Getting ready and dressed for serving at Mass was nearly as big an event or ritual as actually serving.

Arriving in the sacristy on time was easy for Masses during the week (Monday thru Friday during the school year). We simply headed over to church when the good sister told us it was time to go but sometimes there were distractions along the way. The trek from school to the church was no more than two hundred feet. Some mornings Father’s cat would be prowling around outside and was just begging to be aggravated by us.

There were stones in the parking lot that needed to be picked up and thrown at something or nothing. If it was a warm sunny morning we sometimes meandered just a bit and did not take the most direct route to church. On the other hand if it was raining it turned into a foot- race to get inside the church and out of the rain. Once in church and into the sacristy preparation for Mass began in earnest.

The first order of business was selecting the proper cassock. This is the long black robe with long sleeves that buttoned from the neck to the floor. It was always black except on special occasions or feasts when we wore the red ones. For expediency the buttons were always left buttoned from the knee to the floor and we stepped into that like stepping into a pair of jeans. We only needed to determine what length fit best since the width was standard. It did not matter if we weighed seventy-five pounds or one hundred seventy-five pounds.

Sounds simple enough but the cassocks hung on hangers on a metal clothes rack high enough that they were nearly impossible to reach by the shorter servers. The cassocks were supposedly arranged by size (length), left to right or right to left, but remember we were elementary school kids and this kind of structured order was not at the top of our priority list when it came time to re-hang the cassock after Mass.

Also, it was a challenge to guess at the true length when the cassocks hung several feet above our heads. Almost never did our first selection at getting the correct length happen. The proper length was just a few inches from the floor. As the search continued we became more and more nervous to find the best fit and we still needed to find the surplice.

The surplice for lack of a better description resembled in my mind the maternity blouses that expectant mothers wore in the fifties and sixties. White remained white regardless of wearing the black or red cassock. These were by size also and again arranged on the metal rack accordingly, however just like the cassocks when the servers replaced them on the rack they were seldom arranged in order. Once we had put our two piece ensemble together viewed each other and either approved or disapproved. If the cassock was obviously too long or too short gauged by our novice opinions, time allowing, we attempted to make a better selection. This did not always happen unless Father Greskamp made the decision that the choice of size was too wrong. None-the-less even after this rigorous screening process it never failed that sometimes the system did not work.

Periodically someone processed into the sanctuary for the start of Mass while tripping on his cassock that was inches and inches too long or wearing one that was inches and inches too short. This did not affect our ability to perform reverently at Mass but it did sometimes provide for the entertainment of the other kids in the pews to witness a server tripping on the long cassock or holding it up to prevent tripping while going up or down the three steps to the altar.

As amusing as this was to our fellow students, it was an entirely different reaction from Sister Evangeline who was in charge of the altar boys. We always heard immediately from her if there was something wrong with what we were wearing or if we did not perform in the way we were trained.

There was another reason to get dressed as quickly as possible before the start of Mass. It was social thing. Just outside the sacristy door was a four foot by five foot concrete porch with a metal pipe railing and a one step down to the parking lot. It was not unlike being on a viewing stage as parishioners passed by on their way to the front door of the church.

Greetings were exchanged and all seemed well. This was all before the practice of greeters meeting the parishioners at the entrance to church. There were spaces of time between parishioners passing by so typically the metal pipe railing turned into a mini monkey bar for the amusement of the servers. The celebrant and servers at this time still entered the sanctuary directly from the sacristy and did not process up the center aisle.

My final “Altar Boy” article will focus on Latin training and tidbits of other information. “Deus sit apud vos.”