Catholic Light

O my goodness! This isn’t a concert. It's a service.

Well what did I expect? This is Riverside Church. Just because it’s non-denominational doesn't mean it’s non-religious.

Why did I think there would be only Christmas music? There is a choir singing, after all. Of course there would be a service. It’s Sunday.

I’m not good at services. I’ll just sit here and pretend to sing along.

At least I won’t have to kneel.

I was always so bad at kneeling. I remember trying to do a fake kneel at the daily Masses held for the children of St. Albert the Great parish school at 7:30 AM. This was a whole hour before school actually began. The good kids attended it.

I didn't want to go because I hated kneeling almost as much as I hated getting up early, but Mama wanted me to be one of the good kids.

We would miss most mornings because she didn’t like getting up an hour early any more than I did. But she would point out Mrs. Walters, who went to Mass every morning at 6:00 AM. Now she was a good woman. So devoted.

I never asked who gave her kids breakfast. Or got them up like my Mama did for me.

I would have hated getting up in an empty house so Mama could be good like Mrs. Walters and go to 6:00 AM Mass. Her kids were probably so good they got themselves up and begged to go with her.

I liked our mornings with Dave Garroway and his chimp, J. Fred Muggs. We watched the Today show as Mama offered me food I could barely touch because it was too early and the very sight of it made me feel sick.  I wished she would pack it up to save for recess time when I would be starving.  I would end up buying pretzel sticks and candy from the little store Sister Angela of the Sacred Heart ran in the basement of our school. All the profits went to the missions so it was OK.

I wonder why that never occurred to Mama? I guess it was too early for her to think about recess time while she was preparing both my breakfast and my lunch. She never did think too clearly early in the morning.

“I have some nice salami for your sandwich,” she would say.

“Now which is it you like? Mustard or ketchup?”

“Plain, Mama, I like salami sandwiches plain, with nothing on them.”

“Nobody likes it plain,” she would answer, so I would plead, “Ok, put mustard on it, just don't put ketchup on salami. I hate ketchup on salami.”

Maybe I said it too often because my salami sandwiches always had ketchup on them. Do you know how hard it is to wipe ketchup off a slice of Wonder Bread?

But she went on making breakfasts I could rarely stomach, and sandwiches I had to clean off while saying if we were really good we would be at Mass, not watching Dave Garroway and his chimp.

But four or five times a month we would make it to 7:30 AM Mass. I had to sit with my class but Mama always assured me she would be in Church in the back.  I wondered since she didn’t have her good clothes or any make up on. Mama thought she was fat, so she really didn't want to be seen in old clothes and no makeup.

I also wondered if skinny old Mrs. Walters had worn makeup at the earlier service. She was probably too good for make up. And too thin. Makeup wouldn't have helped her anyway. She wasn’t pretty like my Mama.

Anyway, during Mass I always felt like I was going to be sick. So I would half kneel, half sit, a posture strictly forbidden by the Sisters of Charity, the nuns who were our teachers. If I was careful and not do it all the time, I could get away with it. Completely sitting back on the pew would have been noticed in a minute. But half sitting half kneeling could be negotiated a bit better. When I did get noticed one of the Sisters would click at me to kneel up which would get my classmates giggling. And that would, of course, be all my fault.

Most nuns carried a wooden gadget made with a spring mechanism that would make a loud, intimidating (to Catholic kids) clicking noise.  In art class, Sister Mary Louise even taught us how to make our own. All you needed was a couple of popsicle sticks, an empty spool of thread and a rubber band. We then had our own clickers to use on our brothers and sisters, if you had them.

Listening to the sounds of the nuns clicking and my classmates giggling, I would long to pass out to demonstrate just how bad I felt. The pitiful thump of my body would drown out the sound of the clickers. It would have been so dramatic.

Once I did actually faint, but Sister Bernadette Marie, the Principal of our school, seriously yelled at me after Mass for interrupting the Service and making a scene.

“You should have eaten something,“ She hissed.

“ But food makes me sick so early in the morning.”

