David O'Mahony: Angels and devils on my shoulders won't slow my support for first Communion 

A lack of religious fervour won't serve to scupper preparation for a daughter's first Communion

An information evening over a first Communion put non-religious David in unexpected territory. File picture

I found myself in a religious meeting this week, which is not at all how I expected to be spending part of my Monday night. I’m not even religious.

Daughter, 7, is making her first Communion next year and, through the school, parents were sent a message that an information evening about it was being held in the local church. 

Dutiful Dad dutifully wandered off when the time came. Daughter is looking forward to it, and it’s a rite of passage in its own way. 

Still, there were questions to be answered — there are at least two ceremonies, so which one was our child in? Restaurant reservations are depending on this, you understand, along with recruiting family members from here to the ends of the Earth (well, Schull, so almost).

One did not expect to see a slide deck about faith and the family on screen.

Nor, to be fair, did some of the parents around me. It was less, “bring them to Mass so they get used to it and your child should know these prayers” — given that my Confirmation class fluffed ours so badly the priest went away in a temper and had to come back another day, maybe I could have done with that sort of reminder,  and more anecdotes about personal journeys. Which are all quite valid things. They just weren’t what I had anticipated.

Now, it’s a Catholic sacrament and so the Church is probably expected to do a little light missionary work among the parents — while Communion is more a rite of passage to many, or not pursued at all, in Catholic terms it’s meant to be a big deal. 

Certainly Daughter is taking it seriously, as she takes all things she considers important business seriously.

I’m probably far too iconoclastic to help her, but I am what I am and I’ll do whatever it is she needs me to do (as will her mother). I’ve read chunks of the Bible and everything, albeit from a historian’s perspective. 

Bear in mind that after our twin boys were born, Bishop John Buckley happened to be doing the rounds and came into the room to give blessings. Cue me stifling back a “Hi John, how are you” (I’d never met the man, but used his photos dozens of times on Examiner pages) and then — presumably due to a mix of adrenaline and being more focused on the love of my life who, y’know, had just had two children plucked out in an emergency caesarean — I barely choked back the far more spectacular “hello, your bishopness”.

Evidently there were angels and devils on my shoulders, both of them advocating mischief.

Support despite tempered views

All of which explains my slightly jaundiced perspective on Monday night. And probably that the priest said we were “lucky” in Ireland that most of the Communion work is done in the schools. I found myself thinking, “but isn’t that your job?” 

The main speaker was a married deacon, by the way, and I doubt I’m breaking new ground here by saying that the Catholic Church might well be in a better condition if it allowed married priests, which it did for hundreds of years. 

And it would certainly be in better shape if it still had women as priests and bishops… which it also did for hundreds of years.

None of which gets Daughter any closer to being prepared for her first Communion, but it does, to be fair, reflect an Ireland where we want to support our children in pursuing things, even if we have more tempered views.

With two historians in the house, Bible stories get explained as allegories and as ways older generations tried to explain the world before they had the science we have. 

We were at Holy Cross Abbey and the Rock of Cashel recently, where there are several holy relics; we tried to explain how the objects probably weren’t what they were made out to be, but that they could be used by people to think about life, or loved ones, or maybe models to follow (or not follow, as the case may be).

Skepticism of authority

It’s not that I’m anti-religion. It’s that I have what I like to think of as a very healthy skepticism to authority, and particularly to people or institutions that assume they have some. Secular too, by the way.

I don’t quite remember the stranglehold the Catholic Church had on this country, though I was born in the ‘80s; I was, however, aware enough to almost hear it crack in the era of Eamon Casey and, subsequently, the avalanche of sex abuse revelations.

One suspects they glossed over the passage in the gospel of Matthew where Jesus — he of turn the other cheek, the one we were taught was “tender and mild” as kids — says it’s better to gouge out your own eye or cut off your hand if you can’t control yourself. You know, mental reservation, or some such.

Now, to be fair, the speakers on Monday — a married couple and their son — were perfectly sincere and decent people, and I admire their commitment to their beliefs.

But I still put on the punk band Bad Religion as soon as I got back to the car.

And maybe that sums up the location of my own generation, having been birthed in one epoch only to raise the next generation in another one entirely. 

There’s a sort of ancestral tension, a bit like how Augustine of Hippo described human life as being like an olive in the press.

Maybe I just need to have a little faith that it’ll all work out.