The buckets and spades season is over, suitcases are unpacked, souvenirs put away and postcards read. Was it really only a few weeks ago that I was changing currency, checking my passport and wondering where I might find Mass on the Rhine?
I was on a river cruise and we were due to wake up in Rüdesheim on the Sunday. All along the Rhine from Amsterdam, we had said “ooh” and “aah” at the sight of picturesque churches. As we wandered in successive towns and cities so too did we wander along the aisles of churches, learning their histories through our voice guides. It would, I thought, be an easy matter to find a Sunday Mass but as it turned out, Stanley must have had an easier time tracking down Livingstone.
On an ocean cruise the captain will take a church service. Sometimes there are priests among the passengers and whenever we have been in port on a Sunday I have been able to wander along to reception and get details of the nearest church – until recently. Now it seems that information about places of worship has been discarded along with Gideon Bibles and grace before meals.
On a recent cruise to the Caribbean, I found a church in Tortola completely by accident and found there several of my fellow passengers. But Rüdesheim?
Surely that would be easy …
The reaction at reception on the boat was one of surprise. Church? I wanted to go to church? It cannot have been so very surprising given the age group which dominated the passenger list, but it caught the otherwise well-prepared staff on the hop. Nevertheless, the chap on the desk was resourceful and, as we all do these days, went online to pursue his quest.
We found the Catholic Directory and there were three churches listed in central Rüdesheim. Then the trail went cold. None of them listed Mass times and each proclaimed “schedule unavailable”, which was hardly helpful to devout travellers. So I wrote down the names of the churches, retired to my cabin and began to research each individually on the net. St Jacob’s alone supplied Mass times but then added “not in the holidays”. I breezed along in hope anyway but it was deserted. I followed my ears to some pealing bells but they were Lutheran, so I gave up.
I gave up because a Lutheran service would have been entirely in German and no speakee Deutsch, at least not to that standard. Of course that applies to Mass as well now that Latin has been abandoned, but the odd Gloria in excelsis Deo or whatever will tell you where you are and because the Mass is still in a universal form, a mild grasp of a foreign language will prevent the intrepid traveller becoming marooned in an impenetrable linguistic fog.
The Latin Mass served a very practical purpose and its being discarded has left us less able to welcome the stranger in our midst. In those areas which have high numbers of tourists bishops should consider offering one Latin Mass on a Sunday, but that will be of no use if it is not advertised well enough to be found.
Bishops should therefore also remind priests of their duty to keep parish details up to date in the Catholic Directory so that anybody away from home can find a place and a time of worship without having to be a latter-day Sherlock Holmes. We may no longer have a universal language but we are still a universal Church so wherever we are on the planet, give or take the top of Everest or an arctic ice floe, we should be able to join in universal worship.
Benedict XVI understood this when he urged priests to reinstate the Latin Mass, but too many saw it as just a fondness for tradition rather than a very practical service. It is ironic that many cities now offer Polish Masses in deference to sizeable immigrant communities but ignore the needs of other nationalities, when a return to Latin would help all.
Once weary travellers would spend the night in a monastery and join the monks for prayers before departing. One of my favourite jokes was about the guest who, on hearing a monk tapping on his door with the greeting “Dominus tecum”, replied “Oh, thanks. Just leave it outside.”
Those putting up in inns would not have had to ask twice where the nearest church was, but now Mass attendance is a minority pursuit and the Church itself does nothing to make it any easier.
Once on a river cruise a Spanish priest held Mass for a group of Spanish passengers. I went along and noticing my struggles, God bless them, they held their next Mass in English. Latin would have obviated the need for that.
Ann Widdecombe is a novelist, broadcaster and former prisons minister
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