“ Offer it up.”

“Aren’t I supposed to go to Communion?”

“ Don't go to Communion. Just let everyone in your pew crawl over you if you have such a sensitive stomach.” 

Boy, I hated being crawled over. So I half sat/half knelt and didn’t throw up and could go to Communion and not be crawled over by my smirky classmates while the nuns continued to click at me.

I would look for Mama again after Mass just to make sure she hadn’t gone home.  She would wave as she headed to our car. She probably had loads of fun all day while was in school. I was sure of it. I was envious and that was a sin too.

I knew I wasn’t properly religious. Somehow I thought there was an element to being good that was missing in me.

I could see that nobody in my family was good at being religious either. We seemed to lack enthusiasm. Guilt we had, but not enough to make us become recognizably good. Most times my family went to late Mass on Sundays. Nowadays, there’s a catch phrase, Catholic light, which certainly would have described us.

Good Catholics went to the High Mass at 9:00 AM and knelt upright for the whole two hour service and carried the tunes of all the songs they knew perfectly by heart and didn’t throw up and were all around religiously good.

They said the Family Rosary in the evenings before dinner and organized fairs and invited the priest over for dinner.

We just couldn't seem to pull it off. Mama, thinking she was fat, would be embarrassed in front of all the good thin ladies like Mrs. Walters who were always working behind the scenes at the Parish House, planning fairs and clothing drives.

Besides, she didn't feel she had organizational abilities. And Daddy worked long, hard days and wanted to have his dinner as soon as he came home, not wait until we prayed the Family Rosary.

Nobody even mentioned inviting a priest to dinner. We could never have handled that.

Then there was the fact that Daddy was Italian and shy because he only went to school up to the eighth grade.  Her being fat and his being Italian somehow kept us from doing a lot of things.

We did always attend Sunday Mass together as a family. We picked up Grandma, Grandpa and my cousin Gerry on our way to Church. Sunday was Daddy’s only day to sleep in, so we never made it to the good Sunday Mass, which began at 9:00AM and lasted until 11:00AM. The next Mass wasn’t until 11:30 and the one after that was a really sinful 12:45 PM.

Those late Masses were for people like us who only managed to get there late and sneak in the back. Daddy would drop us off and go park the car, a euphemism for getting in even later. I could tell when he arrived because he would always sneeze when he entered the church. He had very distinctive sneeze.

My son Tony has inherited that sneeze. I tell him I cherish his sneeze. It’s kind of a kachung sound like a cash register opening. Not a good metaphor, I suppose.

Anyway, Mass at 11:30 at St Albert’s was a makeshift affair, no choir - they were off somewhere eating donuts or pancakes in the church hall where the good Catholics gathered after High Mass while a scratchy record of Perry Como singing Ave Maria played for us shirkers. The sermon was short, thank God, and unbelievably dull.  

This Mass didn't merit the Pastor or even his assistant. They had been all dolled up for High Mass so the third priest who was so boring the ladies didn't even flirt with him said the late Masses. I think he had to say both of the late ones. A punishment for not being charming I guess. 

I sat between Mama and Grandma, where I became very good at untangling Rosaries. I don't know what my cousin Gerry did during Mass. She sat between Mama and Grandpa. Grandma wouldn’t sit next to Grandpa because she was always mad at him and Daddy stood happily, I supposed, in the back with the other fathers who had managed to loll about parking their cars far, far back in the church parking lot.

Gerry and I were not allowed to sit next to each other because we would talk during Mass. Only a Venial Sin, but bad enough to confess.  

I liked certain parts of the Mass. The Kyrie Eleison sounded good and was fun to say. The Gloria was nice too.  I especially liked the Latin responses. “Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo. Oremus.” The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Let us pray.

I knew the Credo by heart and showed off by reciting it aloud without any hesitations. Of course that was a sin because I was showing off.  No one sang at this Mass, which was fine with me since I had heard my family sing and the sound, off key and loud, was bad enough to make me want to crawl under the pew. 

