The Altar had to get turned around for most every service.  The Protestants thought this odd.  The Catholics thought it embarrassing.  The Sailors who served as Chaplain’s Assistants thought it annoying.   Anyway it must have got turned right all other times.  But there was this one Sunday.  They forgot?  Maybe they spun the altar all the way around?  Something happened.  Word of this SNAFU spread fast all through the military-industrial complex.  Ike was concerned.  So procedures were “squared away.”  Ike was advised.  And it didn’t happen again.  You maybe never heard about this because you can’t get any of the old timers on the Base to talk about it much.

Now for you not familiar with the background here.  In the later 1940s the military wanted to shoot off rockets.  They needed a lot of space because they didn’t want any rocket to land on anyone’s house anywhere.  So they went way out in the middle of the desert and built a full Navy Base.  There was the Officer’s Club, Chief’s Club, barracks, commissary, guard station and fence, civilian housing, and all the rest.  There were hundreds of teenage Sailors and Marines from towns all over the country who found everything they joined the Navy for.  Except for ships and water.  

There was an “All Faith’s Chapel” for the church.  All Faiths back in those days were the Catholics and the Protestants.  They shared the same building but not the same altar.  Why they did not is a longer story for another day.  To make it work for all there was an altar done up in two parts like a partners’ desk.  It moved back and forth.  The Chaplain’s Assistants would pull it back away from its place facing the seating, turn it around for the next domination, and push it back up to the front.  This would happen sometimes as much as every hour for services.   People who forgot to turn the clock when the time changed would come to the other service.  

The Catholic service was first on Sundays, earliest in this morning.  The altar usually did not need to be turned around because of the later Saturday evening Mass.  But this weekend some remembered there might have been a Protestant service even later in the day.  There would be procedures for this also.  Anyway, not to place blame here, only to tell from years of listening carefully to what witnesses, in unguarded moments, have said of what happened. 

That Sunday Monsignor might have noticed the full sprinkler can on the small bench next to the flowers off to the side of the altar.   He might have thought of possible instructional homilies.  “What is Baptism of Desire,”  “Why an All Saints’ Day?”, “What does Brother Juniper teach us?” And that morning the Latin liturgy started as usual, “Introibo ad altare...”   But after a few moments Monsignor looked puzzled.  He looked down at what he was wearing.  After a pause he took off his outer Roman vestment and placed it over on the bench off to the side.  He took off his priest’s collar.  He hooked one thumb in the edge of his cassock, like he would if he was wearing suspenders, and took the Bible off the altar holding it by the spine in the palm of his hand over his head and started walking back and forth.  Then adding to the surprise of the congregation he shouted  “Are you washed?”  Yet louder, “brothers and sisters!  Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”

The altar boys were just the first to start to move to the back of the church “Do I hear an Amen?”  But just the first.  “I say again do I hear an Amen?”  Then Monsignor set the Bible aside and started singing and clapping his hands “I saw the Light.  I saw the light.   No more darkness, no more night.”   A few of the congregation started singing and clapping their hands, though they weren’t quite sure of the words.  Spouses and parents attempted to take these by their arms towards the back of the church.  Monsignor continued in his Irish tenor “Just like a blind man I wandered along. Worries and fears I claimed for my own.” A few more tried to sing along but mostly the church was quickly emptying out.  By the time he was asking all to come up to the altar to be saved most all had left out the church the opposite way.  The Monsignor was still sitting on the altar platform steps wondering why everyone left when the Chaplain’s Assistants came to turn the altar around for the next service.  Parents had to retrieve some of the kids who came back in for more hand clapping and singing “I saw the light.”

Pastor Billy once put a sign on his small wood frame church out in town that promised “Jesus with a Capital G!”  It didn’t stay long; Billy has a sense of humor but most everyone else does not have one much.  Anyway when it came to The Word, Billy was only serious.   Sometimes he got to come on the Base to do the Protestant service.  He knew the congregation did not hear the Old Time Gospel much from the Navy Chaplains.  He knew they did not want it often, but they did like it when they got it and so he was welcome when he came.  And this Sunday he was really going to tell it!  

After the congregation was seated Pastor Billy bounded up on the altar platform thumb hooked in his suspenders, Bible face up in the palm of his other hand overhead.  “We’re going to talk about sin today!” He shouted as he walked back and forth, “some of you might already know.   I’m against it.”  The congregation settled in comfortably with anticipation.  But then Pastor Billy looked puzzled.  He paused for a long moment.  He then turned and carefully placed the Bible on the altar opened to Matthew 16:18.  Billy did not know Mass Latin, except for a few words here and there.  And some high school Latin.  So he started reciting “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani…”   He took Monsignor’s outer vestment from the bench and slipped it on over his head, it settled on inside out and backwards.  He tried to turn his white dress shirt collar around. 

Now he started speaking is a brogue instead of his slight country accent.  “Sure and I’ll be hearing confessions right after Mass.”  And then “…dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.”  Some in the congregation started to leave.  A few wanted to hear more of Horace until Billy started beating his chest with his fist saying Mea Culpa Mea Culpa.  Some thought he was having indigestion; or was his culpa was acting up again.  More were leaving now. Then Pastor Billy went over to the bench and picked up the sprinkling can. “Before the Second Collection for the Missions I’ll be doing the blessing.”  He started down the aisle to sprinkle with the can.  By then all but the least nimble had fled out the same front entrance. 

Just then worried Chaplain’s Assistants rushed in to turn the altar back.  But they didn’t have to because Monsignor was scheduled back for the next service.  So they left the altar as it was looked at one another and wondered what could be next.  Monsignor did come back, and all went as in days past.  There was a gentle homily with some aside on Erasmus In Praise of Folly.  And happy applause at the end of the service and after the congregation gathered around Monsignor.  And then the Chaplain Assistants carefully turned the altar around.  Pastor Billy brought his congregation to their feet in the service following.  The hour ended with singing and hand clapping as Billy walked down the aisle toward the entrance to shake hands with the congregation as they left.  The Chaplains Assistants gathered around the altar and carefully studied the schedule for the next service. 

Monsignor and Pastor Billy became close friends after that.  At times you could see them walking together arm in arm along the desert roads, talking in turn and listening in turn to one another.   Sometimes they both would stop and double over in laughter.