Have you
ever seen “Mr. Bean Goes to Church”? If
you haven’t…you really should. It’s
brilliant. I’ve always seen it as a
great commentary on what church must be like for those not accustomed to how we
do things. As a Christian who has spent
his entire life in the church however, I always just kind of laughed and viewed
it from afar.
Until last
Sunday. Last Sunday I WAS
Mr. Bean.
Let me back
up for a moment. A couple of months ago,
some friends asked me to be the Godfather to their little girl at her
baptism. I’m not Catholic but I love
these people and it’s a huge honour to be asked. In Catholic tradition, if something happens
to the parents, as the Godfather, I’ve committed myself to raising their little
girl. Seriously…I have no idea what they were thinking. But as I said, these people are important to
me. And of course there’s also the fact
that I get to call myself “The Godfather”…so…you
know….
As a side
note, I did make a rule that these
people are never allowed to travel together in the same vehicle or place
themselves in any sort of dangerous situation while in the vicinity of the
other. Individually…go crazy. But NEVER TOGETHER.
So I’m good.
After they
asked me I was like, “So when are we
doing this thing?” Turns out they
don’t just let you be The Godfather
without a little training. I had to go
to mass for two Sundays…take a little class on baptism (which I aced by the way…)…and
then the third Sunday was the baptism.
The first
two Sundays were easy enough. We sat at
the back...stood when everyone else stood…hummed along to some nice songs…slipped
out when everything was over. It was a
nice church and the Father knew what he was doing…so it was all fine. The only surprise was how big the place
was. It was out in the country, so I was
expecting somewhere around thirty or forty people. That first Sunday I tried to count how many people
were there, but I lost track between five and six hundred. That threw me off a little, but I figured,
what the heck…I was a professional and standing up in front of a few hundred
people wasn’t that big of a deal.
Oh, the
overconfident pride of the idiot youth pastor/missionary.
Baptism
Sunday rolled around and I picked everyone up in my truck and off we went to
church. The little girl decided she wanted
to sit up front with me. To be clear…I
do like little kids. But wow…they talk a
lot. Like A LOT. And they ask a lot of questions. I mean…a LOT of questions.
We also had
the language barrier issue….she didn’t always understand my Spanish and I didn’t
always understand her gibberish. But I
made accommodating sounds like I was interested and paying attention…and that
seemed to satisfy her.
Except
eventually she caught on that I wasn’t really listening (we were late and I was
concentrating on driving). She started asking,
“Padrino (Godfather)? Padrino? Padrino?”
On about the
fifth or sixth “Padrino?” I got a look and a “PAAADDRINNOO!” in a tone of voice
that will serve her well when she’s someday married. I
quickly apologized and told her I was listening and that she looked very pretty…and
we were good again.
We arrived
at the church…took some family pictures (the Father was later than we were as
it turned out)…and then went into the church to sit down.
In the front row.
To be clear, that’s the front row that’s in front of everyone.
I went from
hiding out in the back…to being the only gringo in the place (who should have
paid better attention those last two Sundays) and sitting in the front row. Suddenly I found myself trying a lot harder to
get things right as I felt little Grandma lady’s eyes boring holes in the back
of my neck every time I didn’t cross myself with everyone else.
When I was
in high school, I sang in the tour choir and I stood beside the son of the
music director for the school. He
helpfully taught me that if you don’t remember the words to the song, just sing
“watermelon” and it makes your mouth look like you know what you’re doing.
That served
me well on Sunday. During the music, I
just kept singing watermelon over and over to whatever tune we were singing, with
the occasional “Jesus” and “Santo Dios” thrown in there for good measure. The chorus of the one song just repeated “Hallelujah”
over and over and whenever we got to that part, I belted those Hallelujah’s out
like….well, like Mr. Bean really.
As a side
note, the “watermelon” thing also works when you’re supposed to be reciting
prayers. I already apologized to God for
that one, so no need to comment.
Then came
the part when the Father asked the parents of the children being baptized
(there were three) if they were good Catholics and prepared to raise their
children with an understanding of the traditions of the Catholic church.
I instantly
broke out in a cold sweat and felt my face start to go red hot. Was he
going to ask me that? I thought we’d
been clear on this in the class that I wasn’t Catholic. Was I
going to have to say no to his question in front of 400 good Catholics? I
wonder if little Grandma lady can kill me using only her mind?
Then he
turned to the Godparents and asked us if we were prepared to be good examples
to our Godchildren and teach them about God and the spiritual life.
I was so
relieved I pretty much shouted “YES!”
in response. Because THAT I can do! You know, being a missionary and all. The Father actually paused for a moment and
looked at me before continuing on. I’m
sure he’d never had such an enthusiastic Godfather before.
The first
child to get baptized looked like she as about three days old and was very
cute. She slept through the whole
thing. The second little guy was about
four and…a little chunky shall we say. He
was cute enough in his little white suit…but that didn’t hide the fact that he
was a bit of a terror. And then every
time the Father went near him or touched him to bless him, he started screaming
and yelling.
My friend
leaned over and said, “I think he has a
demon.” Because you know…priest…holy
water…The Exorcist…the fact that he kept poking at the icon of the Baby Jesus on
the platform during the service…
Well, okay…technically
it may have been me who made the demon comment.
But since I’m a professional youth pastor/missionary, it probably wasn’t
appropriate. So I’ll blame it on my
friend. Although…I still think it was
funny.
My little
Goddaughter handled the whole getting water poured over her head thing like a
pro. When I commented on that
afterwards, my friend was like, “Well,
she likes to swim.” I don’t know…for
some reason that makes me laugh.
Then came my
big moment. I had my candle clasped
tightly in my hand as I walked over to the big candle by the baptismal. I was to light the candle as a representation
of the light of Christ in the life of my Goddaughter.
Except my
stupid candle wouldn’t light. It was a
rookie mistake. I’ve officiated at
enough weddings to know, YOU ALWAYS PRELIGHT THE CANDLES! And I thought about that…but I wasn’t sure if
I was allowed to. So instead, I just kept
standing there like an idiot waiting for my candle to finally catch on
fire. If I didn’t know any better, I
would have said the Light of Christ wasn’t very gung ho with my candle.
But eventually
my candle lit and everyone breathed an audible sigh of relief...or maybe that
was just me…and I rejoined the family for the blessing.
And then we
were done! My Goddaughter looked
beautiful. I got my candle to
light. The Father managed to baptize the…uh…rambunctious
other kid…and we were good to go. Except
for the eating of an inordinate amount of barbequed beef and aroz con queso at
lunch. Which we did.
I will never
watch Mr. Bean Goes to Church again without a certain heartfelt sympathy in the
midst of my laughter….
It was a fun night and a great time hanging out with friends! Happy belated Canada Day!!