The Communion prayer,  “Domine non sum dignus.”  Lord I am not worthy - repeated three times - seemed to me to describe my family and me.

There we were, Grandma hating Grandpa, Gerry talking so much she was an Occasion of Sin, Mama fat, Daddy Italian and hanging out in the back, and me, not only not kneeling but also playing with my Rosary.

This, I knew, was all my fault. My very own fault. They would be different if it weren’t for me. I should have told Grandma that Grandpa really was a good person and that he loved her. I knew it although I couldn't prove it.

I should have helped Mama keep to her many diets instead of begging her to make fudge and mashed potatoes that would tempt her to stray.

There wasn't much I could do about Gerry talking, but she really was interesting and obviously I didn’t have the moral strength to resist. If given the chance. I would talk and whisper right along with her.

There wasn’t much I could do about Daddy being Italian either, but I should have been proud of him instead of feeling embarrassed.

In fact, that was my real sin:  I was embarrassed by all of them. What kind of an awful person was I to feel that way about this family who loved me so much?

I just wasn’t a good Catholic, who would rise above her petty concerns. I couldn't even make the sacrifice to kneel upright. What if I did feel like I was going to throw up?  A good Catholic would have offered it up.

“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

During the Consecration I did manage to kneel upright because this was the most sacred part of the Mass. I knew with all the other lazy Catholics that if you missed the Consecration you missed Mass. A Mortal Sin. A black mark. You could go to Hell. You had to arrive at Mass before the Offering prayers, as I recall, and stay until the priest said: “Ite Missa est,” Go, the Mass is ended.

The congregation would respond: “Deo gratias,” Thank God.

We were free to go. We could drive to the Carillon cafeteria on Patterson Boulevard where I could order chopped steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and hot fudge pudding cake for dessert.

We always went to cafeterias so Grandma could see what she was ordering. She didn't like regular restaurants, which were always too dark for her, an indication that they were trying to put something over on her, like gristly meat or unclean forks.

Usually we went to Sacksteders, on Wilmington Ave., which was newer and nicer than the Carillon, but their chopped steak seemed to me to be inferior.  Gerry loved it there though. When she dropped her banana cream pie on the floor, which she always did, it would be replaced with a fresh slice. For free.

Daddy liked their roast beef and their deep fried zucchini. He said it was the closest to good Italian food he had ever tasted in a restaurant. So mostly we went there. I was a kid so I had no say.

They had good lemon meringue pie at Sacksteders though.

Once a year, I believed myself to be a good Catholic, even religious. Lent and the entire accompanying Latin liturgy brought out the best in me.

Mama and Daddy followed the Lenten fasting rules and in addition made us give up TV. That was Mama’s idea, not mine. I didn’t have quite her fervor for missing all my favorite shows. I would give up candy and maybe eating in between meals. This was a true sacrifice because I really liked to eat.

I would go to Church for the Stations of the Cross every day at noon during lunch hour. I could clean off and gulp down my salami and ketchup sandwich and still get there in time.

By the time Holy Week rolled around and I had actually stuck with my resolutions for the entire six weeks of Lent, I was starting to feel - well - good.

The Latin Holy Week services were beautiful. On Holy Thursday the choir sang the chant, Pange Lingua Gloriosi and later in the service the whole congregation responded in unison “Ora Pro Nobis” to the repetitions of the Litany of the Saints. 

The solemnities moved me. I felt the real sorrow of Good Friday, cried during the draping of the church in purple, and felt an emptiness during the hours between noon and three dedicated to Christ’s suffering on the cross.

Saturday at noon Lent was over. This was a cause for celebration.

We all congratulated each other for keeping Lent. It was Spring by now and we had new outfits ready to wear to Church on Easter Sunday. Mama would have lost a few pounds and be feeling really good about herself. We would probably even go to High Mass tomorrow.

I loved this moment because she would go to the cupboard where she hid things and bring out a single preview piece of Easter candy for Gerry and me.

I really felt like a good Catholic, especially after that first chocolate Easter bunny.