Recently I wrote about why Australian Catholics might be losing their belief in purgatory. I think part of it is that we keep our children away from death because it’s too scary for their tender minds.
Except that we don’t.
I recently attended a school Mass in my parish for All Saints Day. Our deacon asked the children who had gone trick or treating the night before. An absolute forest of hands shot up.
It seems that death, the occult, and the paranormal are actually all fine for kids at Catholic schools…just as long as there are adults supervising and lollies at the end.
It’s not the kids’ fault. One of the songs at Mass—and they were songs, rather than hymns—was called, We Are All Saints. The message from that song was that it was really quite easy to be a saint, and in fact most of us were already there.
And this is also what we say at most Catholic funerals in Australia today. Perhaps instead of blessing the coffin as it leaves the church, the priest should have a pail of lollies for any kids present.
I’m not going to get into a debate about whether Halloween is right or wrong, although my general opinion of secular Halloween is that it’s stupid.
But I couldn’t help but wonder what the kids at Mass were making of all this. They were just primary school kids, and mostly with the attention span of a gnat.
Based on what I know about my diocese, only around two-thirds were from nominally Catholic families. Most of them didn’t have a clue what to do in Mass—when to sit, stand, or kneel.
But they knew the songs. Boy, they knew the songs. During Communion, they sang a song about having a meal with someone called Gard. That’s because the teacher leading the song on the guitar was singing it with an American accent. He may well have been American; I don’t know.
But all the kids were singing with the same accent, so we all sang about Gard.
I tried to see this Mass through the eyes of a child present. I was in a weird building with some strangely dressed men, and some nervous and frazzled teachers, and no rhyme or reason to any of it.
My conclusion was that this whole church thing was weird and kind of stupid.
I also went to Mass in the same church the next day for All Souls Day, and it couldn’t have been more different.
We began the Mass in our parish columbarium. Our parish priest prayed, and then blessed all the niches with holy water and incensed them. Many of those present had a friend or relative’s remains in those niches, so it was very solemn and moving.
We then came back into the church and started the Mass proper. The readings were serious about death, but also full of hope. All the prayers of the Mass were grown-up and sensible. Death is real, but so is God, and he’s bigger and better than it.
I thought it was such a shame that the kids weren’t present for this Mass instead. On the other hand, I was a bit relieved, because we might have had to sing some more of those songs.
Perhaps we need a children’s song for Mass called, “We Are All Dead”. In fact, I’ll just write one now for you—guitar key of G, so nice and easy.
“Hey hey/You and me/Walking together/On a journey with friends/Into the grave/Looking for Gard/In all the wrong places/Hey hey—we are all dead.”
There you go. It’s good to know I’ll have something to fall back on if I have to quit my day job.
Joking aside, the difference between the two celebrations was immense. One was anodyne and irritating, and the other was really focused and powerful.
Being a fan of the Holy Souls, I’m kind of glad it was this way around. I figure that the saints in their glory are tough enough to put up with a bit of liturgical silliness.
Because it’s actually quite hard work to become a saint. In fact, it’s impossible unless you open yourself up to the direct action of grace and make a lot of sacrifices.
The Holy Souls, on the other hand, need us to take them and their cause very seriously. They’re not mucking around, and so neither should we.
So, let’s keep praying for them and for each other this month—and for those poor kids as well.
