I went to see the comedian David O’Doherty. I would recommend. Quite funny. He is the product of what used to be called in Ireland a “mixed marriage”. In other words, his mother’s a Protestant and his father’s a Catholic. This is not really an expression in common currency any longer but I had explained it previously to the children as I sometimes humorously refer to myself and Mr. Waffle as having a mixed marriage (I’m from Cork, he’s from Dublin, I know, I’m hilarious). Anyway it transpired that the children thought I was joking about the expression and did not believe it was actually a thing which led one of them to say to a college classmate who said he had a Protestant mother and Catholic father – “Ah mixed marriage” to which the friend put jazz hands in the air and said, “That’s me.” My mortified child then said, “What, that’s actually a real thing?” Truly the past is another country.
Anyhow David O’Doherty covered this extensively in his gig including the line that his mother played tennis (or possibly hockey) for Ireland, “It’s not as impressive as it sounds, all the Protestants got a go then.” Got a good laugh for him.
I know I am going back a bit here but we had a two hour mass for the Easter Saturday vigil and I am still not the better of it. For the first time that I ever remember there were actual baptisms during the mass. There were real converts; three of them. I was astounded. One of these was a Spanish man called Jesus and I am really baffled by this development. I mean how did a Spaniard called Jesus not get brought up Catholic almost by default? A mystery. The service contains this line, “This is our faith and we are proud to profess it.” Honestly, I’d never really thought about this line one way or another before but it was surprisingly moving in the context of the converts. I guess it’s a bit like when you see how pleased people are to become Irish citizens at the citizenship ceremonies and you think, “Maybe it is kind of good to be Irish.”
As we entered the church at the start of what was going to be the longest mass any of us had ever attended (giving the Orthodox Catholics a run for their money), the trainee deacon fell upon us like the wolf on the fold and said he needed someone to do a reading. On the one hand, this is a very reading rich service, on the other hand it is the highlight of the liturgical year and you’d think someone would already have been selected. Herself nobly volunteered to fill the gap. She was told to go and find Joan who was organising. She could not find Joan; one of the choir said, “Tch, Joan, she’s very disorganised.” Not words to inspire confidence. We never did find Joan and herself went off to join the other readers with some trepidation.
We ended up sitting behind a pillar which was annoying as I did not get to see herself reading to the unusually full church but I did get to hear her so there’s that. Afterwards she said that there had been a very nice Mauritian woman who had explained everything to her and stayed with her throughout. We went up to thank this heroine and it turned out that she was one of the nurses from Mr. Waffle’s mother’s nursing home so that was nice.
On Easter Sunday we had Mr. Waffle’s sister and her husband and daughter for lunch which was broadly successful though we had far too much food. My husband’s family have bird like appetites. For the occasion, I was wearing a dress which I got in Cos; a shop much loved by middle aged women. It’s the home of the shapeless garment and like the rest of my tribe, I love it. My lovely green dress is sort of a-line in shape and my heartless family promptly nicknamed it “the sail”. As I was rushing from one room to the next on Easter Sunday morning, it caught on the door handle, “Sail caught in the rigging?” asked one of the family wags instantly. I truly have a lot to put up with.
Our cat’s water and food bowl live in the utility room. Keeping us all on our toes, they move about the room. The water bowl is always full of water and I have overturned it more times than I can say. In rushing around on Easter Sunday morning, needless to say, I kicked it over soaking myself and the floor. As I cursed in the utility room, I heard sniggering in the kitchen. “What?” I said grumpily. “Your nemesis is a bowl of water on the floor.”
We push on through further religious services. We had the feast of the Holy Trinity. The priest repeated what he described as an old joke but it was new to me. Stay with me here. Back in the day, the bishop would come and examine you on your catechism before you were cleared to make your confirmation. In retrospect, I am unsure that anyone was barred from the ceremony on the basis of ignorance but our primary teachers had us drilled in the Bishop Lucey catechism. My strong memory is that the catechism was written by Bishop Lucey and I distinctly remember a yellow and brown book but the internet seems unaware of this. Maybe the force of his grace’s personality was such that I believed that he had drafted the catechism although he had not. Anyway, we learnt it off by heart, he examined us with much less thoroughness than our teachers had led us to expect and that was that. Ok the joke is coming now: A bishop went into a school to examine the confirmation candidates and he asked one boy what the Holy Trinity was. The child, having learnt off the answer responded at great speed. The bishop was unable to follow his answer and said politely, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” The child replied smartly, “You’re not supposed to understand, it’s a mystery.” I enjoyed; you may feel that it was not worth the build up.
Last Sunday was Corpus Christi except the priest called it the festival of the body and blood of Christ and I was genuinely sitting there thinking, “What is this? I’ve never heard of this in my life.” Which just proves how ancient I am. Also does not reflect well on my general intelligence levels. I got there in the end. Slightly related, would you like to see a medal from the Eucharistic congress in Dublin in 1932 which I found in my jewellery box earlier today; I have literally no idea where on earth it came from. A mystery as the young man said to the bishop.
A final religious news item: I found my father’s (I think it must be but how did it get here?) missal in the great shelf reoganisation. I expressed some surprise. “Look your grandad’s missal,” said I to middle child. “Oh,” light dawning over rugged country, “I’ve never heard the word missal before, is that why the leaflet in mass is called the missalette?”
