Fortunately, my old dad was a Catholic of the old school who observed what he had to and couldn't give a flying squirrel about the rest. That accounts for the sisters being different sorts of rigid Catholics--yours married to a religious fanatic and mine married to the kind of man who faced with Catholic excess would say "Come off it!" and frequently wore his pyjama trousers under his street trousers so that we, in the pew behind, could catch a coy glimpse of protruding stripes as an outward sign of inward not giving a damn.
You know I loved your Dad, cousin Hendon. And am now imagining a Roald Dahl story in which your mother and mine wake up one morning to find themselves mysteriously - but, being Catholic, inextricably - married to each other's spouse. Family loyalty prohibits me from speculating on which of the two couples would find themselves unexpectedly happier than before ...
Interesting but somewhat bemusing. I was brought up in an areligious environment. Apart from a few weddings and funerals, I've never been to a church service. I do love the architecture of churches, abbeys and cathedrals, but what goes on inside isn't of much interest. Thanks for an insight into this world.
Thanks, Bob, this was - I hope obviously - a not very serious comment on having been brought up in a particular religion. I've thought about the various religions a lot over the years and it does seem to me that there are three different threads involved in anyone's spiritual life: morality, which is pretty straightforward, and of course the most important ... the personal culture of whichever religion or non-religion in which we happened to grow up ... and the sense of spirituality, which I think is also hugely important and can be found in so many ways. One of the nuns at my school (some nuns were very interesting people, in fact) once quoted to us the Catholic catechism question "What is prayer? Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God," and explained that, in her view, that was not about kneeling down and reciting some words, but about finding something outside the material world, whether it were poetry, or music, or gardening, or being kind to people, or whatever. That has always stayed with me, and is important to my now agnostic spirit. Let's all good people embrace each other and respect each other, and thanks for your comment.
I long ago lost all interest in religion--preferring evidence to faith and not needing imaginary friends. When I see what the Christian nationalist armchair warriors are doing in the US and abroad as I write, it turns my stomach. The good things about religion are humanist truisms, the bad things amount to a death cult, IMO.
We once had a young friend who was struggling, and I consulted my brother-in-law, a Lutheran pastor, on finding some literature that might be able to help her. He asked if we'd considered the New Testament, which I instinctively dismissed as nonsense. But when you strip away all the arguments about whether Jesus Christ was or was not the Son of God and was or was not born of a virgin and just concentrate on his words, they're the best guide to living a good life you could find anywhere. I have no idea where some of today's self-styled "Christians" have picked up their ideas but it certainly wasn't from Jesus Christ.
There is a book called the "Jefferson Bible" in which Thos. of that name took out all the mumbo and the jumbo from the NT and came up with, essentially, a set of rules about being a good person. To my mind, they are universal human truths but. if they can be helpful to a person of faith, all the better. I am not anti-religion per se as long as the exercise of it neither impinges on my life nor make this sad world worse.
The Trumpists mostly depend on the folk tales in the Old Testament with all that smiting, begatting, and forbidding and turning people into pillars of salt, insofar as they need something to justify their sadism and hatreds. Oh dear, this is all getting so serious!
Good Friday is not a public holiday here, but my local church is much given to processions, so the congregation follows the priest. around the town for the Stations of the Cross (I assume there is not kneeling). It's a heavy burden to carry, being responsible for the rest of the world's eternal rest!
It certainly is, Louise. And you've just reminded me that when I was 13, we went on a school trip to Lourdes, where there is (or was at the time) a set of life-size Stations of the Cross winding up a hillside. "Just one request, girls," said Mother Mary Agnes, the nun in charge, as we set off for the service in the drizzling rain. "Please don't try to do this barefoot." "Oh, all right," we said.
Ha ha ha ha 'an activity that can only be described as eating' 🤣 try and time your visit to Hastings to Good Friday. The Stations of the Cross are enacted live on the streets, in full costume and with great commitment. They go right up the High Street past Jo's house. There are Centurions, terrifying whip cracks, weeping Marys and the man himself in a loincloth and Crown of Thorns. I'm not officially Catholic, but I went to a Catholic school where there was quite a lot of mass going, so I feel related. It makes me very choked up to watch it.
