Time: 12:43 pm
Sunday never gets me anywhere farther than the Church. Today, Mother and I ran off to The Don Bosco's Shrine at Matunga. The reason: The other church that's closer by was scheduled to run a marathon of a service in honour of a bishop who was to come and slap boys and girls into confirmation.
Oh I kid you not. This is what the receiving of the sacrament of Confirmation in the Catholic Church entails. The whole process is a little like this: First, someone announces that batches for confirmation will begin on so and so date and children eligible for the sacrament are supposed to enroll. Usually, you need to be either in the tenth standard or on your way to the eleventh standard to qualify. Of course, this is a stupid way of putting things. In actuality, you need to have received the sacrament of The First Holy Communion to qualify. But that is never announced as part of the qualification. Apparently, it's supposed to be too old world to stick to that stricture never mind the fact that that stricture is what is necessary to be complied with.
Anyway, once the announcements are made, the batched begin - sometime around the second Sunday after the announcements. Textbooks are given, 'teachers' are asked to help students understand and grasp every aspect of what's in the textbook, and finally, students have to appear for a test failing which they won't be slapped by the bishop!
Such a song and dance, really! All they need to ensure is that students learn to read the Bible well and understand the scripture. But no, it's the textbook that has to be understood. So what's in the textbook then? Well, what's in it is the 'Church authorities' understanding and interpretation of the scripture. That aside, only scripture that think necessary is included. It's as if they have done a content analysis of the Bible and segregated it into several learning courses each of which have to be taken at just the right time - the time too decided by them.
Once they are through with the test and all of that, it's time to rehearse for the Confirmation ceremony. The ceremony itself is an extended version of the Sunday mass. So, the ceremony will have two readings and superficial introductions to those readings as well. Next, the bishop, looking more like those bishops who got Thomas Moore murdered, will mount the pulpit and be expected to give a sermon about the joys of the sacrament of confirmation. However, more often than not, bishops do not tow that line of thought. They instead end up begging for vocations!
"Oh the Catholic Church needs men!" I remember one bishop saying during one such Confirmation ceremony, "The population of priests is dwindling!" Well, no one gasped. On the contrary, people yawned all the more. But this bishop did not quite take the hint.
"First, it was a matter of pride," he trundled on,"There was competition as to how many children will serve the Lord! And now, everyone wants to marry! No one wants to even send at least one child to the seminary. Even if a child expresses interest, parents don't even bother to nurture it further!" And so on and so forth, he sallied on.
Luckily, the choir happened to be sitting close to the altar. And one of the choristers had a brainwave: He dropped a book in so meaningfully a fashion that the bishop stopped halfway through his sentence - fingers in mid-air - and turned to see what was the matter.
Well, nothing was the matter, but if 12 odd men and women giggling away at a fallen book can be considered a serious matter of insult and reproof, then it certainly was. For the bishop wound up the sermon a minute later and we went on to other sleepy parts of the mass.
Of course, bishops don't rehearse the sermon with the church that calls them. Were that to be the case, sermons would have been edited out of the ceremony completely. The slapping ceremony is what is rehearsed. Well, what they do cannot be called slapping as such. I went on saying slapping slapping all this time only to keep you reading this. :). However there is a little truth in that: Earlier, in the '70s perhaps, bishops would lightly slap as they confirmed the candidate at the ceremony. But now I think they just touch the cheek ever so lightly - perhaps to avoid scandals of any sort.
So then, a day before, the 'teachers' in charge of the students line them up, a 'teacher' pretends to be the bishop, and the entire ritual is rehearsed.
Then there is the choir that decides to put on a spectacle. Not that they admit to it, it's just one of those things that are taken for granted: If the bishop is to come, we must have a spectacle. And so, they rehearse painstakingly as well.
You can well imagine what will happen on the day the ceremony is to take place. Everyone turns up in their Christmas best! The choir turns up in bling of the noisiest sort so there isn't a necessity for strobe lights. The children - teenagers sorry - sashay in in the latest pair of jeans and shirts. And the parents and the rest of the congregation decide to treat the whole ceremony the way they would a wedding. As a result, even if the ceremony takes place in May, you'll be able to count at least ten perspiring suits near the altar.
Needless to say, the entire Broadway production - as it now seems to be - takes minutes to be on its way and at least and hour and a half to come to its rather tiresome climax. And so, since neither of us wanted to sit through a re-run that we have ran through several times before, we ran off to Don Bosco's.
Well, it's a blessing indeed that we have an option. I wonder what I would have done had Don Bosco's to be nowhere close.
