Re: holy smoke
Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Wed, 14 Oct 1998 10:14:20 -0400
On Wed, Oct 14, 1998 at 09:37:44AM +0000, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> & perhaps especially public- life in America. Even in Holy Ireland,
> & infinitelessy less so in Godless Britain or France, the levels
> of church attendance, the depth of belief & the earnestness
> of religious discussion cannot seem to compare with their
> equivalents in America.
A few years ago, I had been planning to visit an ailing uncle in
Ireland. (All of my father's side of the family still lives there.)
While I was writing a note to postpone a call to jury duty, I received a
phone call telling me that my uncle had just died, a few weeks before I
was to visit. So, I cleared my schedule, managed to get a ticket, and
raced over there for the funeral. As a decidedly Former Catholic, I
went into the funeral church with considerable misgivings -- my first
time in church after years, and in Ireland, no less!
This all happened before Christmas, so I spent about 10 days or so with
my aunt, and because of the shock and the suddenness, my body clock
never adjusted to the different time zone, so I was up late each night,
and on Christmas Eve, feeling completely adrift in a town where I didn't
know anyone but the people who had remembered me from my childhood, I
went out for a walk, and passed the same church from which my uncle had
been buried a few days before.
I never had attended a Christmas midnight mass before, and I had no
religious interest in it. Rather, since lightning bolts had not struck
me during the funeral, I thought that perhaps I was being spared, so on
a whim I stepped into the church and sat in the back.
As the mass started, and as it proceeded, all kinds of kids came in.
They looked a lot like some teenagers do here in NYC, in Greenwich
Village: leather, spiked hair, pierced faces, dog collars, all the
getup. But one by one or in groups they came into the church a bit
gingerly, a bit sheepishly, and like me they populated the back rows
and appeared as if they too expected to be hit by bolts of lightning.
But however fierce they looked (and some looked damned scary to me!),
they seemed to melt -- for just that hour or so -- into little Catholic
school kids.
I don't know yet what kind of impression they made on me; it's only been
a few years and I haven't written it down enough to put it in
perspective. But I thought it was intriguing how even at their most
"rebellious," the kids in the back pew with me were doing all their
genuflections and signs-of-the-cross on cue. I had no idea of the
rhythm of a mass (Scottie, I hung up my surplice when, as barely a
teenager, I discovered girls!), and I watched the kids around me for
indications of when to stand and to sit and to kneel.
I don't think I've been to a mass since (a wedding or another funeral,
perhaps, though I don't recall), and certainly the experience didn't
change me into a religious person, but I noted that the adults around me
seemed to exude a strength of faith that was nearly palpable, a big
contrast to what I recall from growing up Catholic, where it was so much
done by rote.
I'm not suggesting that this signifies anything much aside from my
seeing an extreme contrast in cultures, with details I didn't expect,
but the impression I had was that the church still had a lot of people
in its thrall.
Though of course the priest made sure to mention that there were a lot
of faces in the audience who only appeared semi-annually. As priests do
everywhere, I suppose.
--tim