When I was a 13-year-old growing up in Fleetwood, Lancashire in the early Nineties, I used to attend the nine o’clock Sunday Mass on my own. There was no singing and the sermon was shorter than the later Mass my mum and sisters went to. I liked being there by myself, particularly in the still moment after communion where I would kneel down and talk to God.
My prayer might go something like this: “Lord, I am sad and lonely. Lord, I am in love with Samantha Wright. Lord, you know I have been in love with her for three years without daring to tell her. Lord, you don’t need to make her say yes. That’s her choice. I just want the courage to ask her out.” I would feel guilty for asking for something trivial, so I’d also ask him to save the homeless people and the people with cancer, and I would promise to be kind to others.
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