Practicing the Ave Maria

The Candle Incident

You almost have to be Catholic to understand some of this, but permit me an effort of explanation to the uninitiated. It’s my hope the delightful anecdote is worth wading through my setup.

Over the past few months, our pastor has made some refinements in the Mass at St. Peter here in Greeley.

Yes he actually has the authority and the desire to make little changes, nuances, embellishments which improve the flow of the Mass, accent its serious nature, refine the dignity and formality of the ritual.

No doubt, these modifications are a return to previous practice, lost to us temporarily through neglect or a pastoral desire to simplify things or even simply a pastoral preference. It’s all right. Little things come and go, even in the Roman Catholic Church.

To my own personal glee, our pastor sometimes likes things to be more ornate and elaborate. To this end, he has added several performance functions for the altar servers.

Their jobs during Mass have become somewhat more complex. They have more to do, more cues to remember. Falling asleep during Mass is not an option.

For example, these days an altar server will kneel to ring the bells at the appropriate times during Mass. There was a time when this wasn’t done at St. Peter.

A couple of these added duties have to do with candles, which is what this story highlights.

All right so far? At the beginning of the rite, we have the procession, in which the priest and the deacon and other servers, youths and adults alike, parade from the entry of the nave to the sanctuary and the proximity of the altar.

This procession is accompanied by the opening song, led by the cantor and in which the assembly, the choir, the clergy and the various servers also sing. (Witness this traditional practice on the right day, and it will give you goose bumps of joy.)

Preparatory to the procession, two altar servers have come out from the sacristy to retrieve two of the six candles which have been previously lighted in stanchions lined up at the front corners of the altar.

They take these candles to the “back” of the church and when the time is right, they lead the processional to the sanctuary.

They are followed by a third server carrying the processional crucifix, and finally the clergy. The candles light the way for the formal procession. The candles drive away the darkness. A nice celebratory touch.

The deacon follows the candles and crucifix in the procession, carrying the Book of the Gospels high, for all to see.

(The Book of the Gospels and the Lectionary are open to inspection by anyone – it is the real thing, the Holy Bible, and the Church wants the assembly to know it. It’s the truth, folks.)

Upon their arrival at the sanctuary, the altar servers put the two candles back into their two holders adjacent to the altar and the deacon places the Book of the Gospels on the altar, in plain view.

Then there is the opening blessing and the opening prayer, after which the clergy and the assembly take their seats.

At this point, the readings from the Bible begin. For Sunday Mass, there are the three readings, usually from the Old Testament and one of the Epistles, and always from one of the four Gospels.

The lector (always from the laity) assigned to the first reading rises and ascends the ambo. He or she reads from the Lectionary, which has been placed there before the procession.

When he or she completes the reading, the cantor ascends the ambo and leads the assembly in the responsorial song, most often from the Psalms.

When the cantor completes this assignment, the second reader takes his or her turn, again, reading from the Lectionary.

After the second reading, the lectors return to their seats among the assembly, and all rise to their feet in preparation for the reading from one of the four Gospels. We take it very seriously.

The candle bearers go to the altar and retrieve their same two candles. The deacon picks up the Gospels again, and then in a sort of mini-procession, the servers with their candles lead the deacon from the altar to the ambo.

In one of those minor modifications instituted by our pastor, the altar servers hold the candles at each side of the ambo while the deacon reads the Gospel of the day.

The idea is that the altar servers are bearing “light” so that the Gospel can be properly, respectfully and effectively read, and those in the assembly can see the book itself from which he is reading.

The candles are also a sign that we ourselves are being illuminated by the Gospel. It’s a nice touch to the ritual, a meaningful nuance.

The crux of this story

Having been one of the lectors on this particular Sunday, my seat in the assembly was close to the front, near the ambo. So I had the joyful experience of being an eyewitness to the following hilarious little incident.

One of the altar servers, a girl of 12 or 13, has a habit of blowing her hair out of her eyes. A strand will fall, and she will extend her lower lip and puff once or twice to get the hair out of her eyes without having to take a hand from the candle she’s holding.

The deacon was holding forth, somewhere in the midst of emoting the precious scripture.

