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Most of the congregation are already seated or kneeling when I arrive in St Kevin’s. Cold and cavernous with a sumptuous Gothic exterior, I’m expecting a very traditional experience from one of the few Catholic churches in Ireland where mass is still said in Latin.
What strikes me immediately is that a large number of women are wearing veils, a practice my grandmother would have observed before Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) . A quick web search tells me the small lace veil is called a mantilla. Married women wear a black veil, while young or unmarried women wear a white one – historically the colour of virginity if we think back to a wedding dress.
For my great aunt, who is a nun, Vatican II meant that she was allowed to use her own name, going from her convent name Sister Aidan to Sister Bridget
The Vatican II was an important step for the Catholic Church in the 1960s. One of the most important outcomes was that mass could be celebrated in a country’s mother tongue with the priest facing the congregation.
For my great aunt, who is a nun, Vatican II meant that she was allowed to use her own name, going from her convent name Sister Aidan to Sister Bridget, and allowed her to travel home to visit her family without the watchful accompaniment of another nun.
I look at all the priests closely, only one looks aged over 60
Back in St Kevin’s, three priests, resplendent in purple celebrate the mass with at least six altar boys and two more younger priests in attendance. I realise with a start that the handsome man I’d considered earlier as “a bit old to be an altar boy” is actually the youngest priest I’ve ever seen. I look at all the priests closely, only one looks aged over 60.
I consider again that this would have been normal for my grandparents. Young men celebrating mass and women wearing veils with colour codes for their relationship status.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself pray
Mass is said with the priests’ backs to the congregation. At first this makes me angry, it feels like I’m being ignored. I’m bubbling with criticism and I have to force myself to stop. I close my eyes, clasp my hands, inhale a deep breath of incense and let my mind tune into the rhythmic sway of singing behind me. For the first time in a long time, I let myself pray.
The congregation rises to get their ashes and I let an elderly lady with a crutch out before me, but largely the congregation is quite young, with a number of families clearly wearing their Sunday best.
I’m staring at the host (the body of Christ) as the priest raises it and it makes me think of King Henry VIII. He is best known for his six wives, but he was also awarded the title Fidei Defensor – Defender of the Faith – by the Pope (a title the English royal family still hold) before Anne Boleyn caught his eye.
In Henry’s court you were expected to attend mass at least once a day and if your eye strayed from the host as it was raised you could find yourself accused of heresy.
The old woman with the crutch sitting in front of me reaches slowly into her bag and brings out the offending iPhone
Part of Henry and Europe’s Protestant Reformation was the stripping of notions of Catholic pageantry and the magic of converting water into wine and bread into flesh.
I’m considering whether religion requires that belief in magic to be faithful when my thoughts are disturbed by a familiar sound – someone’s phone is ringing. The ting of their ringtone cracks through the solemnity of the singing. The old woman with the crutch sitting in front of me reaches slowly into her bag and brings out the offending iPhone. I think she must be confused as she taps the screen with a crooked finger and returns the call.
“I’m in mass, I’ll call after.”
She hangs up and drops the iPhone deftly in her handbag. This was not the behaviour I was expecting from a woman in a black veil. On the other side of the church a toddler has escaped the clutches of her parents and is sprinting ecstatically towards the altar.
The mass ends and unlike most sermons now, the congregation waits respectfully for the priests to exit before filing out
Her mother collars her just before she reaches the steps and with a face of thunder carries her giggling toddler back to her pew.
The human element has crept into the soberness of the service. The mass ends and unlike most sermons now, the congregation waits respectfully for the priests to exit before filing out.
I light a candle for my family and consider that I really enjoyed my visit to St Kevin’s but I can’t help thinking that what I witnessed was a slice of the Church’s history, with serious questions remaining about her future.
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