www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization most embarrassing mistakes

I'm taking this from another, more serious thread. I was getting tired of all the seriousness around here with all this presidential nonsense. Then I read the posts by Brother Ed and Anhelyna on the "convert mentality" thread.

I don't know why this is the most embarassing, but I was the only person in a Serbian Orthodox vespers service and the priest was doing everything in English. Well, we got to a part, and I'm still not sure what I was thinking, but I responded with the text in Slavonic.

I'm not a great speaker of any Slavic language, but I know some Czech (I used to know a lot more), some Russian and a bit of Serbo-Croatian. I realised after about two minutes that I was in trouble and I was in a long section where I had to sing by myself. I was doing okay until Father jumped in and I realised I was singing all the parenthetical instructions! I was singing the correct words but then, "if a bishop is present sing . . ."

Man did I feel like an idiot.

The nuns would all say "oh, happy fault!"

It was when I was a novice with a group of Franciscan brothers. I was altar boy at our conventual Mass and I was kneeling in front of the altar censing the Host after the consecration. When I went to stand up to return the thurible to the stand, I stepped on the end of my Franciscan cord and fell flat on my face. Luckily, my arms were outstretched and the thurible remained upright, so I didn't spill the burning coals on the sanctuary carpet. Everyone laughed, even the priest. I was soooooooooo embaressed!!! Don

Mistakes --

1. First time I was serving the altar, Fr. Mike offered me the Gospel to kiss. After the kiss, I went to make the sign of the Cross before backing away and almost knocked the Gospel book to the floor.

2. Drowning the altar area in incense.

3. Our cantor was sick and no one wanted to lead the singing. Guess who tried? (And made a complete muck of it!)

4. Hitting the wrong notes when doing the reading of the epistle. Sometimes, for some strange reason, I seem to jump a key in the middle of the reading.

5. We have bingo at our parish. One night, after considerable frustration, I yelled BINGO as loud as I could. Didn't have one.

6. Baking a pascha that could have been used as a bowling ball.

7. Oh, and my last and best one -- turning the bells back on automatic on Holy Thursday night. They rang on Good Friday. Fr. Mike was mortified. What the h... was I thinking anyway?

Oh, that's right....I wasn't thinking.

I am thankful that the people of St. Ann's are so kind, forgiving, and loving. Either that, or they like watching dummies make idiots of themselves -- LOL!!

Brother Ed -- who is starting to settle down from his raging case of "convert fever".

As a child it was "Charlie Vostrese"

I was about 5

Or the time in, maybe third grade, when the good sister of St. Basil (I don't remember which one) asked us a question I was sure I knew the answer to.

I thrust my hand in the air, and said, "Mommy! Mommy!" instead of "Sister! Sister!"

It took years to live that one down.

--tim

Christ is risen!! Indeed He is risen!!!

Cizinec:

A colleague of mine told a similar story about his experience during a funeral. The priest was taking the entire Divine Liturgy and Funeral Service in Slavonic. Part way through he switched to Slovak and chanted to the Reader--"Brother Reader I have lost my place." And the response in Slovak was "That's all right, Father, we'll wait for you to catch up." My colleague who spoke Slovak had a tough time keeping himself from LOL.

Altar Boy:

As for jumping up a key during the Epistle, I have a Slavonic recording of a Russian rendition of that very thing. Every line of the Epistle comes up half a note, starting with a very bass scale and ending almost in the rafters of tenor. Quite impressive if you have that kind of range.

As for mistakes, one of my mentors told me once that one should just go on as if that's the way things are supposed to be. Like the time I fell all the way down into a grave at a cemetery. I pulled myself up and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, this grave is at the proper depth. Pleas step under the tent for the Committal Service." The cemetery and vault people had a tough time keeping themselves sober until everyone had left the place and they could laugh.

BOB

P.S.: Some of the guys who were there still ask if I'm going to measure the depth or if I can do it "by eye" now.

On Good Friday of this year, my priest, another fellow and myself were reading the "Canon of Lamentation" while the Plas^c^anica was being venerated. When the other man was reading some of the troparia he said that the Ever-Virgin "laminated" the death of her Son. I had to bite my tongue very hard so as not to bust out laughing.

Several years back, during the time of my church's previous priest, we had Great Vespers for Pentecost. It came time for the Litia. Well, there was silence. The choir wasn't singing the stichera. I whispered, "Father, maybe you should tell the director to start singing." So he opens the Royal Doors and, in a booming tone, chants "LITIA!" He looks back at me and whispers, "See, now it's a tradition." Vespers went fine from there.

So many liturgical bloopers, so little time.

Dave

In Rome, on a Sunday morning, with the church filled (Santa Maria in Cosmedin) I once heard Patriarch Maximos V forget the Pope's name in the midst of the Great Entrance - he didn't forget the commemoration, just the name. The result was that the Patriarch sonorously intoned "our beloved Pope . . . [long pause]" followed by about six voices supplying JPII's name.
Christ is Risen!
Incognitus

CHRISTOS VOSKRES!

One of my late friends was a priest and was celebrating Resurrection Matins. The parish was recording the service so that it could be made into a cassette tape for sale.

At one point, Father placed his service book into the "poyas" of his vestments to do the censing. The service slide through the "poyas" and fell to the floor. Father just left it there and continued with the service.

A well meaning parishoner saw that the book had fallen and walked forward to retrieve it. This parishoner bent down to pick up the service book at the same time Father turned around to cense the congregation.

Father hit him square between the eyes with the kadila.

You could hear the "clunk" on the tape and a VERY audible gasp from the congregation.

Needless to say, the tape was never published...

Then there's the Paska that this same priest caught his BRAND NEW, FIRST TIME HE WORE THEM, silver and gold brocade vestments on the thermostat and shorted out the church and singed the entire shoulder of the vestments...

I'll see if I can think of any more....

mark

A priest saying the Tridentine Mass at St. Agnes Church in NYC was incensing the altar at the Offertory. As he swung the thurible, the tray holding the charcoal and incense flew out and landed on the altar, sending lit charcoals everywhere on the white altar cloth!

Proving that, as part of our (Easterners') mission to the Universal Church, our Churches should cooperate in seeing to it that Latin priests intending to use thuribles are required to cross-enroll at our seminaries for a mandatory course in censing.

Many years,

Neil

The first time I visited an Eastern Orthodox church I didn't know I wasn't supposed to take Communion....to be cont'd...

A friend of mine related the story of the first time he visited a particular Orthodox church. When venerating the icon on the tetrapod, he misjudged his distances, and when coming up from a metany, he bonked the underside of the tetrapod/icon with his head and knocked everything asunder.

How about when you see a Reader chanting from a service-book and only realising he's read a horrible error in the service book when he notices everyone in the church is laughing?

"...Jonah who spent three days in the bosom of the whale..."