Family prayers, mass in Latin... my childhood was devout

What I regarded as normal as a kid growing up in the 1960s I have come to realise was unusual. But I recall it as a comforting experience.

The passing of Pope Francis has prompted many Catholics to reflect upon their faith and how it was instilled. Picture: istock

The passing of Pope Francis has prompted many Catholics (including non-churchgoing ones like me) to reflect upon their faith and how it was instilled decades ago. What I regarded as normal as a kid growing up in the 1960s I have come to realise was unusual. Not “bad” unusual, more “devout” unusual.

Our family of six kids plus two parents prayed the rosary every night. We would kneel in the loungeroom. Each kid took turns at leading the prayer – saying, for example, the first half of the Hail Mary – then we’d all join in for the second half. It sounds odd but I recall it as a comforting experience, having the whole family pray in unison. Our mother was the driving force behind it. She’d prayed the rosary daily from the age of eight, and died at 95 in her sleep holding her beads.

Mass in the early ’60s was said in Latin. My older brothers, both altar boys and now in their seventies, can still (proudly) recite tracts of it. What I find odd is the way in which a big congregation in a small country town in Australia would happily, or at least dutifully, attend a weekly ritual involving costumery, candles and incense (dispensed in a contraption known as a thurible), delivered in a language that no one really understood.

Mass in the early ’60s was said in Latin. Picture: istock

Somehow the Holy Roman Church spread over 2000 years to every corner of the globe, including to St Thomas’s church Terang into the 1960s without so much as bending to the language of the locals. And it achieved all this via a succession of 266 popes, which surely represents one of the longest unbroken administrative structures in human history.

Unlike monarchies, which have longer reigns, a papacy lasts on average for only nine years, providing more opportunity for rebellion within the many interregna. Of course the Church has had its problems, including far too many examples of egregious behaviour. And yet Catholicism has survived for all this time. It raises the question, what does religiosity offer?

While I am no longer a churchgoer, I do see merit in many aspects of religious thinking, including the idea that there is a force that is greater than humanity, that offers forgiveness, that promotes redemption, that endorses kindness, that comforts the distressed and the dying. All of this can be delivered without candles and thuribles, of course, but some people respond better to structure, to theatre.

So, why is it that I have such a vivid (and broadly positive) recollection of the Latin mass in my primary school years? I’ve researched this. Our family’s Catholicism was passed down by my mother, who set the religious agenda. The same applied to her mother, born in 1895, and to her mother, born in 1859. My connection to the Holy Roman Church ultimately derives from a 24-year-old Irish girl, Bridget Byron, who arrived in Geelong in 1854 in the aftermath of the potato famine.

Were it not for the potato famine and the religious predisposition of the mothers in my lineage, I would not have had exposure to the Catholic Church which introduced me to Latin mass and to the idea of family prayer.

I decided long ago that this was not for me – but that’s not to say that later in life (when I get really old) I might not think differently about this life, and the next.

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