Saturday, January 29, 2011

Mass Hysteria

I was in a Catholic church the other day, helping nudge a good woman towards heaven. It's only the second time I've been to a mass. I got to see stuff I'd only heard about--spraying holy water, swinging incense, throwing gang signs, etc. There's a lot of magic going on there, and I thought it prudent to hang back in the corner of the last pew in case someone got tipped off and flang me a thunderbolt. I'm the farthest thing from a magical thinker you can be and still talk to stuffed animals.

There were altar boys and some altar girls. They had a lot to do, toting around this and that. And there were two priests, and there was a fifth person, a young woman, all done up in white and just sitting in the center with no discernible function. I began to worry she might be the human sacrifice. I might not be up-to-date.


I think the Catholic Church owns the most magic of all the human institutions, and that includes voodoo. One way to tell is by the hats. The Pope has the biggest hat of anybody, a regular funnel from on high. It's very impressive--his entire outfit is, right down to the red shoes. Remember the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? His followers were silly people, but I can see how they'd be drawn to his cool clothes and hat. It's hard not to be moved by it, even for an apatheist like me. I know when I'm in psychic doubt, I ask myself, "what would Carmen Miranda do?"

There was no good reason for me to feel spooked by being in a Catholic church, but I was a little intimidated. This was a place you could get into mortal trouble just by thinking about stuff. Most of the stuff I think about at my age shouldn't get me into hell, but someplace seedy for sure. I grew up a Lutheran and we had a lot of trappings too. We sang a lot of hymns, and we all knew the liturgy. So I'm used to ceremony. But we didn't get into a lot of guilt. Our crosses were scrubbed clean of gore. We sang, and responded, and listened to sermons about loving our neighbors, and then we went down to the basement and had coffee.

Towards the end of this mass we were supposed to share the peace. I'm familiar with that practice from the last days of my Lutheran upbringing, and it was a crummy idea even then. That's the part where you're supposed to turn to the people around you and shake their hands and make nice. Right there in church. God had always been fine with us just doing that in the basement over coffee, but you can't stop progress.  That was also the era when we started playing guitars in church to be relevant, even though we had a massive pipe organ and plenty of lightly-used Bach. Oh no, now we teenagers are sitting on the steps to the altar twanging away and singing "Suzanne" even though it talks about "touching her perfect body with your mind," which is embarrassing. We have no idea what the song means--we picked it because it mentions Jesus in the second verse.

Anyway I liked it better when we stuck with the old liturgy. And that's using the King James English, which is what God speaks. So the other day when the priest guy said "The Lord be with you," I went ahead and hollered "and with thy spirit," while everyone else was going "you too, dude." That's when I knew there was no real magic in the Catholic Church. That, and also I didn't burst into flame.

48 comments:

  1. In that last photo, you look like the ref who just through a flag on Jesus' touchdown. Have I mentioned I love the haircut? Bee-yoo-tiful!

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  2. Thanks for revealing the secret -- the bigger the hat the bigger the magic. I'll remember that.
    And "What would Carmen Miranda do?" will now be my favorite question.

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  3. It's reassuring to know that God speaks in KJ English. I assume that he has to take a universal translator with him wherever he goes. Worked for Star Trek.

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  4. That first picture really made me laugh. I'm enjoying your apatheist views on the Catholic Church. Pretty sure they don't sacrifice virgins any more, but I could be wrong. Or maybe there aren't any more... :-)

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  5. A very gentle and irreverent poke that I quite like. Although I was never Catholic, and they were considered the bad guys, I enjoyed the humour, especially God speaking in KJ and you not bursting into flames -- as well as others goodies.

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  6. I'm a Catholic, but I've always been of the considered opinion that Jesus likes folks like you best of all. :)

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  7. I found this post via Infidel753, and I enjoyed it very much. There's definitely an element of magical thinking in Catholic ritual.

    If you want something truly bizarre and hair-raising, however, attend an Apostolic prayer meeting! :D

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  8. I'm a pretty magical thinker, but I do love irreverence. Nothing like good humor to keep things in perspective.

