The Christmas Moose

Week Seventy-One - St. Ignatius Loyola

3:00 afternoon mass, Christmas Eve, St. Ignatius.  Well, as they say, there's no place like home for the holidays, so once again, tradition prevailed - I was off the trail but with the whole gang at St. I's earliest - and busiest - Christmas Eve mass.  They were lining the walls, standing two deep in spots, for this one, an annual rite of liturgical chaos - all this in spite of a second three o'clock mass running concurrently in the gym.  I've never been to the Christmas Eve mass held in the gym, but every year, there are reassurances that it will be conducted in a "reverential atmosphere" . . . at center court. 

The trick to attending St. I's three o'clock Christmas Eve mass in the church is to arrive early, "early" meaning "no later than two o'clock" - and I'm not kidding.  If you can't make it by two, forget it or hire a seat saver who can be there by two.  Even with your seat saver, however, you want to arrive no later than 2:30 or things can get reeeeeally ugly, just like they did this year. 

Saving seats is a tricky thing.  My daughter and I are the family's official seat savers for the boys who mercifully arrive just fifteen or twenty minutes later. An elderly gentleman in the row behind us arrived shortly after two, however, and saved the whole pew for his family.  Even with grandpa's well-intentioned gesture, this was trouble a-brewin' from the get-go, but when his family didn't arrive until nearly 2:45 (inexcusable), his countless awkward denials to those looking for a seat progressed from exasperated sighs and shaken heads from those trolling the pews to a near fist-fight and an exchange of obscenities that really embodied the Christmas spirit.  I was dying.  There was no way I could look at my husband or I would have been on the floor in hysterics. 
 
Aside from that classic piece of drama, things flowed pretty smoothly.  Well, one of the readers, an adorable little girl, did misread "the bridegroom rejoices over his bride" as "the bridge-groom rejoices over his bridge," an interesting concept in itself, and  feedback from the sound system did bring the Nicene Creed to a screeching halt, but this really was St. I's at its finest.  All the big names were there.  All the big families were there.  It was a "Greatest Hits" mass if there ever was one.  

My Husband the Heathen, back at St. Ignatius for the first time since last Easter, couldn't help but compare St. I's to the many other churches he's visited with me.  His review wasn't exactly glowing.  Of course, there is no comparison in aesthetics when you're talking about The Barrel, but when you factor in that St. I's spirit,  that Wildcat pride . . . well, that's a whole 'nother story, a story the parish can be proud of.   

ATTENDANCE:  Fire code violation

DURATION:  A mind-boggling one hour and ten minutes