Visit to church

The first time I heard X mention religion was when he discussed masturbating into a chalice, scatting on a crucifix and stuffing two communion wafers up a woman’s twat and then bonking her. He’d been presenting a talk about the Marquis de Sade at the time and showed us six thick well-thumbed Sade books he liked to read in bed while listening to blaring Wagner and Bach.
It’s three years later and now X spends his Friday evenings doing the Stations of the Cross! What happened?
Maybe he was like that all along – a regular churchgoer with all sorts of blasphemous fantasies running through his head. I haven’t dared to ask, and anyway, everyone has their little foibles…
With this in mind, I headed off to listen to him sing in a choir performing Mozart’s Requiem and to look at a bark arrangement. Turns out I’d misheard and it was a Bach arrangement.
It’s a Proddy High Anglican cult, and I was wary of being sucked into their heretical ways, having been brought up in the “one holy Catholic and apostolic Church”. Wore my scapular, said a couple of rounds of the rosary and doused myself in holy water from Lourdes, cos you Can’t Be Too Careful.
Got to the church and spent some time stuck in the bookshop area during the ticket crush and noticed that apart from Thomas Merton and a Franciscan book, it was mostly stuff written by Anglican “saints” – or whatever they call them. They even had The Gnostic Gospels! Dio mio!
Inside, I was sharing the pew with M, who tempted me into eating lollies in church (!), which I did and that must be a venial sin at least, and cos it’s Lent, it’s double demerits. On one side was X’s boyf Y who usually “serves” in the church cos he “can’t sing” and hedges his bets by wearing a necklace with symbols of all major religious faiths. On the other side was K, a parishioner who spends two hours travelling each way from Penrith cos he loves to hear sacred music.
Y pointed out the church has the Stations of the Cross (which I’d thought was usual) and that they say the Angelus and have statues of Mary. But their priests are allowed to get married!
K good-naturedly teased me: “We show Catholics the way it SHOULD be done”. Though I was outnumbered, I knew I had God on My Side and went to say: “But it’s not Pick n Mix! You can’t just do the theatrical bits,” when the Holy Spirit descended and protected me with temporary tongue paralysis.
I also have to report that choir robes are not sexy at all – they make everyone look angelic and holy and pure. Even X. Unlike priest collars which are sexy. But there weren’t any of those there.
Bach had all the good lyrics (“let Satan rage” – it always causes a frisson when Satan is mentioned in a church; “Defiance to the old dragon”, “Misery, want, torture, shame and death, shall never part me from Jesus”) and Mozart had all the good music.
Everything was sung in German or Latin, so Y helpfully pointed out where they were up to.
The music and singing were fantastic. As we were leaving, K said: “You can tell we’re the true Church, because we have the best singing.” I crossed myself and Offered It Up for the early release of Souls in Purgatory.
Got outside and wasn’t surprised that a group of X’s friends were discussing the Inquisition (Catholic, of course, 1400s-1800s).  Then Y joined us and, being “wordly”, he mistakenly thought we were discussing a gay fetish dance party of the same name! Quickly trying to cover our plans for the “rehabilitation of those who had Gone Astray”, we began discussing saucy outfits and sex spaces, while Y feigned disgust. But a tip for Y who gets up to all sorts of “interesting” things in his spare time: “ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor hour…”
Then it was off for a debriefing at Starbucks. The choir performs overseas and is going to sing in Westminster Abbey next year, but it costs $9000 each to go, so X is giving it a miss because he’s saving up for a bigger motorbike.