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  9. My VERY Catholic friend (Bet) invited me to her daughter's christening. My 2 year old daughter and I were the only non-family, non-religious people there. We stood in an arc, and the priest wanted us all to dip our fingers in the holy water and cross the baby. I didn't know what to do! Bet knows my feelings, but wanted me there anyway, but I didn't want to decrease the meaning of the other blessings...
    The baby finally came around to me and my daughter (who I was holding) and I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. However, my wonderful little daughter just leaned forward and planted a big old kiss right on top of the baby's head. I followed her suit. The priest looked at us a bit oddly and then continued on as if nothing untoward had happened.
    So far, the girl seems to be okay. But I guess there's still time for the kisses of atheists to wear through the magical shield of the holy water. I'll take the blame.

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  10. The Pope hat with a sort of notch at the top always looks to me like a big version of those containers Chinese take-away food comes in. Maybe he keeps his lunch up there. Carmen Miranda's hat would certainly have served for a full day's worth of healthy snacks.

    I began to worry she might be the human sacrifice. I might not be up-to-date.

    I'm afraid you're not. It's the altar boys who are sacrificed. In a manner of speaking.

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  11. I enjoyed your irreverence. I feel much the same. I try very hard not to take religion too seriously.

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  12. I love intelligent Jesus commentary. Simply delightful.

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  13. Aww, we Catholics aren't so vary scary! lol...I enjoyed the post. Holy water feels good, especially on a hot day!

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  14. Well there you are at St Andrew Catholic church... I recognize it because my youngest daughter lives right across the street from where you were looking in those apartment looking places that are now condos with the formidable looking iron gate enclosing the parking lot. The other daughter being up there on 22nd.

    Kitty-corner from that church is the fabulous corner market which daughter Kara so lovingly immortalized in poem.

    I won't comment on my own Catholic upbringing which did a wonderful job of spiriting me directly into Atheism... which I found far more convenient than learning Latin. The flashbacks alone are enough to keep me on the straight-and-narrow.

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  15. I'm not funny. Well, I'm funny, but not in the way that all these bright people who leave you comments are... so I won't try to out do them.

    I work with kids, so my humor sometimes descends into just fart jokes. Which a more clever mind that mine could connect somehow with religion.

    I've been to a few serious Catholic things, weddings, funerals, etc. And I can see how a person could derive comfort from rituals. I mean, I love my morning shower, the daily small glass of chocolate milk to wash down the medication, the drive to work where I swear happily at everyone else on the road.

    But guys in robes, chanting and waving incense and ha, blowing smoke... I don't get it. Never will.

    Interesting post.

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  16. I'm a "recovering" Catholic and, of course, the joke is you never recover. When I was growing up, the masses were all in Latin and I liked that much better. And there was none of this turning to your neighbor and making nice stuff which just creeps me out.

    I liked the outfits a lot better back then, too.

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  17. I hate to tell you this, Murr, but Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha (Carmen Miranda) went to a convent school (Saint Therese of Lisieux) as a good young Portuguese-Brazilian girl would, and wouldn't divorce her no-good freeloading husband who beat her because as a Catholic she wouldn't. So asking yourself "what would Carmen Miranda do" likely won't get to any nonmagical solutions. You're stuck with Pootieism.

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  18. One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. I am SO amused!

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  19. I thought the Pope's hat looks like something you use to put frosting on a friggin cake. But to each her own. ;P

    Thanks for the boatload of snickers woman! You so rock!

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  20. I thought the Pope's hat looks like something you use to put frosting on a friggin cake. But to each her own. ;P

    Thanks for the boatload of snickers woman! You so rock!

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  21. I have no idea why this damn thing posted my comment twice. Must be my karma for the remark about his Popeness.

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  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. MY difficulty has always been that it's an article of faith that at Communion Catholics are drinking the blood of Christ, and eating His flesh. Kinda hard to square with cannibalism, eh?

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  24. A few year ago my daughter got it into her head to become Catholic with a dipping type baptism and everything. Someone should have told her not to die her head red on the day of the baptismal ceremony. When the priest, or bishop or whatever, plunged her into the water, her red hair color ran turning the baptismal water a lovely pink. There were some double-takes at that.

    But my daughter was only one in a line of people to be baptized....all wearing white robes. Those that followed the kid emerged with robes also a lovely shade of pink.

