It was freshman orientation weekend, and Sunday morning found the basketball arena filled with thousands of students and their parents, all there for the official Freshman Orientation Mass. As is usual for a university event involving parents, the stage was set for a pretty swanky event. A large choir and several instrumentalists milled around to one side of the arena; large colorful banners had been hung; the incense was all ready. On the floor of the arena, faculty and administrators took the places of honor. In the stands sat the incoming students and their families. The students were looking a little droopy-eyed (they’d had a few late nights this weekend) but most were decently dressed. That probably had much to do with the people who trailed behind them, brighter-eyed than their offspring, most of them lapping up the weekend’s display of collegiate grandeur. Bright Future was written in every detail of the orientation weekend.

The girl was one of the few who was there all alone. Her parents had not attended any of the orientation events with her; as academics themselves, they knew all about the workings of the university and were not interested in these pompous displays. She wished they had come, if only because they might have provided an excuse to skip some of the painful “orientation” events. Her forcible orientation had consisted mainly of dormitory “mixers” of a sort that would have seemed childish to her even in middle school; it had all culminated the previous night in a 2am “serenade” of half the boys’ dormitories on campus, which she had participated in strictly under protest, and only after her “orientation leaders” had assured her that she would not be allowed to sleep unless she sang. She could hardly wait for the start of classes. For one thing, she was eager to learn something! And for another, she had been assured that authority of the orientation leaders to torture her would not extend beyond the weekend.

But she was interested in this Mass. She had known hardly any Catholics in her life up to that point, and almost her only exposure to Catholicism had been via television and movies. The idea of attending a real Mass was a little exciting and a little intimidating at the same time. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do there, which was a bit of a problem. But she figured with a whole basketball arena full of people, she could probably follow along easily enough. To avoid calling attention to herself, she slipped in close to the start of the Mass, and found an isolated seat off to one side, where she would not have to talk to anyone, and where she would easily be able to flee without disturbing anyone if things became uncomfortable. (She was aware that one portion of the Mass involved people filing up for “Communion” and she had no intention of participating in that. But from her out-of-the-way seat, she should be able to slip away for that part without attracting any notice.)

The Mass began. She didn’t follow much of the structure of it (she had neglected to pick up a program) but it was fascinating to watch nonetheless. She was entranced by the feeling of ritual. In her church at home, services consisted almost entirely of free-form instruction; the concept of liturgy was quite new to her. Probably the effect was amplified by the thousands of people present. When they came to the Confiteor, she nearly jumped in alarm when all the congregation began reciting together. Like the Borg, she thought with amusement. A large crowd reciting together always sounded like the Borg. But it was neat, too, the way they all knew the different responses and things. The stood and sat, recited and sang and crossed themselves all with the comfortable ease of people who had gone through these motions a thousand times. Which, it occurred to her, they had.

Part of her was scornful. What was the point of repeating the same words every single week? In her mind, church was about instruction, a religious counterpart to school. This didn’t seem very instructional. Another part of her, though, was impressed. There was something rather beautiful and mysterious about it, all these people saying these words together, a heritage passed down through the centuries. But how could they carry it so lightly? As her excruciating weekend had amply shown her, these were just ordinary teenagers, every bit as foolish and frivolous as the kids in her high school. Even now, if you looked at them closely, you could see that many were only halfway paying attention to the religious component of the event. Many were obviously more interested in ogling their classmates, while some were just in a sleepy stupor. How could you speak words like this, she wondered, without even concentrating? It was like reading a comic book in front of the Mona Lisa, or playing jacks on the floor of a symphony hall while Beethoven’s 9th was in progress.

These reveries were interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. A young man, probably a few years older than herself, was standing just behind, gesturing to her. She was confused. Her face showed it. He bent over and whispered, “We need your help with the presentation of the Gifts.”

Gifts? What sort of gifts? What did they have to do with her? The girl shook her head at the young man, still wearing the puzzled expression. “I don’t understand.”

He tried again. “We just need you to… carry things. For the next section. It’s easy.”

Carry things. Well, that sounded less frightening. By “next section” she supposed he meant what was coming next on the schedule, which was a catered lunch. She still didn’t understand that bit about gifts. But she supposed they just needed extra help with some kind of set-up for the lunch afterwards, perhaps in carrying tables and setting up chairs and that sort of thing. She was mildly surprised that, with all the polish and splendor of the weekend, the university would need to recruit students at Mass to help set up the lunch. But the surprise was mild. It was almost comforting, in fact, that they would ask her this, because it was exactly the sort of thing that would happen in her church at home — someone wouldn’t show up to do the job they’d promised, and some other member of the community would be tapped at the last second to do it, often a teenager like herself. It was good to feel useful. Certainly, she would help them carry things.

