Brought up in (the) faith

Long before I even knew the word, I used to stare up at the baldachin at St Mary’s Church. This canopy over the altar was painted blue and covered in stars, a reminder I suspect, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea. I was fascinated. I stared a lot during mass when I was a child.

The mass was in Latin. The sea of ladies’ hats, scarves and mantillas, the rattling of beads, the smell of incense and wax, wooden kneelers, the Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei and the special feast day singing of Panis Angelicus – it was the stuff of dreams. My father loved church. A whole morning could be spent yarning while we waited desperately to get home for Sunday lunch. We had fish and chips on Fridays, fasted for three hours before communion, bravely attempted the family rosary in May and October, tried desperately to collect indulgences to escape the ravages of purgatory, prayed for the poor babies in limbo, for the conversion of Russia, gave money to save black babies in Africa, kept stamps for the missions, admired my mother’s frosted glass statue of Mary and we had two sets of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Favourite gifts for special occasions were fluorescent crucifixes. Such was the culture and faith into which I was incorporated as a baby.

On the very same day I was baptised, a little baby girl was baptised in Launceston some 2000 kilometres away. We became members of God’s family that day in February 1955. Our proud families bustled with joy and it cause for great celebration. Many years later this little girl would be my wife. And we too would present our children for baptism.

We would bring up our children according to our faith, prepare them for Penance, Eucharist and Confirmation. Our hope is that what we provided by deed and word would be sufficient example to imprint upon their essential character, a drive to pursue a deep relationship with their God, a firm desire to explore their faith and the stories of their forebears. They began this journey where I did. In church. Discovering the faces and voices of churchgoers, growing in their familiarity with liturgical word and gesture, making meaning of the space in which we gather as a Eucharistic community. The inessentials have fallen away.

Undoubtedly the Catholic school can unveil part of the life of the church. But it is not the Church. To discover that richness means making the step to active membership. Don’t allow this opportunity to be denied to your children.