The moments most embarrassing to me concern two areas: the singing of permanent deacons and the poor ceremonial preparation of catechumens and candidates.

The former includes several awful times when deacons attempted to sing the simple "Christ, our light". Indecipherable melodic content and strangled attempts at moving up a step for each invocation made for crawl-into-the-bench moments.

The latter includes candidates who did not know the liturgical responses and did not know what they were supposed to do or where they were supposed to be. Then there were those who did not even show up for the vigil after having rehearsed, thus throwing off all the choreography.

Although these were not areas for which I was personally directly responsible, I was embarrassed at these amateurish antics by my church.

And there was the time I jumped the gun on the Kyrie cue from the servers and we had to sing it twice. Sigh. I do not do well in a dark loft.

I have already mentioned our foul ups with ushers and fire on another thread. I too, have had those moments with deacons but with the Exsultet. He is a good singer, but not to the degree of being able to stay on pitch for that long and not vary from the notes. He has a good voice but doesn't read music. This year, the associate pastor will sing it to light organ accompaniment. Last year we lost 4 weeks of rehearsals because of weather right before Easter. The person who had led the Litany of the Saints assured me that it had not been forgotten in the year since we last used it. Wrong! It was totally screwed up. This year we go to plan "B" and do it another way. The organ console was scheduled for rebuild in the summer, but had become unreliable by Easter and the entire combination action had failed. Thank goodness we will not have that problem this year because the rebuild was a stunning success. However, something will go wrong this year. I have concluded there is a stray magnetic current pulsing from the ground right under the building.

I agree that a Bic lighter is flint and steel, but the New Fire is, according to LU 1962 (my most accessible resource) a charcoal fire. MJO's comment was about a celebrant who regarded the flame of the Bic as itself the new fire, a miserably niggardly mean-spirited attitude. Personally I like to see a good blaze dispelling the darkness, of the sort with which St Patrick outraged the pagan authorities.

Many years ago, I had a very nervous priest (filling in) turn to me in the middle of the Vigil and ask what happened next. I calmly and snark-lessly gave the correct answer and the liturgy lurched forward to its eventual and universally appreciated end. In retrospect, the best answer would have been that the final blessing was next and all that remained.

As a tenor, many times, the director forgot that the organ was down 6 semitones and that for a tenor is difficult. I never let him past it.

The Irish don't have ushers because they are too independent to take direction. My Scottish ancestors were the same. LOL.

I call it the "human-ness of the Catholic Church."
Man organist friend calls it "who has the matches." On the evidence, with great scurrying and flailing of arms visible on live TV, they lined up for the processional for Evening Prayer at St Patrick and forgot the Holy Father's prayer book. It got handed to the MC around Francis's head.

Kenneth

Being my first Easter Vigil, I will surely be able to contribute to this thread in a few weeks.

JIF, really? This is the best! Is it really true? This is the kind of story for which we might normally cherish only a forlorn hope.

This year, maybe we should all make a pact to "oil up the aspergillum" on Holy Saturday afternoon.

I'm going to make a bumper sticker to that effect.

I love the idea of going to dinner after the Easter Vigil, but we all have to be back at 5:30am for the sunrise Mass.