The young man led her out of the arena and over to one of the side doorways. Here they found one adult, obviously orchestrating the whole affair, and three other students, apparently recruited like herself to “help carry things.” The woman was briskly giving assignments. “All right, well you two (to two of the students) can take the wine and you (to the girl and one other) can take these.” She gestured to two large, gold dishes that were piled high with small round wafers. The wine was in a beautiful crystal decanter. She didn’t know much about Catholicism, but she knew for certain that these items were centrally important to the Mass. Immediately she felt alarmed. This was not the sort of simple, down-to-earth chore she had been expecting.

The organizer woman tried to hand her the gold dish. “Now, you’ll want to use both hands,” she said matter-of-factly. The girl backed away. She had only come to Mass as an observer. She didn’t know exactly what the wafers were for, but it did not seem fitting for her, a complete outsider, to touch any sacred object.

“Oh… no… I didn’t realize… I’m not even Catholic, you see,” she finally finished.

She expected this revelation to yield an immediate apology and dismissal. To her utter astonishment, it produced instead a large, beaming smile. “Really?” the woman replied. “Well, I think that’s just wonderful. This is probably your first Mass, isn’t it?” Silence confirmed it. “Well, I think it would just be so special if you would be the one to present the Gifts. Think of it as your official welcome to our Catholic community. It won’t be difficult at all, I promise. All you have to do is take this dish, walk down and through the center aisle, and up to the stage there, genuflect to the altar, let the President take the Hosts, and then walk right back. That’s all there is to it!”

This was getting worse by the second. Was there something wrong with this woman? The girl didn’t even want to touch the giant golden platter, and now she was supposed to carry it all the way up to the stage? With the eyes of all her new classmates trained on her, she, who wasn’t even Catholic, was being asked to parade right down the center aisle holding these holy “gifts”, whatever that meant. She’d be sure to make some kind of mistake. How did a person “genuflect?” Was there another vital detail that the woman had forgotten to mention? No, she’d definitely botch the job somehow, and thousands of people, all her classmates and their families, would peg her right off as the girl who managed to commit a sacrilege right in the middle of the orientation Mass! Or even if she didn’t botch it, she would clearly know that she was a miserable pretender. It had to be wrong for a mere curious onlooker like her to be entrusted with a task that obviously had some sacred significance.

She tried again. “I’m really not very comfortable doing this,” she said, trying to sound firm. “I think it would be better if you asked someone else.”

“No, no!” the woman waved her away. “There’s no time, and anyway this will be just perfect, I’m so glad we found you. Everything will be fine.” (She gave the girl’s arm a reassuring little squeeze.) “Now, just stand right here, and take this…”

This had to be stopped. The crazy woman was not listening to reason. Having run out of more civilized options, the girl finally took the only remaining escape route — the literal one. Before anyone could stop her, she fled, out of the arena and down the hall and out of the building.

On the way out she passed a crew of people doing the job she had thought she was being recruited to do — setting up for the catered lunch. As it happened, the lunches were just being distributed in thousands of little white boxes, with each containing a sandwich, chips, and all the usual picnic items. She seized one of the boxes and scurried away. No one objected. Returning to her dorm room, she changed into her blue jeans, and slipped off to a secluded, wooded corner of campus where there was no Mass, no Gestapo of orientation leaders, no insane woman trying to “welcome” her to the Catholic community by thrusting a massive gold platter into her hands. There among the familiar pleasures of sunshine and trees and picnic food, she reflected that this whole Catholicism business was going to take some figuring out.

I suppose now I should reveal the context of the story, though many of you have probably figured it out. The girl is, of course, me. The place is the University of Notre Dame, where I started as a freshman almost exactly ten years ago. This was my maiden voyage as a Massgoer. Of course it’s kind of a funny story just in its own right, but I think it’s also interesting for what it reveals. People have an innate sense for the sacred. It can be offended by exaggerated efforts at “inclusiveness.” Even without any clear idea of what the Blessed Sacrament was all about, or what the dish was for, I was able to be shocked and alarmed at the idea that a random bystander like me was worthy to carry it. The dopey woman from Campus Ministry (at least I assume that’s where she came from) thought she was being generous and welcoming, but in reality she was not only making me uncomfortable, but also undermining my already-developing sense that the Mass was something holy.

Liturgy has just as much potential to spoil our innate sensibilities as it does to train them.