My older brother and I were altar boys in the early 1960s Pre-Vatican II. We were taught to say the Mass in Latin by the diocesan priest assigned to the local church on the edge of the Blue Hills south of Boston. We understood nothing other mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa or ‘forgive me forgive really forgive me’. Initially the church had bee a Quonset hut left over from an Army processing base along State Route 28. We wore black cassocks and white surplices. My mother was so proud of us at the Sunday Children’s Mass celebrated by the pastor, an old, but gentle Father Curry from County Mayo. Gentle except for one time when two dogs ran up the aisle to start humping before the altar. The congregation horrified, the pastor put down the chalice and strode to the howling dogs and booted them in coitus over the altar railing. Everyone was shocked, as they fled the church together.

Father raised his hands and said, “Just dirty dogs. Not Satan.”

The adults nodded their heads and the children all exchanged mystified glances, questioning whether they had witnessed a miracle. I knew it wasn’t a miracle as an atheist, but hid my disbelief in my altar boy ego. For two reasons, later three. First, we were paid for weddings. Sometimes $5, sometimes $10, sometimes stiffed by the father of the bride. Secondly we were called out of school for funerals and holy days. We received noting for the dead, even on All Soul’s Day. The Holy day after All Saint’s Day was to honor the dead. At ten years old I didn’t know many dead people other than people who had been dead before I was born like my namesake grandfather Peter Nolan from the Aran Isles and my father’s father and my best friend, Chaney, who had drowned in Sebago Lake in the summer of 1960.

I prayed for him every Mass. Not to God nor Jesus, but just prayed hoping his soul was in eternity waiting for me. As I got older, Father Curry explained how All Souls’ Day has been observed on November 2 since the 11th century. I later learned from Wikipedia that this holiday had been established by Abbot Odilo, who had been the Benedictine Abbot of Cluny from the first millenium to his death in 1048 AD.

I don’t recall serving at All Soul’s Day, because the Mass is usually offered at the cemetery. According to Wikipedia in the Middle Ages, superstitious belief, probably influenced from Celtic paganism, held that the souls in Purgatory appeared on All Souls Day as witches, toads, goblins, etc. to persons who committed wrongs against them during their lives on earth. I’ve never seen them, although I do have the ‘sight’ thanks to the Cauld ie the placenta wrapped around my head at birth. I see the dead many places, but never on All Soul’s Day.

ps I stayed an altar boy, for reason # # was we supped the altar wine, as we neared our teenage years. always careful to not spill a drop on our blemishless surplices.

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa.

Numquam vere paenitet ie never really sorry.