A hair strand fell into the young woman’s face. Then came the habitual reaction. Puff, puff. Oops. The offensive strand of hair moved. But in the process the candle got blown out.

I looked at her. She looked at me. Most likely, no one else saw this happen. The youngster got a most mirthful look on her face, and I suppose I did too. It’s obvious she takes the Gospel reading seriously, but on this one day she listened with a very bemused expression.

Neither one of us laughed out loud, and with great aplomb, when the Gospel reading was complete, she returned her candle to its stanchion – having quickly and unobtrusively re-lighted it from another candle along the way. She did not lose her composure. She maintained decorum. How marvelous. How well this type of experience will serve her throughout her life.

One of the dozens of things I love about keeping company with my Catholic community is the wry sense of humor, even among teenaged altar servers.

There is plenty of room for humor, even during an event so serious as Holy Mass. I think it’s called joy. And I read somewhere that the Lord wants us to be joyful.

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Word of the week: Nuance. It’s from the Latin, nubes, or cloud, and French, nuer, to shade. Today it means to us a slight or delicate variation in tone, color or meaning. It can also mean a shade of difference.

Spider of this Week - white side is top, colored side is bottom. Viewed outside the kitchen window at the shop.

Our Hero Joe

Our hero Joe Hintz has died.

We first became acquainted with Joe when he was a frequent lector at St. Peter Roman Catholic Church in Greeley.

He had a job, a family, an infectious smile, and a dog named Toby. Joe had hundreds of friends, people who loved him dearly. He may well have been St. Peter’s best-known parishioner.

As a child, our hero lived in a little North Dakota farming community; it was apparent when he started school that he was a quick study.

It was scholastic studies that brought Joe to Greeley, to further his education at the University of Northern Colorado.

Joe and Sharon Hodges married, and daughter Sydney and son Jeremiah came from their union.

Sydney has become quite good at playing the violin; Jeremiah is an adroit altar server and shows signs of taking after his dad as a lector.

All of this sounds rather commonplace, doesn’t it? Family. Job. Church. Dog. So what was it that made Joe such a hero?

A lifelong diabetes sufferer, Joe lost his eyesight to the disease. Toby was his guide dog. Toby died about a year ago, a crushing blow physically and emotionally to Joe.

Wait. You’re saying, “A blind guy was a lector?” Yes he was a lector, and a good one. You’d hear Joe read and know that his faith gave him the strength to face his challenges.

He was somehow enabled to memorize the assigned scripture reading and then climb to the ambo, face the assembly and “read” in a strong distinctive voice, with hardly a bobble. It must have been a difficult undertaking. Lectors with eyesight don’t do any better than he did.

Everything was a struggle for Joe. He was a huge success despite these challenges. It wasn’t just that he overcame blindness to perform the duty of a lector. It was that he overcame blindness in every way possible.

I once saw Joe walk into a sidewalk signpost, having missed detecting it with his white cane. I also watched helplessly from my nearby seat as Joe stumbled climbing the three steps into the ambo, narrowly escaping a fall.

Whenever I would greet Joe, he would smile and say, “Hello Tom.” He recognized me by my voice.

Joe faced far more challenges than are required of most of us. And yet, his droll sense of humor never left him. He died at 51 of complications of diabetes, too soon for such a heroic man.

Last summer I saw Joe and his two children walking one evening in a shady block in downtown Greeley. He had one child on each arm, and the three were enjoying a cool stroll in the dusk.

I plan to cling to that memory, as well as the mental picture I have of him reciting Bible readings.

Where’s the good news in all this? Joe is no longer afflicted with blindness, with diabetes, with kidney disease. He’s with God, with Jesus whom he so loved. He fought the good fight and he won.

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Word of the week: Diabetes. It’s from Latin and Greek, diabetes, a siphon or to pass through a siphon. It is a disease characterized by an excessive discharge of urine. Hence, a diabetic is a person who has diabetes.

Tony Talks

Greetings all. Welcome to the wacky world of 18th St. Tommy. Here’s the report for July 18. Dig in!

Tony talks

My cat talks to me. He speaks plain English. Trick is, he only does this when no one else can hear.

Tuesday night while I was preparing dinner, Tony and I were in the kitchen. Laura was over here at the store, so the two cats, Tony and Sam, and I were at home alone.

