Give me the Old Time Religion.......

So I spent all day yesterday at a religious observance. It was one of my favorite niece's confirmation and we had to trek out to Staten Island. It was an all day thing so I was off the grid. Away from the store and all the other day to day stuff we are always dealing with. No politics only religion.

Now it is always interesting to me to go to another Church in a different parish. I have been in this one  many times. St. Clare's is one of the bigger congregations on Staten Island.  In fact in New York City. Many of the families who went over the Guinea Gangplank to Staten Island are parishioners. All of my cousins go there. I have buried cousins out of it. It is sort of half  way between the old school churches in Brooklyn with statues of St Lucy with her eyeballs on a plate and the quasi-Protestant churches with the tambourines and the circle and squares on the wall instead of Jesus on the cross. It was packed as over a hundred and fifty people were getting confirmed by Bishop O'Hara of the New York Archdiocese. That was were I drifted off into reverie as candidate after candidate went up to be confirmed.



You see the name Bishop O'Hara conjures up one of the old school tough Irish clergy that I grew up with. Father Flynn. Cardinal O'Conner. Pat O'Brien going off to War with Jimmy Cagney. You know the way it used to be. Now Bishop O'Hara wasn't that guy. He was pretty liberal.  I mean he even made some  cheap jokes denigrating Donald Trump that had the mostly conservative congregation chuckling nervously. I just sat back and prayed and then started to wonder what it would be like if he was like one of the Irish priests I grew up with.

The process of confirmation is that the candidate and the sponsor come up to the Bishop and he confirms them with the appropriate prayer and invocation for each person. Bishops O'Hara's wrinkle was that he liked to acknowledge the sponsor as well to encourage them for their participation. So he said both the confirmation name of the candidate and then asked who was their sponsor and he said a little something to each one of them. It was all very Milquetoast and nicey/nicey regardless of what the sponsor looked like. Not the way I remember it at all.

I could just see Father Flynn doing the confirmation. As one of these Guidette sponsers comes up in a totally inappropriate for church sexy dress with her bazongers hanging out he would say "And who is this Harlot that is confirming you?" Or when the hipster uncle with the man bun comes up he would say "Say son are you one of those Homosexual's I hear so much about....Terrance get the Holy Water." Or better yet when one of these Facia Brute Aunts who look like Corporal Klinger comes up I could see he getting confused and saying "So Auntie are you one of those Chris Jenner's? Mind what bathroom you go into now!"

But that is not the way it is now. Everything is different. I was surprised that there wasn't a sponsor in a wife beater and shorts and sandals. People don't dress up for Church. The lector had to give instructions before the Mass because so many people who hadn't been there in forever where going to be there for the Mass. She had to tell them not to take photos or stand up during the services to get a better look. Some of these mooks would have taken a selfie with Jesus while he was on the Cross.

I know, I know I am an old white man and I should stop complaining.  Everything is so much better now. So what if  cellphones kept going off during the Mass. Those were important calls about where the party was after the stupid ceremony. I mean that's what is important. Not the service. Not the Mass. Not the Holy Spirit. The party.

There was only one way for me to salvage the day. When everyone lined up to shake Bishop O'Hara's hand I asked him if his father was the one who worked with Commissioner Gordon. He didn't know what I was talking about. So my feelings about the day for lack of a better word were confirmed.

Amen.