First days as a parish sacristan...

Cindy was the parish sacristan at busy St Michael's Catholic parish in a major Australian capital city. She is now semi-retired but has kept a secret diary of incidents that happened during her decade of busy years. She now assists a small team of women who have taken over the job in this progressive 21st century.

Cindy's full name is Cinderella. Her Dad insisted she be called Cinderella the first time he saw her beautiful tiny feet in the hospital following her birth. He felt they were so exquisite they should always be visible through glass slippers. Fr Graves on the day of the Baptism was not pleased and begged for a more suitable name for the little one – a saint's name. Mary, Martha, Brigid, Scholastica, Veronica – "plenty of names to choose from" he warned "life is not a fairy tale you know".

Her father was adamant and her mother had little say in the matter being too tired to argue following the long and painful birth and the sleepless nights that followed. The little one settled down and led an interesting life until the time she became the sacristan at St Michael's almost half a century later. But let us allow Cindy to reveal her many secrets when she is ready.

When Cindy first undertook the job at St Michael's, she was gob-smacked that as a female she was allowed to have a role with a title. The parish priest Fr Bernard Cunning had advertised through weekly news bulletins for over a month for a person to work in the sacristy. When no men had applied, Cindy finally plucked up the courage and asked him "can a woman apply for this position?" Being an unpaid job, the overworked priest was happy to take anyone who showed the slightest interest. Little did Cindy know the work she was letting herself in for, but with great gusto and enthusiasm, she threw herself heart and soul into the role.

On her first day, Fr Cunning told her the names of the vestments and sacred vessels. Cindy did remember learning from the nuns at school about the order a priest vested for Mass. Amice, alb, cincture, maniple, stole and chasuble. She learned the difference between a chalice and a ciborium. She also learned that a purifier is used to wipe the chalice between each person taking a sip. The corporal sits on the altar during mass and the finger towel is for the priest to dry his fingers at the 'washing of the fingers' during the Offertory. What Cindy found out was that she was now the chief washer-woman for all these different sized white pieces of linen and there were very specific ways they each needed to be folded and ironed!! There was so little linen available, she needed to wash them every few days until she decided to make some more.

Yes, things were changing at St Michael's. Fr Cunning did look somewhat surprised when bowls of flowers appeared in the sacristy, previously an all-male domain of male priests and male altar-servers, save for the good parish women who regularly dusted and cleaned the floor when he was not present.

Yes, Fr B. Cunning did well the day he gave the voluntary job to Cindy. However if he thought she would be a quiet and acquiescent glorified cleaner he had a shock in store, many shocks in fact. His first major shock came that first Easter when he asked Cindy to strain the Sacred Oils in preparation for the new blessed oils coming from the Cathedral. But we shall save that story for our next episode.

Cindy

Cindy the Sacristan is a new character entering our pages. The first new character to be written by one of our other readers whose imagination has been fired by Cliff's Menagerie. In reality these are real-life memoirs of one of the members who would prefer to remain anonymous.

[Cindy's Archive]