It's Christmas Eve and I'm writing this at my parents' place. For a little while today I tinkered with the idea of staying in town another day and seeing Midnight Mass at the Cahedral, but I did that last year and now I was kind of feeling the need to see my own tribe and breathe some fresh air.
I slept later than usual today but was still able to get down to the City to pick up the bulky gifts I'd earmarked yesterday. I hope they're OK. I'm kind of legendarily bad at picking gifts, although in my defence I really do try. Although, I kind of think that when all the people in the family are adults and employed and there's no grandchildren present (yes, I feel a bit shitful as I type those words), a 'food Christmas' has merit - where everyone makes the dish(es) that they do well and brings it. With that in mind, on the drive down this afternoon I picked up a carton of buttermilk and will make biscuits to go with lunch on Boxing Day, which is when my family does actual Christmas for logistical reasons.
Anyway, after getting the remaining gifts together I packed the things I wanted at the sharehouse and then decided to squeeze a quick run in, so I belted out a quickish 7 kilometres then had a shower, loaded the car and got on the road. I listened to Dolly Parton sing "Hard Candy Christmas" a few times on the way - one of the few upsides of being in a "problematic" situation is that you actually get what she's singing about. I find that oddly pleasing. Hmm. And naturally, I then flicked over to some Amy Grant.
I was down here by about 5pm and gave Dad and Michael a hand with shifting some wood before they knocked off. Dinner with the tribe, and after that Dad and I went to Christmas Eve Mass at St Peters at Shoreham. That was the other reason for coming down. As much as I love the very formal Mass at the Cathedral, this time I kind of wanted to go to the church where my grandparents' obsequies were done.
I dunno ... I kind of wish religion hadn't been kind of an off limits thing in my family (seriously, it was up there with sex as something not to be talked about, with a comparable degree of embarassment and awkwardness). But, there you have it. Dad would go to Catholic services at Christmas and Easter; Mum and the kids would go to the Uniting Church at Dromana, also at Christmas and Easter, but otherwise none of us darkened a church doorway except for funerals. Which was why I instinctively kept it a dead secret when I became a Catholic. There would have been no effort to prevent me, but it would have been as uncomfortable for all concerned as if I'd been coming out.
Anyway, the Mass itself this evening was kind of funny and a little, I guess, curious. It was funny inasmuch as some of the littler kids, ranging in age from a few months to a few years had been drafted into being dressed variously as angels, a shepherd and baby Jesus in an impromptu nativity scene in front of the altar. This worked OK until baby Jesus really needed his mum to give him a cuddle (he was pretty good about it I should say!), and during the homily the shepherd got up and walked down the aisle loudly calling to his mum that he needed to go to the toilet!
It was also kind of obvious that for a lot of the congregation this was their annual visit to Church: an awful lot of people looked terribly uncertain whether to sit, stand or kneel, and didn't understand that not everyone is meant to recite the words of the responsorial psalm, and in particular, is not meant to read it straight through. Added to which, people were giving the old words of the liturgy, not the new ones that have been in use for about 18 months now (e.g. "peace be with you" - "and with your spirit" has replaced "peace be with you" - "and also with you"). Me, I tend to err on the side of inclusion: I don't want anyone to feel awkward or uncomfortable about coming to church. As long as they're making the effort to be there, I'm OK with someone turning up in a grass skirt and doing their part of the liturgy in Norwegian. But, I also had a slightly uncomfortable feeling that a lot of the attendances were kind of "phoning it in", which seemed a little wrong. Still, "mysterious ways" and all, so you kind of hope that for a few people who were making their annual attendance, it's inspired them to maybe come again on a regular Sunday too.
Which brings me up to now. I've had a cup of cocoa, and I'll go and do the usual reading of the opening to Luke's Gospel - which has been kindly posted by Megan over at Just a Small Town Girl - and read "The Coming of the Magi", and enjoy sleeping where the only sounds are cars passing occasionally, and sometimes cattle bellowing.
Merry Christmas friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment