No room in the oratory - Christmas Mass at Brompton Oratory, England - Column

British reserve is legendary. One way to experience it is through travel in a first-class carriage of British Railways. On entering, one feels the penetrating glance of a pair of eyes briefly raised over a copy of The Times; one sees a slight flaring of the nostrils; one may hear a couple of all-but-in-audible sniffs, followed by retreat behind the paper. The brash American visitor who risks starting a conversation courts a snub.

During a visit to London some years ago my wife and I encountered a less typical instance of British conservatism. We decided to attend midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at Brompton Oratory, that great baroque fastness of English Catholicism, the forum and headquarters of Cardinal John Henry Newman. Despite its size the church was already jammed when we arrived, but we managed to squeeze into a crowded side chapel that offered no view of the main altar. We could hear the hymns of Handel, Bach, Brahms, and others, beautifully rendered by a small chamber orchestra and an accomplished choir; but we were, to speak Britishly, uncomfortable. Both of us were suffering from jet lag, made harder to bear by a rather overpowering condition known as "fug"--a quaint word meaning a combination of body heat and humid air creating an atmosphere reminiscent of a locker room.

Wanting to give up, we fidgeted our way from the center of the throng toward a wall where further progress toward the door was thwarted by the presence of a large confessional. While I leaned against it for support, my fingers began idly examining the carved woodwork around the edge of the half-door through which the priest entered; when my fingers reached the bolt, I absentmindedly slid it open and promptly stumbled into the priest's compartment of the confessional.

And what did I see there? I saw a seat, a perfectly functional seat. I glanced at it, then at my wife; she looked at me and then at the seat. Our thoughts were in accord. Gallantly I indicated that she should try the seat. She did so. I proceeded very gently to thrust my nether person alongside of hers, but the seat was too small to accommodate both posteriors; so, for some minutes, I occupied only the front edge of one side of the seat, until my good wife, with equal gallantry, shifted forward to permit the easing back of my entire hinder region while she sat on the edge. We continued to alternate in this fashion through an entire lengthy sermon delivered in a mellifluous Oxford accent by the unseen rector of the Oratory.

We were, of course, observed. Reactions were varied. I noted some of the most startled double-takes I have ever seen--followed, in most instances, by glances of varying degrees of disapproval and even disdain. I did detect a few signs of what might have been amusement, but on the whole it was clear that sitting in the priest's cubicle of a confessional in Brompton Oratory just isn't done.

There came a time of testing: the Offertory, the point at which (1) the gifts are blessed at the altar and (2) the collection is taken. Leaning out of the cubicle, I observed a young priest approaching through the crowd with a collection plate, rousing in me a mild trepidation like that of the little boy with his hand in the cookie jar who hears a parent approaching. What to do? The young cleric was getting close. To retreat seemed at once too bold and too cowardly. We both reached the same solution at the same moment: We reached forward in unison and pulled the door shut, and the velvet drape covering the upper part of the half-door fell discreetly into place.

For the next minute or so we heard the tinkling of coins as they were dropped into the collection plate. How long should we stay concealed? It would be most embarrassing to open the door prematurely. But the fug within was worse than the fug without; our discomfort in the close confines of the cubicle increased. Then came into play one of the more agreeable national traits of the British, a sense of sportsmanship. We heard a discreet knock on the woodwork, and a voice whispered softly, "It's all right, you can come out, he's gone." On opening the door we could not identify our benefactor; no one gave a sign.

The service went on at great and tiring length, and I was again becoming restive when I observed a very old gentleman, large of stature and girth, wearing a most luxuriant beard with tresses of thick hair flowing over his shoulders. He bore a most startling resemblance to the likenesses of Walt Whitman I have seen in his works; more to the point, he looked very tired and indeed unwell. My wife and I again had the same idea at the same time. We left our retreat and I indicated the available seat to the old man, who accepted it gratefully. Though there had been some moving about among the people near the confessional, it was good to know that at least some of those who saw us enter it also saw our good deed. I had the feeling that our breach of British propriety had been ameliorated.

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