The people standing, the Celebrant says
Arrrgh! Alleluia, Christ, he be risen!
People Arrrgh! The Lord, he be risen indeed. Alleluia!
The Celebrant says to the people
The Lord be with ye.
People And also with ye.
Celebrant Let us pray.
The Celebrant says the Collect. (use the Pirate Translator)
People Aye, aye.
Among some of the more hilarious things I found in George Emblom’s office at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley was a copy of The Pirate Eucharist. Music for the Pirate Eucharist was composed by Hayden Konig aka Mark Schweizer, author of the Award winning “Liturgical Mysteries” that “will have you rolling in the (church) aisles.”
A Google search turned up this information:
Hayden Konig is “a part-time Episcopal choirmaster, a full-time police detective and an aspiring novelist” who works hard (but with a striking lack of success) at writing who-dunnits in a Raymond Chandler style. He lives in St Germaine, a quiet little town in the mountains of North Carolina. The stories are written in the first person, so everything is seen through Konig’s eyes.
He is the creation of Dr Mark Schweizer (1956- ) who has been a waiter, a chef, an opera singer, a college professor, a choir director, a composer and a publisher. He lives in Kentucky where he is president and editor of St James Music Press, which publishes his own comic detective novels. He is also director of music at the First United Methodist Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His musical publications include anthems, larger choral works, instrumental compositions and a children’s opera Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He says he is now entering the final stage of his mid-life crisis. As his blurb puts it: “In the first stage, he changed careers and bought a green Jeep. In the second stage, he wrote The Alto Wore Tweed and bought a red Jeep. Donis, his long-suffering wife of 25 years, just hopes that whatever happens, there won’t be another jeep involved.”
I had the occasion to meet Mark Schweizer at several church music conventions where we exhibited music for our publishing company, Ionian Arts. I also remember reading one of his Liturgical Mystery books on an airplane and found myself laughing out loud!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Pirate Eucharist is similar to saying the Eucharist in a dialect, like Hawaiian pidgin English or a Southern drawl. Coming from the pen of Mark Schweizer, though, reveals that the sole purpose is humor.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about “pirate-speak”:
Stereotypical pirate accents are modeled on those of Cornwall, South Devon or the Bristol Channel area in South West England, though they can also be based on Elizabethan era English or other parts of the world. Pirates in film, television and theatre are generally depicted as speaking English in a particular accent and speech pattern that sounds like a stylized West Country accent, exemplified by Robert Newton‘s performance as Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island.[5][6] A native of the West Country in south west England from where many famous English pirates hailed, Newton also used the same strong West Country accent in Blackbeard the Pirate (1952).
Now, back to more of the Pirate Eucharist—here’s the Lord’s Prayer:
As arr Cap’n, Jesus Christ has taught us, we now be prayin’,
Celebrant and People
Arr Father in heaven, hallow’d be yar Name, yar kingdom come, yar will be done, on arth as in heaven. Give us today arr daily ration. Fergive us arr sins as we fergive those scurvy dogs who sneak up behind us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Far thine be the kingdom, and the pow’r, and the glory, farever and ever. Aye, aye.
If you’d like to see the entire service order in Pirate-speak, including the Pirate Gloria and the Pirate Sanctus (sung to “What should we do with a drunken sailor”), click here. It’s a riot!