Often when I am cooking, I simply leave the refrigerator door open. Saves time. Makes my job easier. I can reach the beer quicker.

This time, Tony decided to take the opportunity to get into the refrigerator and explore.

It was pork chop night, and I had the meat in a bowl in the refrigerator. Tony looked at the fresh meat. Then he looked back at me. And he said:

“I am interested in eating this.”

I shooed Tony out of there and shut the door. Then when Laura came home, I tried to tell the story, but I gave up when she gave me that funny look.

The Frontier Days train

Thursday about noon the Union Pacific passenger train came through our neighborhood, Denver-bound from the Frontier Days hoo-rah in Cheyenne.

Trains in our neighborhood are usually an annoyance, a deafeningly noisy fact of life having to do with hauling coal for generating electricity and steel for recycling.

This time, the old black steam engine and the Vista Dome passenger cars provided a few moments of respite for us, a reason to pause and watch.

Laura had heard the antique train coming, and came and got me from the house so we could watch the spectacle. I did enjoy watching the old puffer blast its way by. Even more, I enjoyed watching Laura’s face while she watched the train.

I wish you could have been here to see it.

Anhydrous ammonia

That same morning, I had been reading in our living room and I watched several huge tractor-trailer tankers come and go from the chemical plant up the street.

The label on each bright white tanker said, “Anhydrous Ammonia.” The tractors were all in immaculate condition, shiny and clean and powerful. The drivers were attentive and cautious.

It’s delightful to watch over-the-road trucking equipment, up close, at slow speed. It’s fun to live where I live, to experience what I do.

I wish you could have been here to see it.

James Herrera

Our friend James has died.

Laura and I first met James about eight years ago. When we met, he and his brother John were at NCMC visiting their ill sister, Esther Quintana.

The next time our paths crossed, James had become a resident at Bonell Good Samaritan Community. It was during countless visits to Bonell that we had the privilege of getting to know James.

A lifelong sufferer of Multiple Sclerosis, James was restricted to his bed or his wheelchair for most of his life. He was 73 when he died, and the entire population of Bonell grieved at losing him.

A devout Catholic, James was also a natural born greeter. Everyone, everywhere he went, got a smile, a wave and a greeting from James. Because of his outgoing nature, literally everyone employed or living at Bonell knew him by name.

We came to respect the Herrera family – because they were just that, a family. If Esther was in the hospital, John and James and other family members would be there. If it was James on our hospital list, John and Esther would be there. John often visited James at Bonell.

One day we caught on to ask James to pray for us. Let me tell you from first-hand experience, when the disabled pray, it is powerful prayer.

Now, we know that his feet are no longer gnarled and useless, his hands are no longer twisted and unpredictable. We know that his voice can be heard clearly now, and that his teeth no longer give him agony day and night.

So we ask James to pray for us now, from where he is. We love you James.

The Transfer

For some reason, I often get to be there to witness those uncomfortable parking-lot child-exchange events in which divorced parents find themselves immersed.

It happens in our parking lot here at the store. It happens at the liquor store or the cigarette store. We see it often.

It happened again last Sunday, just outside The Pepper Pod Restaurant in Hudson.

A girl of 8 or 9 was moving her belongings from her Mom’s mini-van to her Dad’s mini-van. A cute little thing, she grunted under the weight of a large duffel bag, a suitcase and two or three stuffed animals.

Suddenly, she looked up at her Daddy and said plaintively, “Sorry I always have to bring so much crap, Dad.”

Crap. That’s what she said. Crap. It isn’t much of a leap from “bring so much crap” to “I am so much crap.”

The things we do to our children. It just stinks, it really stinks. Crap.

The endodontist

I had the distinct privilege of visiting the endodontist twice in the last eight days.

Yep. Two root-canals. Count ‘em, two.

You think I’m going to whine about the pain, right? You’re wrong. I was so swollen for a while that I looked like a chipmunk, but the doctor’s attentions to me relieved any pain. He didn’t hurt me.

We had just gotten our “stimulus” check a few days earlier. When I got the bill from the dentist, all the “stimulus” went out of it. A “stimulus” of three times as much would have covered the dentist’s fees.

