Wow! I was asked to carry the Cross before Mass

Can you believe it! On the feast of Pentecost, I was asked to carry the Cross (actually the Crucifix)and lead the priest and the acolytes up the aisle for Mass. What an honor. Coincidentally, some friends of mine from the church were recently visiting at our house and we happened to comment that it appeared that only men were being asked to carry the Crucifix up the aisle before Mass. Then we got on the topic of the role of women in our church. We were sharing our frustration over the fact that women have been so terribly suppressed over the years. Change is long overdue, don't you think?
I felt like it was the perfect time to share the words of my dear friend, Mary Jane, and so I ran upstairs to find a poem that she had written a few years ago, shortly before she died. I recited the poem to my friends and they listened attentively. I think that they might have even smiled in understanding.

" I Will Tiptoe"

Introibo ad altare dei
Ad deum qui laetificat juven tutem meum
I will go unto the altar of God
Unto God who giveth joy to my youth

So began the ancient words of the Tridentine Mass

I am 12 years old
I am a Catholic schoolgirl
I have known Latin since I was six

My soul hunger and my very life feed on
Novenas benediction Solemn High Mass Gregorian chant
The rosary and Stations of the Cross

Daily after school I visit Jesus
Lonely in His golden tabernacle
Amidst the flickering red votive candles
My head shrouded
By a lace mantilla

Darkness falls early that November
I am astonished when my father
Who volunteers as the church sexton
Asks me to turn on the church lights

Could it be he does not know the rules?

But Daddy
I can't go beyond the Communion rail
You know
Because I am a girl

Daughter
The lights have to be turned on
And there are no boys
No boys to do it

And so the job falls to me....a girl
To fulfill the honor and duty I owe my father
I will dare to enter the Holy of Holies

The nuns are allowed to do it
Care for the altar clothes
Arrange the flowers
Scrape dried wax off the candle holders
For they are the Brides of Christ

I will do it because Jesus is my friend
I will turn the lights on for Him
Even though feminine flesh defiles the Holy of Holies

I will break sacred tradition
Going back thousands of years
Back to Moses and the Arc of the Covenant

I will figure out how
To least offend God by my presence
First I will apologize to God
For being a girl
Then I will remind God
There are no boys
No boys to do it

Opening ever so reverently the gates
I will step across the barrier to the sanctuary
I will hold my breath
If I do no breath I will be invisible
And lest my feet desecrate the sanctified area
I will tiptoe
Across the Turkish carpet and Italian marble floors
Before the tabernacle

I will tiptoe
I will tiptoe
I will tiptoe
And light up the Church

by Mary Jane Sassone Jarkowsky, 2002

Thanks, my dear friend. Your poem is great. May we, women, continue to light up the church. And, may our feet rest securely on its' floor.