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So I was being an acolyte at High Mass today; this involves various jobs, but most prominently carrying a processional torch, er, in procession and standing or kneeling in front of the altar with it during the Eucharistic prayer.

Except mine - we use those pseudo-candles that are actually oil lamps - kept going out. I had a box of matches, so I thought there was nothing to panic about - but then, after the peace, when we should have been filing across to the front of the altar, I realised that not only had it gone out again, but that the wick had burnt out.... After a panic-stricken and oily attempt at rescuing the situation, just had to file out with the other acolyte and kneel down.

The Gospel reading for today was the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Well, I like to think I may have brought the story alive for them....

To think people say God has no sense of humour!

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You should add a tag for clerical humour...

To warn people, you mean?

You can wear a tag on your collar when you are ordained, engraved 'Humorous Clergywoman. If found telling jokes, return to Rt Revd...'

(I, in turn, should not try to be funny about things I don't really understand.)

Oh, don't worry... Though I'm not sure the Harriet Vane look really works for members of the clergy, although I suppose there is that guy at Cambridge who does goth eucharists.

I also tend to agree with the Dominicans: better Our Lord's dog† than my lord the bishop...

† Clerical semi-humour has not improved since the thirteenth century, but apparently bad puns are a near universal constant.

Can you explain the pun, please? I've tried to assemble what I remember of my Latin to help, but I still can't get it to work. /modernist

I do, however, remember the dodginess of some of the imagery in Gaudy Night...

It's fairly bad Latin - Dominicans - domini-cani, the dogs of the Lord (probably ultimately inspired by the vision Dominic's mother is said to have had while she was pregnant with him, in which she gave birth to a little black dog which ran about with a torch in its mouth... the Dominicans use a dog with a torch as one of their emblems.)

Oh, that sort of pun... I was trying to think of alternative words for bishop than episcopus. Barking up the wrong mitre.

I don't envy you - but I couldn't help but giggle when I read that!

It wasn't funny at the time, but in retrospect it was amusing (and everyone who said anything thought it so...)

Well, if liturgical glitches must be, it's just as well if they're illustrative.

Oh, indeed!

Almost a pity it didn't go out during the gospel itself...!

Heh. I'm told that last time that reading fell on a Sunday, the candles on the altar went out... Someone seems to be trying to tell us something, but I'm not sure what.

Reminded of the Donald McGill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_McGill) postcard (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/photogallery/saucy_postcards9.shtml): 'That was a splendid sermon you gave about the "Foolish Virgins", Vicar. I'll never be one again!'

Or the apocryphal concluding question of a sermon: "Would you rather be in the light with the wise virgins, or in the dark with the foolish virgins?" Answers on a (Donald McGill) postcard, please!

I remembered this one from the classic "Littlewood's Miscellany", a book of reminiscences by an Oxbridge don. He attributes it to Montagu Butler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Montagu_Butler).

I apologize for (a) bringing it up on FB and (b) messing the quote up ...

Oh, no apologies necessary!

Ah yes. We had them at my former parish, where they were constantly leaking. G's former fellow-parish intern (the very spiky angry black man) used to refer to them as Heretics, I think because they were only pretending to be the real thing.

I can't say I like them; I'd rather have real candles, but the running costs are a lot lower, I suppose. But I'd rather have to deal with dribbles of wax than get oil everywhere

Was reading along, feeling compassionate, until the part about the Gospel reading, at which point I burst out laughing!

We have those oil candles on the altar...what a pain in the neck they are.

Yes - on any other Sunday it would merely have been embarassing, but that elevated it to comedy gold.

They really are a pain, though, especially as you can't immediately tell how much oil there is left in them.

When I was in chapel choir at Exeter we had them on the choir stalls. They're an absolute pig to fill, and usually resulted in transparent, grease-spotted music lists - or whatever else people had been foolish enough to leave out. We had proper candles at the altar and for the servers, though.

In our chapel, we have real candles on the choir stalls and by the lectern. There were oil lamps for the altar, but they only fit the hideous-but-valuable silver candlesticks, which we now hardly ever have out; the rest of the time we use plain brass candlesticks and real candles. Much more satisfactory.

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