Mass

Rosary beads trickle between fingers. Staccato mutterings swell as one at the tenth Hail Mary. A thumb rubs rhythmically on a battered HOL BIBLE – the gilt Y a tragic victim of religious fervour. The third Joyful Mystery is just beginning as I take my seat.

Twelve nuns line the front two banks of pews. I am sat a few rows back with three other stragglers. One of my neighbours checks her watch; another his phone; the third hovers above a wet patch left by his sodden anorak, rising and falling as he agonises over whether to disrupt the reverence by changing pew.

Four crimson Advent candles flickering by the altar explain this remarkably high attendance at 8am Mass. The flames do little to splinter the gloom pressing in through dust-mottled windows or relieve the draft. Their glow is settled on the priest’s sharp cheekbones, pooling shadow in the deep recesses beneath. I see his bald pate now, and the hair that has claimed squatters rights in his nostrils, eyebrows and ear canals. Any stray rays catch the faded gold thread in his cassock, hinting at a former glory. A clinical pine-cleaner scent mingles with throat-lacquering incense and the priest performs a great clearing of phlegm. It’s unclear if it’s for effect or necessity; nevertheless, it stills the crowd. The nuns crane forward, rapt, and my sodden pew-fellow takes his seat.

But I am not here for the sermon. My eyes move to the nun at the front by the Mother Abbess. Her eyes are closed in what I hope is sincere contemplation; she is 96, and I am not so sure. Her neck cannot hold the weight of the wimple any more and she is allowed a simple cloth covering. I would not say her gnarled hands ‘hold’ the rosary, merely that the frozen claw of her fingers prevents it from slipping out. I cannot see her full face yet, but I know to expect her skin to sit like creased tracing paper, even more translucent than last time. The Mother called yesterday to say this would be my great aunt’s last Mass.