June 08, 2005

Platen-ology

In the comments to the post immediately below, Kendra asks for more Father Feeley stories.

This isn't exactly a story, and I'm pretty sure Kendra has heard it before, but here goes;

One job you have as an altar boy is to hold this gold-plated dish called a platen under the host as the priest places it on the communicant's tongue. That way, if the priest fumbles the host, or if something else goes wrong, the altar boy can catch it on the way down with the platen and prevent it from touching the ground. (Or it used to be that way - now they have Communion in the Hand. It seems like the same principle would apply to this method, but I haven't seen an actual platen in a long time, for whatever reason.)

When you're a short altar boy, and there are tall communicants, this job can be challenging. You have to reach up, sometimes stand on your toes, while keeping the platen level and in position. Sometimes you screw up and accidentally hit a communicant in the throat because you can't really see what you're doing up there. It can be a bit stressful.

Now when the priest gives the host to the communicant, he says "Body of Christ." He will usually say it like a question, for some reason: "Body of Christ?"

And the communicant says "Amen." (Which is spoken as though in answer or confirmation of the BoC question - I don't know why it is, but that's way it sounds.)

Anyway, this Body of Christ/Amen cycle repeats till everyone has received.

But I was so bad at the whole platen thing that "my" masses sounded more like this:

"Body of Christ?"

"Amen."

"Under the chin, boy, under the chin!"

"Body of Christ?"

"Amen.

"Under the chin, boy, under the chin!"

And so on.

Father Feeley delivered the "under the chin" admonition with tremendous gusto. You know in the musical Oliver, when Mr. Bumble and the Widow Corney say, alternating: "Catch him! Snatch him! Hold him! Scold him! Pounce him! Trounce him! Pick him up and bounce him"? Well, that's a pretty good approximation of the tone and attitude with which Father Feeley used to say "under the chin, boy, under the chin!" To this day I can't attend mass without hearing this phrase echo in my head.

Posted by Dr. Frank at June 8, 2005 06:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments

thanks for the story. i actually had't heard that one before. now what about father bravo? i think the adventures of fathers feeley and bravo could be something of an american father ted.

Posted by: kendra at June 8, 2005 06:49 PM

Sheesh. With our priest - Father Boyle - it was always and forever "Corpus Christi?"

Querytone too - how funny.

Posted by: Fcb at June 8, 2005 08:42 PM

Im not Catholic, does anyone ever say:

"Body of Christ?"

"Don't mind if I do."

Posted by: josh at June 8, 2005 08:56 PM

Father feeley? How about ArchBishop Touchey? *sivers*

Posted by: Zaphod at June 9, 2005 11:18 AM

I can't believe you just quoted Oliver.

Posted by: Davey at June 9, 2005 04:46 PM