When I visited the majestic Iguazú Falls in Latin America, the guide of the group was a very likeable man and a very knowledgeable professional. He was a mature person, had been for more than ten years at the job of showing tourists round the Falls as he told us, and he was doing it with an enthusiasm, a zest, a passion that added his personal charm to the awe-inspiring show of the most beautiful waterfalls on our planet. I’ve seen Niagara and I’ve seen Victoria Falls, but nothing compares with the massive, torrential, vertical fall of the white curtain in the middle of the green forest along the frontier marked by the Iguazú river between Argentina and Brazil. “The Devil’s Throat” brings the majesty of the great waters (Iguazú means “great water”) close to the astonished eye of the spectator who watches at arm’s length the geometrical fall of the wide river on to the waiting fathomless abyss.

Our charming guide grew friendly with me, and on taking leave I warmed up to him and told him:

- I admire you for the enthusiasm with which you’ve shown us the falls. Congratulations.
- I say what I feel, sir.
- I can see that. But then you’ve told us that you’ve been here showing day by day the same view for over ten years.
- That’s right.
- And don’t you get a little bored over that? Repeating the same story every day, however wonderful the show may be, doesn’t make you feel tired, fed up, bored stiff?
- I admit to that, sir. Some days the round comes up better, and some days worse; but in any case I strive to cheer up the visitors and I do appreciate my good luck to be watching daily this marvel of nature that you’re paying to see while I’m being paid to show it to you.
- Good for you.
- And now, please, allow me to question you in turn, sir. You’ve told me you are a priest aren’t you?
- Yes, I am.
- And you say Mass daily, don’t you?
- Yes, I do.
- That’s to say that you recite more or less the same prayers every day.
- Yes, it comes to that.
- And are you not bored by it?
- Sometimes I am, and not all days are the same, but I too try to cheer up my listeners and I thank God for my good luck to have this vocation. Just as you do with your job.
- I see, but I’ve an advantage over you. I change my listeners every day, while you have the same audience daily. I too appreciate you, sir, and please remember the Falls.

I’ll remember them for life.

When I thought of that, I realised that the guide’s experience with his tourists had also been mine as a teacher with my students. For thirty years I was teaching mathematics at college to a class of a hundred boys and girls who were the cream of learning youth in the city (Ahmedabad). We had a great time. I prepared well my classes, I sharpened theorems, displayed formulae, worked out equations, created suspense, delayed arguments, questioned steps, invited hints, made mistakes on purpose to measure the students’ attention to the argument, wore sticks of chalk away, feigned anguish, accelerated conclusions, smacked down on the board the final proof at the stroke of the bell that signalled the end of the period. Smiles, big eyes, sighs of relief, cheers. Some times even applause at the end. That was heaven. Other professors used to tell me they did not like to have their class after mine, as the students were exhausted. There was some truth in that. We really enjoyed ourselves.

But, then, you know. You guess the sequence. That did not happen every day. Mathematics is the most loveable subject on earth without any doubt as any student will tell you, but mathematics morning and evening five days a week is too much mathematics. And repetition of the same syllabus every year does not help either. No suspense holds and no trick works. The first one to get bored at times was myself. And when I got bored, the whole student body throughout the classroom got bored with me. Dull classes, blurred equations, embarrassing mistakes, incomplete proofs, frustrated results. Not even Euclid with his triangles cold hold the front. I was bored, and so were all the students with me. Rub off the blackboard and get away as soon as you can. Today you bungled the class.

You got it. You have understood the parable. We share responsibilities. When the priest who celebrates the Eucharist is feeling great, everybody in the congregation feels great with him. When he crumbles down, everybody crumbles down with him. If the cheerleader does not cheer, nobody cheers. The team folds down. We all want to do our best, to be sure, but we all are prey at times of routine, and we can, in our weakness, carry out the most heavenly actions with the most earthly indifference. For a start, don’t panic. The important thing is to realise the situation, and a timely e-mail has helped me do that. And once we realise it, we look around and think of cases and attitudes in ourselves and in others that may help us to understand the situation better. We must first enlarge the information before we proceed to the diagnosis.

A mischievous thought comes to my mind. It’s almost irreverent, but it’s also cheering if we take it well in this delicate matter of our attention during divine service. Joseph and Mary surely took Jesus along with them to the synagogue ever since he was small, as they took him to the Temple in Jerusalem when he came of age. And most likely Jewish children got as bored in the synagogue on Saturdays as Christian children get bored in the church on Sundays. Children do not kindly take to divine worship. Neither was Jesus the only child at the synagogue, and there must have been plenty of moving and running, of grimacing and gesturing, of sound and laughter among the young worshippers all around the sacred premises. Surely Jesus fell asleep at times in his Mother’s arms while the rabbi expounded psalms and prophets with scholarly eloquence. It is more than likely that Jesus, as a boy, got helplessly bored at the proceedings in the synagogue. We would have to ask his Mother.

What did the rabbi say this morning at the synagogue, my son?