Monday, June 26, 2017

Interest and the Lack of It

Some months ago I wrote a post entitled "What I Believe" and made it a featured post, thinking it would be a good ready reference for anyone who stumbled upon this blog. I can tell from my blog statistics that very few people actually look at it.

This surprises me. I'm always intensely interested in what people believe. It's the first thing I want to know about them, and it usually forms a huge part of how I view them. If I find myself visiting a strange blog, I look for such a credo myself.

But then again, I'm constantly surprised at what people find interesting and what people find boring. For instance, I generally like homilies at Mass. But other people seem to hate them. Some years ago the Nigerian priest in my local parish stopped giving a homily on a Saturday morning. I asked him why, and he said people had complained it made the Mass too long. I encouraged him to resume this practice.

Well, he did, but some of the parishioners (on Saturday mornings) have been practicing a particularly petty form of silent protest against it. When he asks everyone to sit down after the Gospel reading, these elderly ladies remain standing. Last week, he had to ask them to sit down twice.

Not only shockingly rude, but baffling. These same old ladies will sit through any amount of post-Mass devotions.

On the other side of things, the most popular tourist attraction in Dublin is the Guinness brewery. I have no idea why anyone would want to see Guinness being brewed. True, i can't stand the stuff, but that's beside the point. I love brandy, but I have no great interest in seeing that made, either. I'm not boasting about this-- intellectual curiosity is always a good thing, no doubt-- I'm just saying that it baffles me.

11 comments:

  1. however odd it is or isn't, if the breweries bring in the tourists i wouldn't even question.

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  2. I think the little old ladies are the worst type of conservatives who can be found in every parish. I call them artificial preservatives which as we all know are very common and are very unhealthy too. They object to anything that discomforts themselves or puts themselves out in the slightest.

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  3. Ha ha ha...artificial preservatives, I like it. Yes, their conservatism seems entirely to do with their own routines, not any kind of principle or traditionalism. Just inertia. Of course, there are tons of genuinely devout and thoughtful old ladies keeping parishes going all over Ireland, and I'm not having a bash at them at all.

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  4. Séamus (Australia)June 28, 2017 at 12:00 AM

    Traditional Catholics, outside of the British Isles of course, actually stereotype pious Irish Catholics as being willing to attend five Masses a day-Matt Talbot like-as long as they are only 20 minutes long and pious English Catholics as refusing to attend a weekday Mass unless there's incense and polyphony. There seems to be a grain of fact in this, our rector noticed a vast difference in the tastes of "republic" Irish, English, Scottish and even Northern Irish Catholics; strangely: (non-Irish/English) Traditional Catholics put it down as a legacy of the "Mass rock era", but why Irish people, descendants form the Mass Rock penal era would prefer shorter Masses to the English Catholics who are largely Irish descent or descendant from the priest hole penal era is confusing. Vespers is one point though. Even a lot of modern English Catholics like their sung vespers. I've never heard of vespers in connection with s Dublin church, but traditionally a lot had novenas of all sorts to fill the same gap, you might say

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  5. ps on a lighter note.... An American Perth-based priest who goes to Dublin to visit a friend, apparently a lay-theologian with a young family who's connected some way with what used to be All Hallows College, mentioned that his first day there was spent at Jamieson's brewery-or is distillery the word?- where he got the certificate awarded to tourists who can tell the difference between whiskey, scotch whisky and bourbon(blindfolded) by treasure alone. He put it up on his church's noticeboard. (this is where your second collection money is going people)(no, he didn't say that)

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    Replies
    1. That's funny! Is treasure a mistake there or is this an Australian term?

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  6. Sorry, by TASTE alone

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  7. (when reading "treasure" in this post tonight I first thought, being non-Irish and ignorant in the matter, that it was simply some nickname-word for the "water of life" itself; it appeared funny but a likeable word!)

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    1. Maye we should try to get that term into circulation!!

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    2. ... and offer the beloved Eire another name in the same bargain? as - Treasure Island ;-)

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