As usual, I went for the evening mass in our parish church
on last Sunday. It was after a long time I managed to reach the church before
the beginning of the mass. The service was about to begin and there was not one
to assist the priest. I did not think twice, took the text developed for the
faithful and assisted the priest as an altar boy. I also managed the readings. Initially
I got a bit frightened as the text was a new version. For me, there has been no
practice of using the text while attending mass for a long time. However, I succeeded
in managing everything.
Anyways, this incident took me twenty five years down memory
lane. Back in our village, the parish church is just 500 metres away from our
home. I started attending the morning mass in our parish as soon as I started
my schooling at the age of five. The morning mass was at 7.00 AM. I used to be
the only kid in the gathering of mainly elderly people and some nuns. I would
rush back to home after the mass to have my breakfast and get ready for school
where the classes used to start at 10.00 AM.
As I entered third standard and learnt to read well, the
parish priest invited me to start serving as an altar boy. I got trained under
the senior altar boys. Normally, only those who have received the first Holy
Communion were allowed to serve as altar boys. However, this rule was relaxed
for the first time in my case. I was so small and, therefore, the faithful were
not able to see me as the altar is elevated. As a solution, the priest allowed
me to stand at one side of the altar from where I was visible to all.
I had a very innocent and priestly look at that time and
there were many elders who predicted that I would join seminary and become a
priest one day. Though the first part of their dream got materialised, the
second part did not. I consoled myself as the Lord himself had said ‘many are
called but a few are chosen’. I could not be among those who were chosen.
I also have very fond memories about the annual training cum
retreat camp the diocese used to organise for altar boys. I learnt my first acting lessons from there.
At the age of thirteen, I was chosen as the Sacristan of the
church with a monthly remuneration of 200 rupees which was a big amount at that
time. I became the only earning student in my class. Gradually, this led me to
some unwanted companies and I started spending the money mainly on movies. I started
bunking classes to go for movies. The culmination of all these was that I could
not attend any paper of my final examination in 9th standard. At
that point, I had to give up everything including my job as sacristan.
Anyways, the Lord had not forsaken me for all the good service
I did for him before going astray. After a long time, somehow, the Lord wanted
me to remember all these once again and I believe it was his plan to make me
assist the priest once again.
