Your funny church stories
A few weeks ago I invited readers of The Southern Cross to send in their stories of amusing incidents in church. I have been overwhelmed with the most wonderful tales of tiny tots “telling it as it is”.
Bernadette Walton of Pretoria told me how, many years ago when she and the family were attending Mass in a makeshift church in Margate, her toddler daughter Rose managed to creep under the priests vestments before Mass.
When he walked solemnly up the aisle to the altar all one could see behind him was was a tiny pair of legs struggling to keep up.
A classmate of mine from CBC Pretoria, Brian Verwey, now of Midrand, told me about a youngster who was convinced that the parish priest was in fact, God.
One day at Mass, as the priest went up to the tabernacle to take out the ciborium, the child blurted out in a loud voice; “Dad, what’s God taking out of the booze cabinet?”
Olga Cadman of Cape Town wrote in with this wonderful story: “Some years ago, where the palm trees grew on the traffic island at the top of Strand Street, four goats belonging to a Muslim family used to stray onto the island to rest.
“These animals were known as the holy goats, so perhaps it was not surprising when in church one morning, whilst the rather pompous visiting priest was explaining to the congregation just how the sign of the cross should be made, my seven-year-old niece Winnie rushed up to the altar rail and yelled: ‘It is not Holy Ghost; it’s holy goats’.”
Also from Cape Town came an e-mail from Victor Raynal who wrote: “In the late 1940s, a well-known priest in the Johannesburg diocese, Fr Perron, was preparing to render a sermon at Sunday Mass in Belgravia parish.
“Because he was a small man, Fr Perron stood on a stool in the pulpit. Just as he quoted the text of his sermon from John 16:19—“a little while and you shall not see me, and again a little while you shall see me”—the stool collapsed and Fr Perron disappeared from view. The congregation was in an uproar”
From Richard Salt of Craighall, Johannesburg: “My daughter, her husband and two children attend St Phillip the Apostle church in Finchley, North London. When my granddaughter was four years old they we went to Mass on Easter Sunday. At the end of Mass, Fr John invited the children to take Easter eggs from baskets placed at the doors of the church (they were chocolate eggs with a cream filling).
“Annabel took two eggs, one for herself and one for her little brother, Ethan. As she ran down the stairs she called out to her brother: ‘Ethan, I have an egg for you and it is your favourite; God had it!’”
All this reminds me of a lovely story Southern Cross editor Günther Simmermacher once told me about his son Michael, now a young man but at the time of the story still a toddler who had just started to talk.
One day at Mass, Michael was particularly restless, so Günther took him outside the church to calm him down.
Outside the church entrance stood a crucifix with the bleeding and dying Christ hanging on it. Jesus obviously looked tormented. Michael looked at the statue, and then asked why Jesus was crying. Günther replied: “Because he is sore.” To which Michael responded, with the impeccable logic of a small child: “Then Jesus must eat medicine.”
Rosemary De Gouveia told a wonderful story of her cousin who took her boyfriend, who was not a Catholic, to Holy Mass one Sunday morning.
“All went fine until the collection box came round. He noticed everyone was putting money in and so when it came to his turn, he suddenly realised he had only a R50 note on him.
“No problem to him: he put the collection box on his lap and made change which he pocketed before putting his portion of the offering in. Needless to say my cousin went bright red and embarrassed, particularly when everyone around them looked at what he was doing. It still brings a smile to us when we think about it.”
Well Rosemary, I have a similar story to tell of my good friend Daphne Brindle of Rivonia parish, who will never ever talk to me again for publishing this. I was sitting next to her at Mass one Sunday and she also put in a R50 note and then taking change “for the Sunday Times and a litre of milk”. I have never let her forget it.
An e-mail from Mary Ainslie on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast carried a copy of a letter written by the 10-year-old daughter of a friend to Alcoholics Anonymous where her father Geoff, was attending meetings.
“Dear AA,
I think you have a great society and when I am older I wish to join it. You are doing are great job helping drunkens. I am sure God is very pleased with you. I love the prayers you have and enjoy saying them.
Love from Geoff’s daughter.”
I promised that we would have a winner, and our panel of judges thought the Mary Ainslie’s story should take the first prize.
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