This is a true story; I did not include the family name of the person involved to protect his identity. But he is already dead anyway!
I remember an incident that happened one All Souls Day during the early '50s during the time of Fr. Estrada. One of the sacristans is a guy named Ruding. He is not a very hard working chap, sometimes he acts crazy, but a man-servant during those days is as indispensable as a vacuum cleaner. Someone has to scrub the house floors, clean the pig pen and the chicken coop and someone has to be the patsy when something is screwed up in the house!
On the side, he also was the sacristan mayor and also the campanero.Father Estrada liked him because he could play the bells in such a nice happy way esp. on Sunday mornings an hour before the start of the first Mass. Of course, he serves at Mass and during those days, Mass was recited in Latin and the alter server has to memorize all the responses in Latin.
He accompanied Fr. Jose Estrada that particular All Souls Day afternoon..But after the last tomb was blessed, Fr. Joe told Ruding:"You go ahead to the church, take my vestments with you. I will stay behind for a bit.." Those were the vestments used for celebrating mass..That included the 4 -cornered hat used by priests when they perform outdoor rites like funerals or in that afternoon, the blessing of the tombs. Well Ruding was as happy as a lark when he took all the vestments in one arm and started walking. But as soon as he was out of Father Estrada's sight, he put all vestments on his person! It was already dark and once he put on the hat, nobody can tell it is NOT the Padre walking on the street. The straw that broke the camel's back occured when he started running on the street which was still full of pedestrians going home. Ruding also started flapping his arms like he was Batman! He had a black cape all right ( the outer priestly vestment ). He run all the way to the church pretending like he was Batman chasing after a criminal! Needless to say, people reported the incident to Fr. Joe. He got furious of course and immediately he called in Ruding, gave him heck then fired him on the spot! Some people thought it was Fr. Joe who was running and he already lost all his marbles!! He also got heck from my mother too because she is a member of the variousclubs at church and Fr. Joe is her personal friend.
Ruding left not long after and I missed him for a while because he always tell silly jokes and stories.
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