    She's not a Catholic now.

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  25. Oh, Jerry and all, you're giving Murr a run for the funny! If that's possible.

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  26. I've got to get me one o' them fancy comment sections where I can respond to everyone in turn, all tidy, but I'm always afraid my blog will blow up if I tinker. You guys rock. I'm so amazed that I can post this stuff and the political stuff and not get a new one ripped. This is truly a kinder and gentler corner of the blogosphere.

    So, lacking the tidy ability to respond to each of you wonderful people, I will address Anonymous: Cannibalism post coming soon.

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  27. Delightful, Murr, as always.
    My mother, like you, was brought up Lutheran. My paternal grandmother was,however, a staunch Methodist, so Mom coverted and we were all brought up in Dad's church. I haven't been much of a Methodist (or anything) since I walked out at 15 after the preacher ceded the sermon time to the head of the building committee who spent the entire service trying to browbeat everybody into tithing so a nice new air-conditioned and fully heated church could be built and our beautiful century old building torn down. But as I recall, Methodism was at least as big on guilt as Catholicism - maybe even as big as Judaism (and that's saying something). I tend to be a Hopeful Agnostic (I'd really, really like to believe in miracles and magical solutions, but...) and I really dig magic and pageantry. So as a kid, although I aimed to please by being a good Methodist (I was even an acolyte - like an alter boy but with less to do) I really would have liked to hang out with the kids over at St. Joe's, where the incense was intoxicating, the body of Christ wasn't little squares of Wonderbread and the alter wine wasn't Welch's grape juice (though I must say, I was really disappointed when I found out only the priest got to sample the wine - that's something that needs reforming).

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  28. Murr: I'm with you all the way on this one. I recovered quickly from Catholicism. Love your witty words, and appreciate the education I'm getting from your blog too. Thanks :)

    I had to look up the word apatheist:
    Apatheism (a portmanteau of apathy and theism/atheism), also known as pragmatic or critically as practical atheism, is acting with apathy ...
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheist

    Then I had to look up the word portmanteau:

    blend: a new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings; "`smog' is a blend of `smoke' and `fog'"; "`motel' is a portmanteau word made by combining `motor' and `hotel'"; "`brunch' is a well-known portmanteau" (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

    A large travelling case usually made of leather, and opening into two equal sections; Made by combining two words, stories, etc., in the manner of a linguistic portmanteau (en. wiktionary.org/wiki/portmanteau)

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  29. As Talullah Bankhead reputedly remarked upon meeting the pope, "Love your drag, dahling, but your purse is on fire."

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  30. Oh me mercy lard. I snotted myself.

    Side note: I think Lewis Carroll originally used the term "portmanteau" to describe those words.

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  31. Just read your comment on my "Face Painting" post. That made me poke around Murrrmurs. Quite a few yucks in there. Love the irreverence. I did one a while ago called "Confessions of a Lapsed Catholic" that you might find funny. Keep 'em coming!

    http://jspinbrain.blogspot.com/2009/07/confessions-of-lapsed-catholic.html#comments

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  32. Ahh here comes my youth flooding in front of me.Latin. Weird rules. Confession boxes was one of the reasons for leaving the Catholics and eventually really all of the Christians Churches. Can't grasp the need to love Jesus more than God. I cannot fathom the statues and crosses either. Yet I enjoy all types of holidays because of the family get togethers. I visit places of worship of all faiths when invited. I know for some it is important to have communal gatherings in the name of their God.
    this post as well as the comments are priceless.

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  33. Excellent post, and my I also congratulate you on the confident use of "flang" as the past tense of "flung"? Obviously the inconsistent verb tenses are an integral part of our beloved language, but certain ones have always bugged me. Case in point: don't you think that the past tense of "knit" should be revised to "knat"? (It squares nicely with the past tense of "take a poo.")

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  34. Speaking of magic, I was raised Episcopalian. When I was a pre-teen I was "confirmed" by a bishop. He was very large and clad head to foot in purple with a large purple jewel on his hand. He grabbed my head rather hard and intoned in an uber-bass voice, "Duh- fennnddd oooh Looorrrddd, this thyyyy chiiiildddd!!!!" magic indeed!

