I see them at Mass on Sundays and, I confess, sometimes feel a pang of envy. They’re what I call the perfect families: a mum, a dad and three or four children, standing shoulder to shoulder to hear the Gospel and recite the Creed. My family, I’m afraid, has never looked like that. Or at least, there have been occasions – baptismal days, First Holy Communions, Confirmations – when all six of us went to Mass together, sometimes even with a granny or two in tow. But across the two decades since I became a mother, I have, on the whole, taken my children to Mass on my own: my husband is not a Catholic (he’s agnostic and, just for the record, his heart is imbued with the most Christian values of almost anyone I have ever met).These days, I tend to go to church with