Oh well, I would have gone to St. Michael's Church Mahim! You see living close to more than one church is - at times - a definite virtue!:)
Sunday never gets me anywhere farther than the Church. Today, Mother and I ran off to The Don Bosco's Shrine at Matunga. The reason: The other church that's closer by was scheduled to run a marathon of a service in honour of a bishop who was to come and slap boys and girls into confirmation.
Oh I kid you not. This is what the receiving of the sacrament of Confirmation in the Catholic Church entails. The whole process is a little like this: First, someone announces that batches for confirmation will begin on so and so date and children eligible for the sacrament are supposed to enroll. Usually, you need to be either in the tenth standard or on your way to the eleventh standard to qualify. Of course, this is a stupid way of putting things. In actuality, you need to have received the sacrament of The First Holy Communion to qualify. But that is never announced as part of the qualification. Apparently, it's supposed to be too old world to stick to that stricture never mind the fact that that stricture is what is necessary to be complied with.
Anyway, once the announcements are made, the batched begin - sometime around the second Sunday after the announcements. Textbooks are given, 'teachers' are asked to help students understand and grasp every aspect of what's in the textbook, and finally, students have to appear for a test failing which they won't be slapped by the bishop!
Such a song and dance, really! All they need to ensure is that students learn to read the Bible well and understand the scripture. But no, it's the textbook that has to be understood. So what's in the textbook then? Well, what's in it is the 'Church authorities' understanding and interpretation of the scripture. That aside, only scripture that think necessary is included. It's as if they have done a content analysis of the Bible and segregated it into several learning courses each of which have to be taken at just the right time - the time too decided by them.
Once they are through with the test and all of that, it's time to rehearse for the Confirmation ceremony. The ceremony itself is an extended version of the Sunday mass. So, the ceremony will have two readings and superficial introductions to those readings as well. Next, the bishop, looking more like those bishops who got Thomas Moore murdered, will mount the pulpit and be expected to give a sermon about the joys of the sacrament of confirmation. However, more often than not, bishops do not tow that line of thought. They instead end up begging for vocations!
"Oh the Catholic Church needs men!" I remember one bishop saying during one such Confirmation ceremony, "The population of priests is dwindling!" Well, no one gasped. On the contrary, people yawned all the more. But this bishop did not quite take the hint.
"First, it was a matter of pride," he trundled on,"There was competition as to how many children will serve the Lord! And now, everyone wants to marry! No one wants to even send at least one child to the seminary. Even if a child expresses interest, parents don't even bother to nurture it further!" And so on and so forth, he sallied on.
Luckily, the choir happened to be sitting close to the altar. And one of the choristers had a brainwave: He dropped a book in so meaningfully a fashion that the bishop stopped halfway through his sentence - fingers in mid-air - and turned to see what was the matter.
Well, nothing was the matter, but if 12 odd men and women giggling away at a fallen book can be considered a serious matter of insult and reproof, then it certainly was. For the bishop wound up the sermon a minute later and we went on to other sleepy parts of the mass.
Of course, bishops don't rehearse the sermon with the church that calls them. Were that to be the case, sermons would have been edited out of the ceremony completely. The slapping ceremony is what is rehearsed. Well, what they do cannot be called slapping as such. I went on saying slapping slapping all this time only to keep you reading this. :). However there is a little truth in that: Earlier, in the '70s perhaps, bishops would lightly slap as they confirmed the candidate at the ceremony. But now I think they just touch the cheek ever so lightly - perhaps to avoid scandals of any sort.
So then, a day before, the 'teachers' in charge of the students line them up, a 'teacher' pretends to be the bishop, and the entire ritual is rehearsed.
Then there is the choir that decides to put on a spectacle. Not that they admit to it, it's just one of those things that are taken for granted: If the bishop is to come, we must have a spectacle. And so, they rehearse painstakingly as well.
You can well imagine what will happen on the day the ceremony is to take place. Everyone turns up in their Christmas best! The choir turns up in bling of the noisiest sort so there isn't a necessity for strobe lights. The children - teenagers sorry - sashay in in the latest pair of jeans and shirts. And the parents and the rest of the congregation decide to treat the whole ceremony the way they would a wedding. As a result, even if the ceremony takes place in May, you'll be able to count at least ten perspiring suits near the altar.
Needless to say, the entire Broadway production - as it now seems to be - takes minutes to be on its way and at least and hour and a half to come to its rather tiresome climax. And so, since neither of us wanted to sit through a re-run that we have ran through several times before, we ran off to Don Bosco's.
Well, it's a blessing indeed that we have an option. I wonder what I would have done had Don Bosco's to be nowhere close.
Oh well, I would have gone to St. Michael's Church Mahim! You see living close to more than one church is - at times - a definite virtue!:)
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