Between sanctity and sacredness.
The Ungodly Hour
The daily Mass in the parish church starts early in the morning at six thirty. To make it in time for that Mass, the boy has to get up at an unearthly hour of five thirty, when the sky is dark, with a tinge of grey in the east. It is still a good time to sleep; in fact, it is the best time for the boy. But alas, that luxury is stolen from him because of his solemn duty as an altar boy. He has to get up quickly, get dressed in the dark, and rush to the parish church so he arrives in time to light the candles and assist the priest.
The truth, however, is that his mother won’t allow him to sleep in, and whenever he does, there is a penalty. If the boy doesn’t get ready in time for church that day, his morning penance is to take the cow out to graze until it’s time to go to school. Going into the slushy fields on a chilly morning with a listless cow is not the best way to start the day; the boy knows it from experience. Compared to the cold fields, the church’s warm glow seemed infinitely preferable. So he chose the more comfortable option of going to the church. Thus, he became an altar boy by his own choice, but a choice he was forced to make.
Enchanted by the Altar
Though his mother practically pushed him toward the altar, the boy gradually came to like the routine and grew enchanted by the church’s mystical atmosphere. The admixture of sounds, smells, and colours around the altar, and the mystery of the melodic Syriac chants, left him mesmerised. He never grew tired of watching the towering altar candles. As they burned, streams of molten wax cascaded down their sides, cooling into intricate, undulating shapes. Where others saw mere lumps of wax, his imagination discovered a celestial court—the hidden figures of angels, martyrs, and saints frozen in flight. Giving those images finishing touches in his mind’s eye gave him great satisfaction, day after day.
The atmosphere in the church shifted from earthly to celestial the moment the priest began the first Syriac hymn, “Pughdaane goaoon…” in a sonorous chant, stretched and held, elongating the ancient prayer as long as he could hold his breath. By then, the early-morning mist slipping down from the trees around the village church would have gently floated in and blended with the white smoke billowing from the swinging incense pots, making them denser and more fragrant. In that misty, mystical atmosphere, the prayers escaping the priest’s lips became visible plumes of hot breath, making them both visible and almost tangible. Prayers are physical, the boy concluded, and he earnestly followed their path, marked in white vapours around the altar, before they vanished on their way up to heaven.
Feeling without Knowing
All the while, the awed congregation knelt in a half-dazed state of prayerful somnolence, blissfully ignorant of what was being uttered with such great fervour from the altar not far from where they knelt. As the prayers were in Syriac, the worshipers didn’t know the meaning, though they shared the feeling. The boy, like the rest of the faithful, didn’t know the meaning of the prayers, but it didn’t matter to him because he could see them floating around him. He could even touch the prayers if he wanted.
The boy held a brass bell and, with great ceremony of his own, rang it at key moments to jolt the worshippers awake and polish their piety, and he swelled with pride at the importance of his task. Stationed at the altar just behind the priest, he understood perfectly that this was no ordinary perch but a spiritual command post. When the priest lifted his hands heavenwards in prayer, the boy, in a perfectly synchronised choreography, raised the back of the heavy vestment to ease the strain on those consecrated shoulders. He was quite certain that, without his assistance, it would be nearly impossible for the priest to hoist both hands—and heart—towards heaven. That secret knowledge filled the boy with an intoxicating sense of importance. He was the silent pillar holding up the bridge between heaven and earth.
Yet, standing in the cloud of incense, listening to the echoing bells, he knew in his heart that, but for the grace of that stubborn cow, he would not have reached such spiritual heights. She was, in every sense of the word, a holy cow.