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  35. When I was confirmed, it was with a hand resting on the head, and--bleak, or perky, I don't recall--"through God, ALL things are possible."

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  36. I hope none of you thought of this post during church/mass/whatever. (Is it true that even post-adolescents can giggle uncontrollably in inappropriate situations?)

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  37. This forwarded from Kara who lives across the street from St. Andrews: "Woah! That's hilarious. I love that damn church...right up until 9:30
    Sunday Morning. Then I hate it for about 4 hours."

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  38. I suffer from dual religion personality disorder. My father dragged me to the Irish Catholic church, my mother to the Protestant church. Being one to daydream, I'd get confused a lot as to whether I was supposed to be getting up or kneeling. Things got a lot easier with that ' spread the love' thing they got going years back. I was a sickly kid. No way was I going to continue to go to a mass gathering of aerial germ attacks, but spread them physically as well? Heck NO. A friend invited me to go to church with her a few years back. "There's no touching, right?" She gave me a strange look but said, "Ah, no." "Alright, I'll go." It was like a southern Baptist transplant. They sang really loud while passing tamborines around, men and women moaned "Amen," when the minister/priest/shaman, whatever he was said something they felt applied directly to them, and in the end they all walked out gossiping about their neighbors and exchanging recipes and smelling like sweat from jumping and dancing in the spaces between the benches. It was great. Alas it's still a nightmare for the germaphobe I have become... :}

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  39. I'm subscribing to your blog for sure. First of all, you weren't left all reverent by being in church. You were kind of observant in a sardonic way. Kind of like my dad was when he used to attend church with us kids. Except that when he was kneeling, he'd blow in the ears of anyone who had the gall to be sitting in the pew in front. Which is why I eventually got kicked out. Or, maybe it was that time I washed my Barbie doll in the holy water.

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  40. Whew! I was worried right up to the very end that the Great Smiter was gonna make you internally combust before you could get outta the pew. Perhaps if you were a true Catholic through and through, a good smite would work on you. But the Divine One can tell the difference. Obviously.

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  41. it's an article of faith that at Communion Catholics are drinking the blood of Christ, and eating His flesh. Kinda hard to square with cannibalism, eh?

    You have to wonder what it means in the end.

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  42. Reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons of all time----a robed and bearded God figure, sitting at his immense computer console, with his finger poised over the keyboard, above the "Smite" button.

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  43. Hah! I grew up Lutheran, too... and believe me, we were a rare breed in a town of Baptists. The peace be with you never really grabbed me--I'd just said hello to the same folks before I sat down. But the King James Bible preference...? I'm SHOCKED! Holy crap!

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  44. What a fantastic entry! Thanks for the chuckles!

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  45. Neighbour told my dad the only difference between a Catholic Wedding and a Catholic funeral was the long dusty drive to the cemetery.
    Catholics are kind of old hat (sorry). If you want magic, check out the Russian Orthodox. I love their ceremonies and the singing is amazing. No kneeling, though. Only standing for as long as you wish. Kind of come and go church service, I guess.

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  46. My VERY Catholic friend (Bet) invited me to her daughter's christening. My 2 year old daughter and I were the only non-family, non-religious people there. We stood in an arc, and the priest wanted us all to dip our fingers in the holy water and cross the baby. I didn't know what to do! Bet knows my feelings, but wanted me there anyway, but I didn't want to decrease the meaning of the other blessings...
    The baby finally came around to me and my daughter (who I was holding) and I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. However, my wonderful little daughter just leaned forward and planted a big old kiss right on top of the baby's head. I followed her suit. The priest looked at us a bit oddly and then continued on as if nothing untoward had happened.
    So far, the girl seems to be okay. But I guess there's still time for the kisses of atheists to wear through the magical shield of the holy water. I'll take the blame.

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  47. I found this post via Infidel753, and I enjoyed it very much. There's definitely an element of magical thinking in Catholic ritual.

    If you want something truly bizarre and hair-raising, however, attend an Apostolic prayer meeting! :D

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  48. A very gentle and irreverent poke that I quite like. Although I was never Catholic, and they were considered the bad guys, I enjoyed the humour, especially God speaking in KJ and you not bursting into flames -- as well as others goodies.

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