After the Latin lesson today, we had incense drill. There are various options but here is a typical example for incensing something (e.g. statue of Our Lady) when the priest is wearing a cope, there is an MC (or "1st assistant") and a 2nd assistant.- Priest faces right.
- Thurifer moves in.
- 2nd assistant moves round.
- MC hands edge of cope to 2nd assistant
- MC takes boat.
- Thurfier opens thurible.
- MC presents boat to priest, saying "Benedicite Pater Reverende", holds boat just below lip of thurible.
- Priest puts three spoons of incense in.
- Priest makes sign of cross over incense in thurible. (Thurifer does not lower thurible until this has been done.)
- Thurfier closes thurible.
- MC hands boat to thurifer and takes thurible (this took a couple of goes).
- 2nd assistant goes back to left of priest.
- MC hands thurible to priest.
- MC and second assistant hold cope.
- Priest incenses.
- MC takes thurible from priest and hands it back to thurifer.
We then moved onto "spin the biretta" - each server is handed the biretta after it has been spun around in the air, and has to hand it to the priest the correct way. This was quite fun. (Remember they are only 7-8 years old.)
7 comments:
Admit it, Fr. Tim... YOU really enjoyed the game of "spin the biretta"...
:-P
Well I have to make the most of the hand-eye co-ordination while I still have it!
I know I'm going back to my Anglican days, but as thurifer I always found it easier when I had a boat boy assisting me. Also going back even earlier, I used to really enjoy being boat boy when I was 7 or 8 years old - it was a great introduction to altar serving.
Sadly, although my parish was very 'high church', the clergy never wore birettas, so I never took part in 'spin the biretta'. I doubt if the bishop would have appreciated it if we had practiced with his mitre. Oh to be young again!
Fr. Finigan,
In the days "pre-Vatican II", your humble servant was an altar boy. While serving at Benediction, I noticed the altar boy with the censer was not holding it at about arms length and allowing it to sway to and fro ever so gently. Instead, he held it at a direct stop and closely perpendicular to his body. Since cassocks are flammable, and censers are hot...
It was a near accident (smoke!), and a senior altar boy caught it and saved the day. However, perhaps the facts of flammability and hot censers should be mentioned!
As if you did not have enough to think of!
D.v.
I am SO forwarding this to our FSSP priests :D
It is also Good and Proper that I am not a seven-year-old boy. I can't tell left from right and I would probably be heartbroken if I couldn't be an altar server :)
That works father, except possibly at the altar where the server crosses in front of the crucifix should go down to the bottom step and genuflect before coming the left-hand side of the priest. At a Missa Cantata this is usually the thurifer who has just handed you the instrument. It takes time but should not be rushed.
I bet the Biretta would spin 'par exellence' and outdo the frisbee!
There's something in that Classic shape that makes me think 'yes - that'll fly'. Oh, you don't think so? Well, remember what the Laws of Physics say about the Bumble Bee!
;-)
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