back and guides me and my family into the space between the altar boys and him, shakes my hand, leans close to me and says, “when we get to the altar you go left.” Then he claps me on the shoulder and says, “ok, everybody ready. Let’s go.” The organ music swells, and we begin walking down the aisle of the church. In the processional, with the priest and altar boys, and everybody in the pews watching us.
In 30 seconds I went from a guy who wasn’t particularly worried about being late for mass and slipping in the back, to walking down the aisle with the priest and my whole family, and we are heading for the altar.
And I have no idea why this is happening to us or what we are supposed to do. But I know one thing for sure. When we get to the altar, go left.
So we’re walking down the aisle, and everybody is looking at us, and I’m feeling pretty good about the decision to wear a sports coat, but other than that I am totally clueless about my circumstances and starting to experience that out of body, “this is just a dream feeling.”
And then it hits me, candles. "Something something candles." We will probably light some candles. Ok, that sounds easy enough.
At this point I should probably tell you that I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools from grade school through college, was an altar boy, the whole deal. None of that seemed to be helping, as we got closer to the front of the church I was still trying to figure out why we were there.
We get to the front of the church and the priest goes right and we go left, and the music is playing and even more than walking down the aisle, we are now on the altar and the whole church can see us.
We are here to light the Advent candles!
I glance around and quickly spot a long handled lighter that is clearly there for me. I pick it up and with a quick look at my wife to make sure I’m doing the right thing start to light the Advent candles.
There are four Advent candles, three purple and one pink. One is lit each week during the Advent season, in a specific order for reasons I’m still not clear on. Not being sure what to do, I went ahead and lit all the purple candles.
At this point the crowd began to murmur and as I looked up I could see my mother and father-in-law shaking their heads and waving their hands at me. It was pretty clear I had done something wrong, but I really didn’t know what it was. This is not an unfamiliar emotion for me. From the crowd I hear my mother-in-law whisper quite loudly, "the pink one, the pink one." So I lit the pink candle.
But this did not stop the murmuring from the church, and in fact it seemed to grow louder. I looked from my mother-in-law to my wife both of whom seemed to be re-thinking my place in the family, and I heard, "lose a purple candle."
So I leaned forward and blew out one of the purple candles, which seemed to please the crowd and my in-laws who were now looking more than a little embarrassed. I looked out into the church and the thought running through my mind was, “Well the good news is that not too many people know us here….”
And it is at this exact moment that I hear the priest say, “we’d like to thank the Riley family for lighting the Advent candles for us today.”
At least I was wearing a sports coat….
Oh man, I wish I could have witnessed this fine moment.
Now, think back to that exact moment when your wife walked you through what was going to happen and probably gave you step by step instructions. You know, those brief but very significant moments that we tune out when our spouse is talking to us or telling us something that would be vitally important somewhere in the future. Those brief moments that are measured in years of "that look" from the spouse if we fail or forget. It happens to us all.
I imagine they have not asked you to do anything else at the Church since that incident?
Posted by: Thumbless | June 03, 2008 at 12:55 AM
Shame on you! The greatest crime ever....not listening! You should've been grounded for the rest of the year and the next!
I tell ya!.....there's a reason why I don't have a spouse! Your wife is an angel 'coz if she were anything like me you'd never live it down!!! Does your guilty conscience go into overdrive when you have to reprimand somebody at work for not listening? But what really happened afterwards? What did your kids say? They did do as you've always told them to....they listened. Or was it Mom? But that's another story huh?
This is so funny....I would've laughed so hard......in the church....at you!
Posted by: Stanhope | June 03, 2008 at 11:20 AM
that has got to be the funniest thing I've read in a long time...it felt like I was experiencing it in slow motion as you were describing it too...laughing out loud the whole way...
Posted by: Jon Sawyer | June 03, 2008 at 05:30 PM