MIDNIGHT MASS

Danes are no longer particularly religious, but they do still tend to go to church at Christmas, as a social event. 16.00 pm on Christmas Eve is the traditional time in my town, which, with a 45 minute carol service, gives just enough time to get home, take the duck or pork (turkey in our family, but that's an English eccentricity) out of the oven, and get ready to eat at precisely 18.00 pm.

Against that background, it was a bit of a radical suggestion in the parish council to hold a midnight mass this year for the first time. Not least because such a mass is more usually associated with the Catholic church, and Denmark is, if it is anything, staunchly Lutheran. Since my wife is on the parish council and it was 50% her idea, we in her family of course had to back her up. But we weren't sure if we would be the only people in the church when we turned up, full of food and drink, at 23.30 pm. As it happens, she needn't have worried; the church was packed. And not at the expense of the 16.00 pm service; that had been packed as well.

Looking back at it 24 hours later, and reinforced in my pondering by my current rereading of Diarmaid MacCulloch's magisterial book Reformation, what does that mean? Quite obviously it was satisfying an unmet need, but a need for what? A counterbalance to the materialism of Christmas? An expression of societal solidarity? I am not sure. However, what I am sure about is the ability of the Christian church to survive as an organisation. Its survival may be threatened at times, by other religions, by internal strife, even by indifference. But survive it does.

I am not a fan of organised Christianity. But I am an admirer.

Walter Blotscher