In the past few years, I’ve been to three weddings. One took place in City Hall in Dublin, the one before that was in a forest. But the most recent one was in a Catholic church, which made it both extremely familiar and relatively unusual.
It was a full Mass, so there were readings and responses, songs and communion. The priest was personable and cracked a few jokes. Yet it reminded me that the Irish Catholic Mass has always been somewhat muted, at least when compared to some other denominations.
The congregations don’t tend to sing along to the music. There’s no emoting or pulpit-thumping. As if they are a bit embarrassed by the whole thing, they mutter their responses or don’t make any at all.
Afterwards, most people seemed to agree that it had been a good Mass. Which is code for: it didn’t go on too long. And in my experience, religious expression in Ireland has always been like that.
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Back in the days when Ireland was a slavishly devout country, priests felt free to tell their congregations what they could and couldn’t do, especially in regard to anything below the navel. But those were practical matters; the regulations laid out by the international corporation they worked for. That was about wielding power. When it came to our relationship to the divine, to the mind-boggling idea of being connected to a guiding force in the universe, that wasn’t talked about so much.
That’s the problem with religion right there. It’s contradictory. It’s not cut and dried. It’s not provable
I’ve no idea about the belief systems of the other people at that wedding. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to do a poll. But it probably ranged from traditional Catholic faith, to something more vague. There may have been people of no belief, yet who valued that specific church within that specific community.
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If you’re an atheist, you may say: that’s the problem with religion right there. It’s contradictory. It’s not cut and dried. It’s not provable. It’s like having an imaginary friend. All true. But – religious zealots aside – for many people of belief, the doubt and contradictions seem to be part of the point. In the 21st century, believing in a God can’t be easy.
The day after the wedding, Daughter Number Four was in the bath, which is one of the many locations she uses to pose confounding questions. She asked: is heaven real or not?
I launched into my pro forma “some people believe” answer when she interrupted me. No, she said. What do you believe?
You don’t have to think too hard to realise that we are all micro-blips in an infinite universe
So, I told her I don’t know. She nodded, and seemed satisfied with that answer. And I felt proud of her: still a child, but already starting to understand that uncertainty is a central part of existence.
Later that night, I watched the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. It’s completely bonkers, but in a really good way. It’s all about the multiverse, but also about the worth of a human life. Because you don’t have to think too hard to realise that we are all micro-blips in an infinite universe. Our loves, our experiences and our actions, while significant to us, make little or no difference. That’s a terrifying and despairing thought, and seems to run counter to a fundamental need within people, no matter what their philosophy: that the stretch of our lives means something. Anything.
No wonder so many people choose to believe in a God, despite the lack of evidence; or perhaps why about 40 per cent of weddings still take place in Catholic churches. But even if the wedding is on a mountain top or in a grey government building, there’s still an intention there to do the same thing: to invest a significant life event with meaning, to link it to something greater than the couple and their promises to each other. Because that’s all we can do. As long as you’re not doing anyone any harm, take your meaning where you can.