It would have been difficult for me to survive without the attentions of the dentist. Still, I think the fee was exorbitant.

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Word of the week: Pyromania or pyromaniac. It comes from modern Latin, “Pyro,” meaning fire, and “mania” meaning compulsion. So a pyromaniac is a person having a persistent compulsion to start dangerous fires.

The only true pyromaniac in my personal experience was a man recently returned from World War II. He joined the Volunteer Fire Department in Fort Lupton back in the 1940’s.

His nickname was “Smoky.”

Next week’s word: Protestant.

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Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comments!

Crestina's lesson

Crestina Trujillo had something to show us.
Laura and I met her on Jan. 5, 2004, in her room at Northern Colorado Medical Center. She was there for treatment of a combination of illnesses attendant to her age, 88.
My wife and I are members of Befrienders, Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist from our parish who visit private homes, hospitals and rest homes bringing Holy Communion to shut-ins, the bedridden and the ill.
That first visit, we knocked and tentatively entered a dimly lighted room. Inside, we found Mrs. Trujillo, who was sleeping lightly, facing the window, and three family members, who were embracing, all weeping.
Laura went around to the far side of the bed, to find Mrs. Trujillo had awakened. She reached out, took Laura’s hand in a firm grip, and nodded for us to begin the communion service. It was an emotional few moments as we said the prayers -- especially poignant when Mrs. Trujillo took the Body of Christ.
She received just a tiny crumb on the tongue, followed by the cooling moisture of a swab at the corners of her mouth. The three family members took communion as well. This was an extremely joyful event and Laura and I wiped tears from our eyes as we made our way through the halls to the next Catholic patient on our list.
We didn’t know it then, but Mrs. Trujillo was going to teach, reaffirm, show tangible evidence, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, the healing power of prayer.
A week later, Jan. 12, we would meet Mrs. Trujillo for the second time. She had moved to the Hospice wing. She was sleeping more soundly this time, but the family encouraged us to pray.
"She is a very spiritual person," her daughter told us. "She very much appreciates your prayers."
Again, after the prayers, we departed, and again we wept as we walked the halls. We were to visit Mrs. Trujillo once more, a Saturday, Jan. 17.
When we entered the Hospice room, Mrs. Trujillo was breathing heavily. It was hard work, her chest heaving in hard sighs. Her granddaughter spoke to her, asking if she wished to awaken for Communion. But she was too fatigued to come from sleep, and we agreed to pray as before, with one small difference.
Laura and I have been trying to learn at least the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish so that we might better serve the hospital community. I asked the granddaughter if she thought her grandmother would mind – "Can we practice our Spanish?" I asked. In answer, the granddaughter took Crestina’s slim and tiny old hand and made the sign of the cross for her grandmother – the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost.
And so Crestina Trujillo taught us. We began, "Padre nuestro . . . " and as we proceeded, her breathing began to slow. As we continued blundering our way through the Spanish, Mrs. Trujillo rested easier. Tension evaporated from her tiny, aged body. As the prayer ended, she appeared to be sleeping normally, not with any of the labor of a few moments before.
Crestina Trujillo, 88, of Greeley died Sunday, Jan. 18, in Greeley. Mrs. Trujillo was born March 7, 1915, in San Luis to Filiberto and Magdalena (Valdez) Lopez. She married John Trujillo in October 1957 in Cheyenne. He died in 1991.Mrs. Trujillo enjoyed traveling, gardening, crocheting, picnicking, camping, cheering for the Broncos and spending time with her family. She was a very spiritual woman who read the Bible and prayed daily.Survivors are four daughters, Rose Marie Roybal and husband Zack, Dolores "Dolly" Garcia and husband Herman, all of Greeley, Ida Aragon and husband John of Evans, and Yvonne Schaaf of Cheyenne; a son, Floyd Lopez and wife Mary of Cheyenne; 14 grandchildren; 25 great-grandchildren; and 11 great-great-grandchildren. Her husband John Trujillo, her parents, a sister, Alicia Lopez, a brother, Abade Lopez, and a grandson, Jeffrey Schaaf, are deceased.Recitation of the Rosary was at St. Mary's Catholic Church, followed by Mass of the Christian burial. Interment was in Sunset Memorial Gardens.