Towards the end of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, Sarah’s mother tells Bendrix that she always hoped her daughter’s secret Catholic baptism would “take”, in the way a vaccination does. As my eldest son becomes increasingly resistant to attending Mass, even espousing a nascent atheism at times, with the odd explosive “I don’t even believe in God,” I am nurturing the same hope.
I hope I have done enough to plant the seed, and by tending it with our own family offices: Grace before lunch and supper, making a May altar by the statue of Our Lady with peonies and early roses. Setting up the crib scene in Advent, fish (of the battered variety if possible) on Fridays. He is only 10, so cannot yet be sure what he believes – or doesn’t. When even Richard Dawkins professes himself a “cultural Christian”, things can’t be that bleak.
