Unprecendented

At the 8am mass this Sunday morning, something happened that had never occurred before, to my memory, in my whole churchgoing experience of twenty-seven years: everyone in the church, apart from the unseen souls of course, was male. It is true that there were only seven of us, but even so; we always talk about the feminine bias of the church experience, so suddenly having a congregation which is entirely composed of individuals in possession of a Y chromosome is remarkable (it's only ever likely to happen at the 8am, though, a service attended at the moment by people on their own).

How I felt that morning was unconnected with the sexual balance of the congregation. After the dislocations of the last week I have never felt so strongly that I was offering the holy sacrifice of the mass for my sins, my particular and identifiable sins, as well as for those of the people gathered with me, and that, unbeknownst to them, they were helping me do so.