Mayo memories: a disastrous debut as a Mass server

By Tom Gillespie

WHEN I was a schoolboy in St. Patrick’s National School in Castlebar in the 1950s and early ‘60s we were trained as Mass servers. Back then it was confined to male only, something that has thankfully changed.

But unlike the modern day servers we were unique as we were one of the last batch of servers to respond to the priest in Latin.

Latin was the international language of Catholic ritual for centuries. The English version is from the 1970s. The Second Vatican Council (1962 to ’65) allowed the Latin Mass to be replaced with services in the vernacular - commonly used languages.

The first vernacular Masses were read in Irish Catholic churches on March 7, 1965, bringing to an end the widespread tradition of the Latin Tridentine Mass, which had lasted since 1570 and which was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world.

Now as young lads we did not understand a single word of Latin so we had to learn the Latin responses off by heart. This was taught to us by Brother Denis, and my mother had to purchase the purple soutane and white surplice which we wore during Mass. Fr. Tom Shannon rehearsed us prior to our live debut.

Now, my first outing as an altar boy was at a Sunday Mass in the Church of the Holy Rosary, where along with another novice server, we followed the lead of the two older and seasoned servers.

All went well for the first outing but all that changed the following morning when disaster struck.

We, the two novices, arrived in time for the eight o’clock Mass but to our horror the two senior servers did not. We panicked and made a proper mess of the entire Mass - giving the wrong responses at the wrong time, ringing the bells when we should have remained silent and offering the water and wine to the priest far too early in the ceremony.

Needless to say when we returned to the sacristy at the end of Mass we got a lecture from the embarrassed priest.

Thankfully, he accepted it was only our second time on the altar and the names of the two ‘missing’ servers were passed on to their teachers and Fr. Shannon.

However, sacristan Pat Jordan, who, with over 50 years service, saw hundreds of servers pass through the church, consoled us that we were not the first novices to make a cock-up of the Latin responses. Thankfully, the senior servers turned up for duty for the rest the week and we forgot about the Monday morning hick-up.

Despite that disastrous start we progressed to competent servers and we operated a rota for the week day and Sunday Masses.

Back then the railings were still in place in front at the high altar where parishioners knelt to receive Holy Communion. One of the first chores before the commencement of Mass was to light the candles on the altar and to extinguish them after the ceremony.

One of the bonuses of being a server was you were available to accompany the priest to the country stations. This was a double treat as we were let off school for the morning and then treated like lords at the station house.

Unfortunately, I was only selected for one station Mass. That was in Snugboro National School, now a community centre. The Mass was celebrated in the schoolhouse because the home of the designated family was being renovated.

I accompanied Fr. Charles O’Malley to Snugboro and after the Mass both he and I were treated to a slap up meal and for my ‘services’ I received a shiny half-a-crown.

And if you were lucky enough to be selected as a server for a funeral Mass you were sure of a few bob.

There was a strict dress code for the Mass servers. The purple soutane and white surplice had to be washed and ironed after every Mass and we were required to wear short or long pants and black shoes. Such footwear was Sunday wear only so we wore sandals to the church and changed into the shoes.

Fr. Shannon, as well as being in charge of the Mass servers, also had responsibility for training the boys choir.

Each year as a thank you, both the Mass servers and the choirboys were taken on a day excursion to a seaside location. The arrangement was that as a Mass server you had to pay half the cost of the outing. The same applied to the choirboys. But lucky from me as I was both a Mass server and a choirboy and I got free passage.

Another advantage of being a server was being part the Easter ceremonies and instead of having to attend the school ceremonies in the afternoon, we served at the evening Masses and, of course, being on the rota for the Christmas Day Masses was always a special occasion.