Stan was one of the altar boys for this ceremony. Three other boys also served. There was never a problem getting kids to serve at Christmas and Easter. Like their parents, they could be counted on to be in church for one or both of these reverent feasts. This was a most solemn occasion for Lily Benson. Now that Father Simpson had “legitimized” her marital state, this was the first Midnight Mass since her earlier necessarily civil marriage to George Benson that she had felt worthy enough to receive Communion. Most of the other people at Mass today would attend services sporadically throughout the year. For them, Mass attendance was little more than a superstition. Not so with Lily. Though not able sacramentally to participate due to her canonically invalid marriage, still she had attended Mass almost daily. But all that had been fixed. That miracle-working pastor, Father Edward Simpson, had seen to that. Now Lily was the life of the party. Not that she had embalmed and buried previous parties.
