A Handmaiden's Tale

[Denise]

A Handmaiden's Tale

September 2001
By Sandra Marcellina

Sandra Marcellina (a pseudonym) is an educational administrator.

In 1995, as a new “revert” to the Catholic Church, I left my parish, and headed for the Traditional Latin Mass some 70 miles away — one way. You know the reasons: When a priest was in my parish to say Mass, he preached heresy. When he wasn’t, which was often, someone (usually a woman) would take to the altar to hold “Word and Communion” services, reciting all the Eucharistic prayers except the Consecration. The “environment” was cheap and tacky, but enough already! Whatever the sacrifices and inconveniences in the long drive to and from the Latin Mass (and there were many), I could forget them in the beauty and dignity of the traditional Roman Liturgy. I remember when, before our first Christmas in new quarters, I was trimming lace on a new altar cloth while two priests were working out the patterns of Solemn High Mass. Three was a crowd: I decided to take a pew for a few minutes to let them finish. One priest turned to me and asked, “Do you need to be at the altar?” I replied, “If I did, I’d have stayed at ______ [the parish in my hometown].” The other priest, not new to the diocese, laughed sadly.

I learned a lot in the context of the traditional Mass — how to really clean a church, how to work in silence, and the beauty of fine materials — wool, silk, and linen. I fell in love with church linen. It softened in water instantly, and released stains as quickly as it absorbed them. Damp, under the hot iron, it emitted a delicate incense of steam and took a beautiful shape, body, and sheen. The older linens with mitered corners and pulled thread hems jumped onto the board and begged to be ironed, their grains perfectly straight and aligned. Linen was something I could take care of without traveling one hundred forty miles. I did a lot of it, and I loved it.

I knew deep in my heart that this was an apostolic formation, but I did everything I could do to deny that I would be wanted elsewhere. Nonetheless, the inevitable happened. I could no longer attend the traditional Mass. I swerved for a time into a parish closer to home, Novus Ordo, but with a pastor deadly serious about his mission. It was a joy to attend Mass there, but I had no real standing, and nothing to offer. Ultimately, God’s will re-asserted itself. I would return to the local parish I had fled nearly four years earlier. I was crushed.

So was the parish. Of the five priests last assigned to the parish, three had lost their vocations, one had died (I suspect of a broken heart), and the latest was doing the best he could. There were only 35 people at Mass the first Sunday I returned. The cantor was using taped hymns (worse than you can imagine), and I was overcome with sorrow over the way Our Lord was treated here. But I had become acquainted with the workings of God’s will. I offered myself to His service as He desired. The last thing I wanted was to cause a commotion; everyone seemed to have had enough of that. I asked the Liturgy Committee “chairperson” (a woman, of course), “Who does the linens?” She shrugged and said, “Whoever gets to them.” I asked several people if this were someone’s turf, and it was clear that no one had claimed it. I opened the linen drawer in the sacristy, and there among the corporals (poorly folded) and purificators (polyester) were six dish towels from the parish hall. I had my work cut out for me.

Straightening out the linens was no easy task. There were some good older linens among the junk, and with some soaking in borax and washing in bluing, these became presentable enough to get by. Only linen was used on the altar — cotton and synthetics were retired. I alone know where. I had some coarser linen at home and asked for permission to begin making real lavabo towels to replace the Wal-Mart terry cloth. Permission was granted, and I began. I started slowly, and then was joined by a lovely lady from the Philippines who had studied at a convent school. She lit a fire under me. We finished the towels and began working on the corporals. Quickly then, a mensa cloth to cover the stained altar cloths we hadn’t had time to replace, and a new credence cloth.

But I get ahead of myself. I had a basin full of linens in my laundry room for nearly a week when I finally took the time to prepare them to be laundered. I soaked them in their first water, which I would return to the earth rather than to the sewer, and then went out to the living room to answer the phone. Returning, I saw to my horror that two large fragments of the Host had floated to the surface. I was in shock. I rinsed off and consumed them, not knowing what else to do at the moment. I was heartsick, for not only were the fragments wrongly disposed of, but I had also housed Our Lord in dirty linens in a plastic tub in my laundry room for five days. I told the coordinator for Eucharistic ministers about it. He was very troubled, and agreed that we needed to discuss the matter at our training session. I purchased a crystal ablution cup with a gold-plated lid for the off chance that this might occur again.

We talked about the incident and its ramifications with the Eucharistic ministers. I was amazed and heartened by how upset everyone was. The anguish in the room was palpable. It wasn’t until I talked about the practices of cleaning sacred linens, and of returning water to the ground, that there was some relief. Just before I came back to the parish, the sewer line had backed up, spewing its contents throughout the sacristy, narthex, and vestibule. I was able to quip: “None of us would run the Host into the sewer. Everyone in this parish knows what’s in the sewer.” Eucharistic ministers in this parish are now scrupulously careful with the sacred Elements. This was a great improvement.

Then we acquired a new priest — from Africa, where, from all I can gather, priests are made with souls of iron and hearts of pure fire. He insisted on a gold chalice, and on adherence to the rubrics and words of the liturgy. We were kneeling after the Agnus Dei for the first time in many years. My heart leapt. But a miscommunication nearly caused me an early demise. I started assembling chalice, paten, purificator, pall, and veil, believing that he had asked for them, and did not know for months that someone was substituting his own opinion for Father’s. The Liturgy Committee jumped on me with all 20 feet. By whose authority was the chalice being veiled? I allowed that I had cleared it through pastoral authority. The matter would go further, I was told, and I fully expected to see the chalice stripped the following Sunday. But it was not. I will never understand why — nor do I particularly care to know.

After a little more sniping over linen hand towels, the war was over without my ever having fired a single volley. People began to notice that the church was clean and attractive (even though tacky banners are still on the wall — but that’s not my department). People are now quieter and dress better for Mass. We have a long way to go, but there’s no mistaking this church for anything other than a Catholic church. I could stay here for the rest of my life.

The priest who gave me my first absolution in 22 years told me (frequently), “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” He didn’t add, “And God will make a great deal more of it than you can ask or imagine.” I don’t know your circumstances, but chances are there’s a neglected duty somewhere in your parish that even the most hardened liberal would be pleased to allow you to take over. Do it with all your might to the glory of God alone. Miracles will happen.