In the parish where I was curate, the parish priest regularly employed an Italian who would say, “Montrami dove è scritto”. (It translates as “Show me where it is written”.) He would say this whenever altar servers or curates tried to add things into the Mass which shouldn’t be there. This included eccentric or obsolete liturgical actions. He was a stickler for the rubrics and we had to faithfully adhere to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) in all circumstances. In many ways he was a minimalist, but Mass was dignified and parishioners were spared the innovations and quirks of pushy curates and servers. So whenever we did anything unusual or attempted to innovate he would demand to see where it was written down and authorised by the Church.
9:45 AM
Hand gestures, wandering around, replacing the crucifix: we priests need to respect the rubrics
'Do the red and say the black' is simple advice, but it could save a lot of trouble
Fr Matthew Pittam

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