Ushers rule: these folks are champions of the collection basket, protectors of the pews, and no one--not even a priest--can get in their way.

Just like clockwork, right when the water hits my hands, the smell of burning tobacco floats into the sanctuary and wafts past my nostrils like the sinuous wisps of Pepe Le Pew's calling card. "O Lord, wash away my iniquity," I intone quietly, my nose twitching involuntarily, "and cleanse me from my sins." It's the lavabo, the washing of the priest's hands at the preparation of the gifts, and Tony, one of our ushers, has fired up his usual post-collection cigarette out by the back door. Unaware that he stands upwind from a church filled with several hundred Sunday worshipers, he happily toots his cheroot while the assembly and I catch a little snootful of his secondhand smoke.

And do you think anybody is going to tell him not to do it? Well, don't look at me. Tony was born and raised in this parish. He helped his grandfather build the church with his own two hands, and he's served faithfully as an usher since shortly after St. Augustine wrote City of God. I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a stick.

Ushers, at least the old-timers, are part of a strange and wonderful breed of Catholic. Among their ranks are some of the finest folks making up the People of God. They take their role of servants to the community seriously and offer themselves faithfully in support of the Sunday Eucharist. They are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. And in this age of shorts, tank tops, and bare midriffs adorning the casual congregant, ushers tend to shine in their Sunday best. Their style is their very own, to be sure, but the idiosyncrasies of old-school ushering often add a bit of off-beat sparkle to otherwise beige liturgies.

Take for instance the "seating near the mosh pit" maneuver--and frankly, I wish you would. This is the familiar deal where latecomers to Mass (as opposed to those who show up an hour early to stare bullets at anyone having fun) are directed by the ushers to spots in the pews where it looks like there's room. It goes something like this: While everybody's attention is focused on the lector who is about the business of proclaiming the Word of God, an usher walks slowly up the aisle, scanning the pews for empty spots. Discovering a suitable void, he turns and faces the rear of the church, where the tardy huddle against the back wall hoping against hope that no one will notice them. He holds up the number of fingers that corresponds to the number of bodies he believes will fit in the hole. "Two!" he flashes to the back and then gestures to the targeted group to come forward, giving them that paternal yet forceful look, kind of like The Sopranos' Paulie Walnuts in a movie theater. Once the spots are filled, he returns to his quest for open space. This movement continues throughout the Liturgy of the Word. Sometimes ushers will prowl every aisle like peanut vendors at a baseball game from opening hymn to offertory prayer, searching for unoccupied wood upon which to plunk the Last-Minute Louies.

Now I don't really have a problem with the ushers stepping all over the lectors and the cantor while they read the readings and sing the psalm. But when it's my turn to proclaim the gospel and preach the homily, all movement must cease and all attention must be focused squarely on me because, after all, I am the priest.

"The gospel of the Lord!" I proclaim, lifting high the book for all to see. I am filling in for a neighboring priest, a man for whom the cassock and biretta are de rigueur, and this is my first time with his church. The blaze of votive candles holding back winter's chill, what seems to be the entire communion of saints in taciturn plaster, and the background click of rosary beads being devoutly counted during Mass identifies the little country church as a charming anachronism. But I am unprepared for what comes next.

It is the early Sunday "quiet Mass" (no music), and evidently the pastor makes it a practice not to preach a homily at that hour either. And forget the Creed, the General Intercessions, and the RCIA dismissal, for that matter. No sooner does the book hit the lectern than a phalanx of ushers, who have been moving into position all during the gospel, comes marching down the aisles, holding their long-handled baskets at port arms like a firing squad on their way to a necktie party. It is time for the collection.

Undeterred I launch into my homily thinking the ushers will pick right up on the fact that the priest is going to do a little preaching first. No dice. They keep right on coming. So I pause.

"Excuse me," I say into the microphone. "Would the ushers please hold off on the collection till after the homily?" Nothing. They reach the front in perfect rank, execute a synchronous genuflection, and begin sawing their baskets back and forth before the pewsters like one-armed stevedores hauling away on wicker ropes.

"Hello?" I say, tapping the microphone, feeling like I have just fallen into the "Is this microphone on?"/"And also with you" joke. But the ushers keep right on collecting as they have done countless times for countless Sundays and will no doubt continue to do until the day when Christ comes again in glory. Talk about transparency. I feel totally invisible and, worse still, inaudible. There is nothing I can do. Defeated, I sit down.

Now, I've never been an usher, but my unique perspective from the position of presider gives me vantage to observe their ministry. I know this much: It's no simple task. Before Mass begins, they are about the business of handing out hymnals and seating congregants, an activity that, as we have already noted, continues until the midpoint of the liturgy when the last person arriving bumps into the first person leaving. Then comes the collection and the disposition of the offering, whether it be brought to the altar or spirited away to the rectory for safekeeping, after which we can toss in a cigarette break for Tony or a quick call home on the cell phone to find out the scores.

During the Eucharistic Prayer, while all eyes are on me, my eyes are unfortunately on the foyer, where the ushers are moving to and fro like a dance scene from The Muppet Show, doing what, I don't know. But by the Our Father they're back onboard, hands joined and lofted for the doxology. Then it's up the aisles again to control the pew-by-pew egress for Communion. (In Haiti, conditioned by generations of repressive authority and the brutality of the Tonton Macoutes, ushers in country churches will sometimes rough up a congregant suspected of breaching order in the Communion line. And you think your ushers are tough!) After that, it's divvying up the bulletins and taking positions at the doors for the dismissal.

By the time it's all over, I wonder whether they've been to Mass at all. I can just imagine the scene at the pearly gates: "I'm sorry, Tony, but our records indicate that you never went to Mass." "But I was an usher!" "Oh, well in that case, come right in."

I love the ushers. Their movements, though sometimes quirky, are certainly not the worst things happening during the liturgy. For the most part I think people are used to them being around, and their presence is as much a comfort to longtime churchgoers as are statues, candles, and holy water fonts. Their role in the liturgy is indispensable. When I compare my own ministry to theirs, it occurs to me that in any given parish, over the years the priests come and go. But the ushers endure forever.

FATHER PAUL BOUDREAU is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, and a freelance writer. He assists at the Parish of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Banning, California.