Well, now you've intrigued me, Maggie, this sounds unusually purple and Papist for Southern England and I'll have to go read up about it. Have you ever been to Semana Santa in Sevilla? Awesome drama, although some Americans complain that the spooky hooded figures resemble the KKK, which, purely visually, they do, although the Spanish nazarenos go back centuries before then and have nothing to do with racism. But if you can stomach the resemblance, it's well worth checking out.
I am an Irish Catholic and for us it’s 1 meal and 2 collations on Good Friday. My Mother was such a devout Catholic that 7 priests and a Bisjop con celebrated her Funeral Mass( she was also great craic and would have laughed at the envy it engendered) Happy Easter!!
I'd forgotten hot cross buns! They're almost impossible to find here, but if I do stumble across some, Angelenos get wildly excited. I'll go on a hunt this week ...
Thanks for your childhood recollection of Lent and Holy Week
Also bringing back similar memories , except my mother was not so fervent
Though I remember one year she wasn’t well enough to go to the Good Friday service , sent Sheila and I as quite young primary school children to St Paul’s to sit through the very long service on our own with no adult supervision, it has stuck in my memory!
Now as church warden in Great Chishill I am happily busy with joining in Holy Week services and looking forward to a big family celebration on Easter Sunday at my youngest daughter’s house .
My mother was unable to attend my brother Brendan's and my confirmation and since she hadn't gotten around to lining up a sponsor for us either (and they wonder where I inherited my own organizational abilities ...) we were reduced to asking our form teacher, the terrifyingly strict Miss Borrett. I used to have nightmares about the deaths of both my parents and my baptismal godparents, and having to be sent to live with Miss Borrett instead! (Oddly enough, I went to visit Miss Borrett recently, and it turns out that outside of school, she's quite jolly). Have a fabulous Easter and raise a glass to me!
Fortunately, my old dad was a Catholic of the old school who observed what he had to and couldn't give a flying squirrel about the rest. That accounts for the sisters being different sorts of rigid Catholics--yours married to a religious fanatic and mine married to the kind of man who faced with Catholic excess would say "Come off it!" and frequently wore his pyjama trousers under his street trousers so that we, in the pew behind, could catch a coy glimpse of protruding stripes as an outward sign of inward not giving a damn.
You know I loved your Dad, cousin Hendon. And am now imagining a Roald Dahl story in which your mother and mine wake up one morning to find themselves mysteriously - but, being Catholic, inextricably - married to each other's spouse. Family loyalty prohibits me from speculating on which of the two couples would find themselves unexpectedly happier than before ...
Interesting but somewhat bemusing. I was brought up in an areligious environment. Apart from a few weddings and funerals, I've never been to a church service. I do love the architecture of churches, abbeys and cathedrals, but what goes on inside isn't of much interest. Thanks for an insight into this world.
Thanks, Bob, this was - I hope obviously - a not very serious comment on having been brought up in a particular religion. I've thought about the various religions a lot over the years and it does seem to me that there are three different threads involved in anyone's spiritual life: morality, which is pretty straightforward, and of course the most important ... the personal culture of whichever religion or non-religion in which we happened to grow up ... and the sense of spirituality, which I think is also hugely important and can be found in so many ways. One of the nuns at my school (some nuns were very interesting people, in fact) once quoted to us the Catholic catechism question "What is prayer? Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God," and explained that, in her view, that was not about kneeling down and reciting some words, but about finding something outside the material world, whether it were poetry, or music, or gardening, or being kind to people, or whatever. That has always stayed with me, and is important to my now agnostic spirit. Let's all good people embrace each other and respect each other, and thanks for your comment.
I long ago lost all interest in religion--preferring evidence to faith and not needing imaginary friends. When I see what the Christian nationalist armchair warriors are doing in the US and abroad as I write, it turns my stomach. The good things about religion are humanist truisms, the bad things amount to a death cult, IMO.
We once had a young friend who was struggling, and I consulted my brother-in-law, a Lutheran pastor, on finding some literature that might be able to help her. He asked if we'd considered the New Testament, which I instinctively dismissed as nonsense. But when you strip away all the arguments about whether Jesus Christ was or was not the Son of God and was or was not born of a virgin and just concentrate on his words, they're the best guide to living a good life you could find anywhere. I have no idea where some of today's self-styled "Christians" have picked up their ideas but it certainly wasn't from Jesus Christ.
