Shoved to Them
The strains of the Alleluia! sounded in Mass and the faithful slowly rose to their feet. The choir, only 8 people in a church filled with over 700 in the pews, struggled to be heard above the shuffling and coughing congregation. Maybe one in ten people even attempted to sing along, the rest stood silently or yawned.
As the Deacon proclaimed the Gospel, the people shifted on their feet and read quietly along or fanned themselves with the print out of the day’s readings. When he finished, the parishioners sat down with much more enthusiasm than they had stood up.
The new priest, who is from Nigeria, walked slowly to the ambo with emotion tightening his features. He sighed deeply and set aside his prepared homily.
“I had something else prepared for today….” he began, “but when I was growing up in Nigeria, it was not uncommon for the Mass to take hours and hours. The priest could talk a lot, this is true, but it was the music and the people that took the longest. Just the joy of the Alleluia! alone could stretch out into an hour or more of singing and dancing for happiness. Can you imagine the joy of having the privilege to hear the Gospel is so big that the whole church will dance and sing in praise and happiness so long and so contagious that it spills over into an hour or more of rejoicing? Over an hour….and this is just the Alleluia!”
No. I honestly can’t imagine such a wondrous thing, but I sure would love to see it.
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