{"id":718,"date":"2011-05-29T10:26:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T17:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/?p=718"},"modified":"2012-03-15T05:54:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T12:54:15","slug":"some-reflections-on-a-confirmation-mass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/some-reflections-on-a-confirmation-mass\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Reflections on a Confirmation Mass"},"content":{"rendered":"

L<\/span>ast night, I was Master of Ceremonies<\/a> at our parish Confirmation<\/a> Mass. It was my first, but hopefully not my last, MC gig. My reflections on last night are bound to be a little rambly, but I wanted to be sure to record as many of my impressions as I could.<\/p>\n

The MC role at Mass is somewhat different from what we in the 21st Century associate with an MC. I don’t introduce anybody. I don’t tell any jokes or witty anecdotes. In fact, the MC shouldn’t speak at all during the Mass, except to give the Celebrant and the Altar servers instructions. And if you’re doing your job correctly, you won’t actually speak a word then, either.

\"\"<\/a>

The Alleluia: Rev. John Fuchs, S.J. Presents the Book of the Gospels to the People.
(That's me on the far right, hiding behind the Archbishop)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

If fact, if the MC does his job correctly, no one will really even know he’s there. <\/p>\n

The MC’s job is to organize and rehearse the proceedings and ritual of each Mass, and in a Confirmation Mass celebrated by an Archbishop, there are a lot of fiddly little details. It’s like the original liturgical dance (and incidentally the only one of which I personally approve, for what that’s worth).<\/p>\n

We rehearsed the Altar servers and ran drills. For our full dress rehearsal, Travis Nguyen (the gentleman normally in charge of the servers) graciously accepted the r\u00f4le of stand-in Archbishop, complete with folded newspaper miter. I set up a series of hand signals with the servers, so they would always be where they needed to be and doing what they needed to be doing.<\/p>\n

We had six servers in that tiny church – Cross bearer, miter bearer, crozier bearer, book bearer, thurifer<\/a>, Holy Water bearer – and several did double duty as actual servers for the Mass and candle bearers. It was, as I said, a complicated dance.<\/p>\n

Add to this the Confirmands and their sponsors – beautifully catechized and themselves drilled in their part in the Rite by their hard-working teacher Laura Grubb – and the Jesuit Superior over at Bellarmine<\/a>, Rev. John Fuchs, S.J., who happily agreed to take Fr. Sacco’s part in the Mass at the last minute, and you’ve got a lot of balls up in the air.

\"\"<\/a>

The Traditional St. Rita Confirmation Photo on the Steps of the Church (2011)<\/p><\/div>In the end, all the preparation work paid off; the Confirmation Mass was beautiful, and it went off without a hitch – or at least without any hitch that anybody noticed except for me and the Archbishop. <\/p>\n

The Altar servers were magnificent; they remembered to keep their eyes on me, and they took every cue. Their discipline and dedication speak highly of them, and highly of Travis’ leadership as well.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Sartain<\/a> is himself an extremely gracious and likeable man, a real mensch<\/em>. I very much enjoyed my time chatting with him, and he has a great way of putting people at ease. Every time I’ve heard him speak in a liturgical setting, he’s made a plea for vocations. More on that in another post.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Your Humble Author with
the Most Rev. J. Peter Sartain,
Archbishop of Seattle.
We are both trying to avoid looking straight into the setting sun.
He has rather succeeded where I have rather failed.<\/p><\/div>I’ve been taking liturgical training from the Archdiocese’s Liturgical Ministers Institute<\/a> for several years now, though my actual MC training continues to be rescheduled vaguely into the future. One can hardly blame them – the new translation of the Missale Romanum<\/a> is going live at Advent, and they’ve been busy prepping for that transition. It did kind of leave me hanging, though.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, as I mentioned in a previous post<\/a>, the Archdiocesan Liturgy Office steered me to the Pastoral Assistant for Faith Formation over at Saint John Bosco Parish in Lakewood, Brian Guillot. He whipped me into shape pretty quickly, and for that I remain grateful.<\/p>\n

I continue to be amazed at the number of dedicated people involved in preparing a liturgy of this scope at our little parish. Now multiply that by the millions<\/em> of individual parishes throughout the Church, and you start to get some idea of the scope of the Universal Church.<\/p>\n

Wow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I was Master of Ceremonies at our parish Confirmation Mass. It was my first, but hopefully not my last, MC gig. My reflections on last night are bound to be a little rambly, but I wanted to be sure to record as many of my impressions as I could. The MC role at Mass is somewhat different from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,32,15,4,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archbishop-sartain","category-inside-baseball","category-meditations","category-sacred-liturgy","category-vocation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/ArchbishopSartainAndMe.jpg?fit=2448%2C3264&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aGBK-bA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":70496,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/corpus-christi-reflections\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":0},"title":"Corpus Christi Reflections","author":"Thom","date":"03 June 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, while Catholics all over the planet were joining Pope Francis in an historic hour of worldwide Eucharistic Adoration, we in Tacoma were doing our little part. 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I was coming from work, and due to the train schedule I arrived an hour before Mass was scheduled to begin. I walked from the train station to the church in a refreshingly cool evening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "community"","block_context":{"text":"community","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"MC and Server Vestments","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_3928-e1418147431823-240x320.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":88292,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/vesting-prayers\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":2},"title":"Vesting Prayers","author":"Thom","date":"29 March 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my volunteer positions at my parish is that of MC and Altar Server coordinator. Since I started in that position, we've made any number of changes. One of the simplest and most profound, though, was the reintroduction of Vesting Prayers. And what are they? In the immemorial tradition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Exhortations"","block_context":{"text":"Exhortations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/sacred-liturgy\/exhortations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/vestments.png?fit=785%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/vestments.png?fit=785%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/vestments.png?fit=785%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/vestments.png?fit=785%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":85778,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/notes-on-the-transitions-number-8-in-a-seriesfarewell-to-father-maurer\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":3},"title":"Notes on the Transitions, Number 8 in a Series:Farewell to Father Maurer","author":"Thom","date":"31 August 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Father Maurer's last Sunday Masses at Holy Rosary and Saint Joseph were this past weekend. Following the Noon Mass, a tremendous celebration was held for him in the old convent building. The noon Mass was positively packed. The last time I saw so many folks crowded into Holy Rosary was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2015 transitions - Holy Rosary \/ St. Joseph"","block_context":{"text":"2015 transitions - Holy Rosary \/ St. Joseph","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/holy-rosary-st-joseph-transition\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Before the Final Sunday Mass","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/2015-08-30-11.57.33-240x180.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":84434,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/altar-servers-on-the-feast\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":4},"title":"Altar Servers on the Feast","author":"Thom","date":"07 October 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This past Sunday, our parish celebrated its feast day with Masses (Ordinary Form, English with Latin responses) and a potluck. The feast of the Holy Rosary is actually today, but since it is our patronal solemnity, the Archbishop has given permission to move the celebration to the nearest Sunday. One\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "community"","block_context":{"text":"community","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1582,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/reflections-on-an-installation-mass\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":5},"title":"Reflections on an Installation Mass","author":"Thom","date":"11 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This past Sunday, Reverend Eugene Delmore SJ was installed as the fifth pastor of our little parish church of Saint Rita of Cascia in Tacoma. The Most Reverend Eusebio Elizondo MSpS, Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle, was the principal Celebrant. He was joined at the altar by Fr Delmore and his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bishop Eusebio Elizondo MSpS"","block_context":{"text":"Bishop Eusebio Elizondo MSpS","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/bishop-eusebio-elizondo-msps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/DSCN5660-149x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2310,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/2310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}