There is a book called the "Jefferson Bible" in which Thos. of that name took out all the mumbo and the jumbo from the NT and came up with, essentially, a set of rules about being a good person. To my mind, they are universal human truths but. if they can be helpful to a person of faith, all the better. I am not anti-religion per se as long as the exercise of it neither impinges on my life nor make this sad world worse.
The Trumpists mostly depend on the folk tales in the Old Testament with all that smiting, begatting, and forbidding and turning people into pillars of salt, insofar as they need something to justify their sadism and hatreds. Oh dear, this is all getting so serious!
Then here's a joke from my dear cousin Helen in Rome. What do you call a confused alcoholic lapsed Catholic? A mish-Mash. Ba-da-boom.
…and no hot cross buns until after Good Friday!
Certainly not! What an idea ...
Good Friday is not a public holiday here, but my local church is much given to processions, so the congregation follows the priest. around the town for the Stations of the Cross (I assume there is not kneeling). It's a heavy burden to carry, being responsible for the rest of the world's eternal rest!
It certainly is, Louise. And you've just reminded me that when I was 13, we went on a school trip to Lourdes, where there is (or was at the time) a set of life-size Stations of the Cross winding up a hillside. "Just one request, girls," said Mother Mary Agnes, the nun in charge, as we set off for the service in the drizzling rain. "Please don't try to do this barefoot." "Oh, all right," we said.
Ha ha ha ha 'an activity that can only be described as eating' 🤣 try and time your visit to Hastings to Good Friday. The Stations of the Cross are enacted live on the streets, in full costume and with great commitment. They go right up the High Street past Jo's house. There are Centurions, terrifying whip cracks, weeping Marys and the man himself in a loincloth and Crown of Thorns. I'm not officially Catholic, but I went to a Catholic school where there was quite a lot of mass going, so I feel related. It makes me very choked up to watch it.
Well, now you've intrigued me, Maggie, this sounds unusually purple and Papist for Southern England and I'll have to go read up about it. Have you ever been to Semana Santa in Sevilla? Awesome drama, although some Americans complain that the spooky hooded figures resemble the KKK, which, purely visually, they do, although the Spanish nazarenos go back centuries before then and have nothing to do with racism. But if you can stomach the resemblance, it's well worth checking out.
I am very happy that India Knight has introduced a raft of readers to your hilarious, tea-snorts-out-of-nose writing, my friend…
Thank you, Josephine, you've sent a variety of liquids through my own nasal passages too ...
I am an Irish Catholic and for us it’s 1 meal and 2 collations on Good Friday. My Mother was such a devout Catholic that 7 priests and a Bisjop con celebrated her Funeral Mass( she was also great craic and would have laughed at the envy it engendered) Happy Easter!!
and a Happy Easter to you too, Larissa, and to your mother, wherever she is ...
Memories Gabrielle, memories 😊. No hot cross buns ??
I'd forgotten hot cross buns! They're almost impossible to find here, but if I do stumble across some, Angelenos get wildly excited. I'll go on a hunt this week ...
Happy birthday Gabrielle
Sending love
Ax
Thank you, Angela! Sending love back atcha!
Also this week we have 3 family birthdays to celebrate
And you have yours Gabrielle
Thanks for your childhood recollection of Lent and Holy Week
Also bringing back similar memories , except my mother was not so fervent
Though I remember one year she wasn’t well enough to go to the Good Friday service , sent Sheila and I as quite young primary school children to St Paul’s to sit through the very long service on our own with no adult supervision, it has stuck in my memory!
Now as church warden in Great Chishill I am happily busy with joining in Holy Week services and looking forward to a big family celebration on Easter Sunday at my youngest daughter’s house .
My mother was unable to attend my brother Brendan's and my confirmation and since she hadn't gotten around to lining up a sponsor for us either (and they wonder where I inherited my own organizational abilities ...) we were reduced to asking our form teacher, the terrifyingly strict Miss Borrett. I used to have nightmares about the deaths of both my parents and my baptismal godparents, and having to be sent to live with Miss Borrett instead! (Oddly enough, I went to visit Miss Borrett recently, and it turns out that outside of school, she's quite jolly). Have a fabulous Easter and raise a glass to me!