I went to mass recently and opened my heart to the Lord. It was either that or storm out in fury, which wouldn’t have looked good seeing as it was a memorial mass for my father.

The fury came during the sermon. The priest’s message was stop worrying, God will look after you. This church is full of people thinking about mortgages, jobs and whether their children will have to emigrate and Fr. Bob Marley was up there telling them Don’t Worry About a Thing. He went on to say forget about insurance companies and pension funds, only the Big Man can bring us real peace of mind. He then announced there would be two collections this Sunday. And next Sunday. Nice work if you can get it.

It felt like a shakedown. This is when the red mist descended. It didn’t help that my seat would have felt small for a jockey and I’m over six feet tall. Come on Father, if you’re going to treat this like a commercial enterprise (two collections!) then you need to compete. The cinemas only made a comeback when they put in super comfy seats and started serving nachos. How about a recliner and some place to put my Diet Coke.

Then the guy in front of me started to cough uncontrollably and his small daughter laughed so hard at him she nearly fell out into the aisle. He then started laughing at her laughing at him, which made his coughing worse. I started laughing with the two of them and felt like a plonker for losing the rag.

This is when I decided to open my heart to the Lord. Come on, give me a sign. My wife – a great believer in guardian angels – did something similar recently when she was in bed and asked her winged protector to give her a sign. Our cat Maisie walked into the room put her paw under the duvet and tapped the wife’s leg. We still don’t know what to make of it, but let’s just say I’ve stopped pulling Maisie’s tail for the laugh.

Meanwhile back at church, I stood still waiting for my sign. I pictured bright lights followed by a blast of the Hallelujah Chorus. Nothing happened.

The first collection was on at this stage so I gave God all my change. Still nothing. It was a relief really because I’m not sure how I would have reacted. Do you say hello in these circumstances? For some reason, I thought you’d look more like Mel Gibson.

I’m not sure if I ever really believed. I lapped up the story of Adam and Eve like everybody else, particularly after myself and my sister coloured it in. But then, at the age of seven my teacher announced that Adam and Eve didn’t really exist. Steady on, Sir. Our tiny minds were blown away by the news. Sir then tried to fix matters by saying the Adam and Eve story was an allegory. The poor man spent the rest of the day trying to explain allegory to a bunch of seven year olds.

It was downhill on the God front after that. Next up was venial sin. Lying until your pants went on fire was no more than a yellow card; miss confession during Easter week and you’re off to hell. Come off it. I made a hundred quid for my confirmation and walked away.

The funny thing is I still expect to rediscover the Big Man. I don’t expect to go back to the boy scouts or apply to become a Warlord Secret Agent ever again, but it looks like the barrage of religious instruction at an early age has left me waiting for God. So I was expecting to hear something from him, that day in the church.

Instead the priest raced through the rest of the mass, pausing only for the second collection. As we stood for the final hymn, I looked around the church and wondered if this racket can last beyond another generation. And then I had my moment. The church lit up with the sound of women singing Flower of the May. I was a five year old again, at early morning summer mass with my father in Kinsale. It was better than Mel Gibson.

I took another look around the congregation. It was mainly older people, towards the end of their lives. There will come a time when I might be glad to pay into two collections to put a new roof on the church, so I’ll have somewhere to listen to a guy in a dress telling me that the Big Man has my back.

In the meantime, maybe I’ll just ask Him to help Man United win the premiership next year.  I’ll ask Maisie the Cat too. You might as well hedge your bets.