Domhnach Cásca

By 11am the church was packed. I got there just as the bells finished ringing, and found a seat near the back of the nave. The pew had a couple of spots left because to get in there you had to squeeze between a pillar and a stand holding free copies of the Irish Catholic News. Just after I sat down I was joined by a young woman in tight jeans, a black jacket, and orange heels decorated with rhinestones. Her shoes were the pointiest I had ever seen. 

         As the service started people continued to pour in, so that within minutes there were at least 100 people standing in the aisles and across the back of the church. All ages were at Mass today, from babes in arms to primary school children to teenagers with blond mohawks to pensioners, some of the men having the look of someone who spends most of his time in the open air. Just in front of me stood two girls, ages about 5 and 7, both with the most beautiful hair, long and raven and slightly curly. I had to force myself not to stare at it.

The church is large and unremarkable, built around the turn of the twentieth century, with undistinguished stained glass windows, depictions of the stations of the cross in wood and ceramic ranged around the nave, and the usual Catholic tendency toward gaudy ornaments, including some mysterious red globes on the altar that looked exactly like Christmas balls from my considerable viewing distance. The elements of real beauty are the Celtic friezes that are painted on the stone at various points above and beside the altar.

 

          As we stood the first hymn, unfortunately one of the many, many hymns that I know from my childhood, I began to sing with the choir. It took a chorus of Christ the Lord is Risen Today for me to realize that I was the only one in the congregation singing. Here, evidently, is a major difference between Catholic and Protestant services. 

         I had planned to stand with the congregation but sit when they knelt, a sort of private rebellion against religion in general, but the first time I tried that the man behind me inadvertently stuck his folded hands, which were resting on the top of the pew in front of him, in my back, so I quickly slid off the pew and knelt with the others. When the priest asked the congregation to remember people in their prayers I realized that I had someone to remember: Claire's friend Brian Franklin. Brian committed suicide last December at the age of 21; his funeral mass was the last time I had been to a Catholic service. I said a sort of secular prayer for Brian, Justine and Bob, and was glad I had chosen to attend a Catholic service today. Brian’s death was one of the most difficult of the deaths of my children’s friends.        

         The music, once I realized that I was to listen, not sing, was impressive for a small parish, the choir balanced and soaring out over the organ. There was even a trumpet; the addition of the brass brought a sense of fullness to the singing that for once the organ didn't ruin.

         Father Andy Farrell could have been sent from central casting. Sixtyish, rotund, and with the florid face of someone who likes his whiskey of an evening, he spoke in front of this massive crowd with the confidence of someone who has done this more times than he could count, which he undoubtedly has. His sermon centered on Ireland's serious economic woes, and although the best he could offer, in the spirit of the day, was a better time in the hereafter, he did suggest that in this life these current hardships would pass, as they always do.

         The service was the third time I saw Father Farrell. The first was an encounter in the yard outside the church as I passed through a day or two ago. He was headed toward his quarters and greeted me fulsomely, undoubtedly assuming I was one of his more errant parishioners, the type who shows up only twice a year, at Easter and Christmas. This morning I nearly bumped into him as I entered the church for what I thought was the 10am service. What I faced was a starkly empty church and the good Father saying farewell to the last of

the worshipers for the 9am mass. Because I was an hour early I took the opportunity to walk along the River Boyne, which runs through Trim. The day was brilliantly bright and warm, and I realized again that for me this kind of gentle communing with the outdoors has always been my best form of Sunday worship.