"...All my hopes were on this midnight Mass, even though it was being held at nine o'clock, which was not promising. In Enniscorthy the Holy Saturday Mass had been changed from twelve o'clock to nine as well, because, it was said, there were always drunks at the back shouting up slogans and causing havoc when the Mass was at midnight. There was an old story, in fact, about a midnight Mass in Enniscorthy years ago when a man got very enthusiastic as the priest was inviting people to renew their baptismal vows. 'Do you renounce Satan and all his works and pomps?' the priest asked the congregation. 'I do, the fucker,' the man shouted."
Anecdote courtesy of Colm Toibin, author, The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe. Story gets better (at least for me) when words "Enniscorthy" are subtly replaced by "Valparaiso University", and "the priest" replaced by "Pastor Cunningham", but of course that's all wishful thinking. (Is it too much to ask, though, to insert "all his works and pomps" into our Lutheran baptismal liturgy?)
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