Word: sacristan
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...ancient warning: "Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi" (Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world). In the course of the Mass, an assisting cardinal placed on the Pope's shoulders the pallium, a white wool band symbolizing his authority as Bishop of Rome, and the sacristan performed the grim ritual of tasting the wine to be used, as reminder of the days when Popes often died by poison. At the conclusion of the Mass a silk purse containing 25 ancient coins was presented to the Pontiff, traditional payment for "a Mass well done...
Salzburg, where he watched his father serve as sacristan. The boy was fascinated by the flow of robes and the carefully poised stance of church dignitaries. At seven he tried to translate his impressions into clay figures, remembers: "I knew then I wanted to be a sculptor...
...poor; in all his nine years there he was never able to buy a full set of vestments. Each evening, after the parish work was done, he would study until midnight or later, then rise at 4 to ring the church bells and open the church door because the sacristan was old and easily tired...
...great doors of the nation's most famed Catholic edifice, St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, dripped with painted hammer-&-sickles last week. Two of the bright red symbols faced fine-feathered Fifth Avenue; two shone from doors on the side, and two from the walls. The sacristan found them there in the morning as he prepared to open the cathedral for early Mass, and called police. Same morning the same red symbols were splotched on the walls of two other Catholic churches in the city. (Several Manhattan synagogues had previously blossomed with swastikas...
...Pope. To Lorenzo Cardinal Lauri, Grand Penitentiary of the Holy Roman Church, Pius XI, propped up by pillows, whispered his confession, received absolution for his sins. Then attendants washed the Pope's face, hands and feet for their anointing in the last rite: extreme unction. The Monsignor Sacristan, Alfonso de Romanis, parish priest of the Vatican, sprinkled the still room and its grave company with holy water. "Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, 0 Lord, and I shall be cleansed...