Go in peace to love and serve the Lord

When I am back in Cardiff I take mum and dad to six o'clock at St Joseph's. The Archbishop was there this weekend. Mass these days though, as Vincent Vega would say, "it's just...it's just, there it's a little different."

Here is Dave Holmes in Esquire, on being thrown off the beat by little changes.

I can still recite the Nicene Creed from memory: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen ..."

It’s a declaration of the Catholic faith, and if you are a kid in church with his parents, it’s a signal that the Sign of Peace— the seventh-inning stretch of the Catholic Mass—is moments away. Your freedom is imminent.

My father had a special cadence during the Creed, especially in those final few lines, each one building on the last, like he was ticking items off a to-do list. Upspeak, before we had a word for it:

We believe in one Catholic and apostolic church?

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins?

We look for the resurrection of the dead?

And from that peak, he would descend:

N’ the life of the world to come Amen.

It got on my nerves when I was a teenager and everything your parents do gets on your nerves. Once I moved away and was only going to Mass with my folks a couple of times a year, I’d lean in a little bit so I wouldn’t miss it. It was like a good old song, and his version was my favorite.

Now he’s gone, and the Creed has all sorts of new words in it. Now you’re supposed to bow your head at certain points; There’s choreography. Pope Benedict changed it more than a decade ago, and I’m always a step behind. “And with your spirit” catches me off guard every time. All us other twice-a-year Catholics can identify each other when we all say: “And also with y…oh.”

I hear you brother.