It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota, attending the morning mass at St. Bernard’s church. It’s about twenty years since I last attended a mass, and the first time I’ve ever done so voluntarily. I’m sure I’m drawn to this church near my Airbnb, compelled to go in, but I find it hard to explain — even to myself — why.

But it’s obviously a way of reconnecting with my past, and with my family. I’m a long way from home, on what is something like my fifth visit to the United States, and the church offers a kind of shelter — physical, but emotional as well. And even though we weren’t raised religiously, Christian values were part of our upbringings. Not just that. I think there’s something valuable in stepping away from screens and panels and everything to do with work or being useful, and letting our minds reach for (or attempt to) something larger than ourselves.

I’m seated on a bench, afraid to move as it makes the wood crack loudly. I’m looking at the priest in green robes and at the few other attendants of the mass. I think about my grandmother, my parents, and what all of this did for me growing up. My sister, my brother and I never did our communion, so during mass in my mother’s hometown, we never ate the host. When the rest of the packed church stood and walked to the front to receive it from the priest, our parents let us stay seated. I disliked it back then, because I felt everyone would look at us and wonder why we weren’t joining — was it disrespectful? But today I stayed seated and I was fine with it.

I’m older now and

care not just less, but I also think the handful of people attending here will be fine

You can be religious without believing in God. You can take the lessons and the old stories — the ones that condense what it means to be human — and draw values and inspiration out of them. Rather than ask for blessings, I think people can go out on their own and work hard, take on responsibility, and carry their share of guilt.

And yet I light a candle, which by now is a sort of family ritual. And I catch myself asking for a prayer. A candle for the health of our family, as we return to the Netherlands in about two weeks. It’s not only a prayer but a kind of meditation: to be thankful that we’re all healthy, and to stay watchful of it. To stay healthy, to stay aware. To remain grateful — not just for health, but for family.

So I do wonder whether churches would be better off setting aside the rituals that feel so out of place to so many people now — the ones too far from anything familiar — and moving closer to real subjects and real value, instead of thanking the Lord for the birth of Jesus Christ and the blessings that are meant to make us better. The Pope seems to be doing some of this. On X he writes about artificial intelligence and how it touches our lives, rather than simply telling us to believe.

And yet the rituals are also something to watch. The mass in Saint Paul, like every church I saw in China, was nearly empty. So my advice is this: visit a church, sit in on a mass — while these rituals still exist.