Mistaken Identity

I know she didn't mean anything by it. They were simply honest mistakes, which I'm sure the woman doing the readings at Mass yesterday didn't even realize she was doing. By the same token, it was all very, very distracting.

The readings involved the apostles Paul and Barnabas travelling around Asia Minor spreading the Gospel. That's all well and good. But the reader kept saying it was Paul and Barabbas.

Barabbas of course is who the crowd demanded rather than Jesus when Pontius Pilate was trying to appease their wrath immediately prior to the Crucifixion. 

I cannot begin to tell you the amount of personal discipline it took a 62 year old man who was suddenly becoming a giggling preteen to keep his cool during Mass. The woman would say, Paul and Barabbas, and I would sit in the pew having to bite my tongue to not laugh. Then she said again, Paul and Barabbas, and I thought, of course, Barnabas. It's Barnabas, dear woman. Barnabas.

Ten seconds later she revealed that Paul and Barabbas were preaching in Antioch and Cappadocia. And I would have to stifle a laugh. Again.

There weren't many people in that large Church and let me tell you, a quick stifled laugh which sounded like a painful stifled sneeze rather echoes under such circumstances. I just know a couple folks turned around to find the source of the sound which might have been a startled animal but was rather an old man trying desperately not to regress to 11 years old. Of course I then had to hear one more time about the good works of Paul and Barabbas. 

I was squinting my eyes shut and holding my hand over my mouth by that point. Then I began to lurch towards the opposite impulse of laughing out loud. I wanted to stand up and shout, "Paul and Barnabas! It's Paul and Barnabas for crying out loud!" 

Thankfully the organ began playing. The child in me finally left, and not a minute too soon.