My good friend Juju had the idea of attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Even though I didn’t fancy the idea at first, I decided to give it a go, for all times’ sake. I was raised a Catholic, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that I decided I no longer wanted to belong to an organized religion or a religion at all for that matter. Revisiting old customs sounded like a good way of re-connecting with the old self, and somehow, with my family abroad.
Juju was looking forward to the smell of the church; we both anticipated a lot of myrrh and frankincense in the air. We weren’t disappointed. We entered the very crowded church in the middle of the Liturgy. Standing in the back, it didn’t take too long for me to start revisiting the old emotions that so-familiar situation would bring about. The priest, the crowd, the smell, and all the other elements within the church no longer held importance in my head. I quickly decided that nothing that would come out of the bishop’s mouth could resonate with me; because it simply didn’t. My ears were no longer trained to separate echo from words and make sense of it all. I simply stood there, thinking that this portion of mass could easily be compared to the lecture you would receive from a professor at university. Although this kind of lecture went one-way only. People would nod their heads in agreement and reply with a very-much recited answer. What was the meaning of all this? Indoctrination. What was the purpose of all this? Control.
Throughout mass, Juju and I would share church-related anecdotes with each other, which reminded me how boring mass could be. In an instant, I realized how much I dreaded going to mass when I was younger, and that I had always thought of it as the weekly sacrifice one would make for Jesus Our Lord and for a chance at winning a spot in heaven. Having no Lord and no heaven to offer sacrifices to, I felt relieved that I no longer belonged to (as Juju would call it) “the communal theatrical event”. Above all, I felt free because I could choose to not believe in all the things the bishop would dare to say. I was no longer oppressed by unquestionable beliefs and cardboard-stiff rituals. Although the mass I witnessed was nothing new, the way I looked at it was.
Midnight mass and the revival of everything old
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