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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/goodden.html
Enraptured by Catholicism's continuity
By Herman GooddenLondon Free Press
May 20, 2002
LONDON, EnglandOne of the great things about being a Catholic is that I am requiredat risk of the fires of eternal damnationto haul my sorry butt out to mass at least once a week, whether I feel like it or not.
This can sometimes seem a nuisance when I'm feeling particularly unmotivated or lazy or too distressed about the state of human life on this planet to welcome any sort of distraction that might impinge upon my exquisitely self-indulgent misery.
But I can honestly say I have never once left a church service muttering to myself, "Well, that was useless, I really wish I'd just stayed home and moped."
The alarmingly simple truth is that sometimes all it takes to pull me out of a funk or to clear some frustrating mental logjam that's kept me plugged up for days is to put one foot in front of the other for awhile and move anywhere at all, no matter how aimless or routine the excursion might seem.
The baleful brown eyes of Badger the insatiably walk-ready dog often provide this motivationand we all know what "dog" spelled backwards isbut if the path I head out on should happen to lead to a church where the focus will be on God
instead of my own petty preoccupations, then all the better.
Just because Catholics happen to find themselves at the beach or on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean or the globe, we are not relieved of this obligation to attend Sunday mass. On the lam in the British Isles, it can take a little digging around to discover where the nearest Roman Catholic chapel is and what time Sunday mass is scheduled.
(Church of England chapels, on the other hand, appear with the frequency of convenience stores in Canada, but many of them are falling into disuse and disrepair or have been converted into day-care centres, offices and even warehouses.)
But that effort is always worthwhile, both for religious reasons and because it takes me out of passive tourist mode for an hour or so and gets me involved with the community I'm visiting as something more than a cultural consumer.
In London this week, I attended high mass at the Brompton Oratorythe old stomping ground of John Henry Cardinal Newman. This is one of the most gorgeous and traditional churches in the English-speaking world, where much of the service is still spoken in Latin and the altar is still placed against the back wall. The singing by the Oratory's 20-voice choirboth plain chant and hymnswas so exquisite, I swear I almost started levitating from my pew.
If the path I head out on should happen to lead to a church where the focus will be on God instead of my own petty preoccupations, then all the better.
Just outside the Oratory, a sweet old lady was operating a used book table, with all proceeds from this humble enterprise going to some worthwile charity operated by the Salvatorian brothers, one of whom delivered that day's homily. The selection of books on display was what my mother would call a "dog's breakfast"; missals and novenas next to Fowler's Guide to Proper English Usage, a biography of Pope John XXIII next to a Dick Francis mystery, The Confessions of St. Augustine next to Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck. Beneath the table, the book lady's quivery-eyed pekinese dog obediently sat on his blanket next to a dish of water.
Last week, I attended mass at St. Edmund's in the town of Bungay and afterwards slipped across the road for half an hour to visit the ruins of a 2th-century castle built by an East Anglian territorial king with the fabulous name of Hugh Bigod. It occurred to me, with a name like that, he has probably a bit of a churchgoer himself and I expect if he'd been able to wander into either of the masses I have attended here, he soon ould've found his bearings and felt quite at home.
That awesome continuity, so difficult to achieve in this world for even 20 years, let alone 900 or 2,000, is a large part of why I love the Roman Catholic church and is what keeps me coming back to Great Britain.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears in Monday's and Thursday's Opinion pages. It no longer appears in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com.
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