Back when I was an altar boy…

My mother, who was very religious, tried to bring me up in the true faith. Unfortunately for her, it didn’t really work out. The older I got, the less that indoctrination seemed to have any effect.

Being driven from her home town of Müglitz in the Sudetenland must have left my mother traumatised. Going from being the daughter of a respected innkeeper to having nothing was a huge fall from grace for her. She then had to compensate for this with her suddenly awakened religious devotion. In short, she became devout. No meat on Fridays, and going to church on Sundays was, of course, compulsory. Fortunately, we lived in the diaspora, and the curate only came to the Protestant church every other Sunday – the church that granted us few Catholics refuge.
My first “official” duty was as follows. Since we didn’t have an organist, the pastor brought a tape recorder with church hymns to drown out the awful singing of the mostly elderly ladies. I was then “allowed” to press the “play” button when certain keywords were spoken, and the music would start playing. Sometimes the priest had to repeat that Latin word several times, since I was probably too lost in my own thoughts. If I still didn’t react, a loud “Werner!” would ring out; I’d jump and my finger would dart to the play button. Instead of growing in number, our congregation kept shrinking. When I turned 13 and was preoccupied with entirely different thoughts, the question of recruiting new altar servers came up. I hoped this burden would pass me by, but there weren’t many candidates. My mother immediately said “yes” on my behalf, and just like that, I was accepted into the circle of “apprentices.” Back then, I was still very shy. The first time I stood at the altar, I would have loved to sink into the ground out of embarrassment. But you eventually get used to everything. The worst part was memorizing the Latin liturgy. I didn’t know a thing about Latin. In a way, I felt like Muslim students do today—memorizing things without knowing what they mean.
Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad deum qui lactificat juventutem meam.
Those are the only two sentences I can remember. As far as I can recall, that was the start of the service. (That’s how you get your ‘small Latinum’ )
So there I stood, poor fool that I was, and at first I was just as clueless as before. I kept wondering what I should do next. First of all, stand there with an air of dignity. That went very well indeed. But what next? Carrying the missal from the right-hand corner to the left-hand corner – that, too, stuck in my memory. Then, at some point, pouring wine from a small jug into the chaplain’s chalice. He then downed the sip in one go. Sometimes I got the impression he’d have liked a second helping. But the script hadn’t provided for that. Then a sip of water to rinse it out and a cloth to wipe it clean. The Protestants have it better in that respect; everyone gets a bit there.
Before or after that – I’ve no idea, I can’t quite remember the order – came the Agnus Dei. The priest began, ‘Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world’, and so on. Of course, he said this in Latin, and the congregation replied, ‘mea culpa’. In my innocence, I wondered whether I should or shouldn’t. Then I rang my bell three times. That was wrong, of course; I was only allowed to use the bells during the Consecration. Apart from the curate, however, nobody else seemed to have noticed. Then came the Consecration, the distribution of Communion and the final blessing; not much else happened after that, and I was relieved.
Over time, I got into a bit of a routine and the sheer boredom set in. I just stood there, muttering some Latin replies (a Roman would probably have doubled up with laughter) and in between, pure boredom. But of course, that doesn’t leave an altar boy cold. At some point, it occurred to me: how can you wiggle your ears? That was, of course, a challenge. I started concentrating on my ears, tried my hardest, but nothing moved. Naturally, I couldn’t just let that go. After quite a few Sundays, something did finally move. As a Greek, I would have shouted ‘Eureka!’ at that point, but shhh – that wasn’t part of the programme. It was working better and better, to the point where I sometimes almost forgot my important part in the dialogue with the priest. If it works with both ears, surely it should be possible with just one ear. So back to square one, more practising, and the sense of achievement gradually set in. I was so proud of my achievement. Nobody had noticed a thing, and I could wiggle each ear separately – something I can still do today. So serving at Mass had been good for something after all. After a year, it was all over. The church bus was brought in and rattled its way through a few villages on the journey to the district town. There, the church was packed, and I was relieved.
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani”—those weren't my last words this time, but rather “Deo gratias.”