The Catholic Faith – Serve that shot neat, please.

Gun season opens Wednesday night at religious ed.   It’s time to study the Sacrament of Confession, which means another exciting of round of the game I do love, Is it a Mortal Sin?  I say things like, “If you commit a mortal sin, you need to go to Confession,” and “Here are the three conditions for a sin to be mortal.” Then I say something really outrageous, like, “Do you have any questions?”

This is the students’ cue to inquire about the pizza guy who got mugged, and what if a Nazi comes to your door*, and what do you do if you think the bad guy is going to shoot your best friend but you aren’t 100% sure . . . all that stuff.

Last year was surprisingly quiet on the shooting scenarios, though I did get asked if a person who murders his spouse is free to re-marry?  (No.)  But here’s what I love about teaching fifth graders: They want to know the answers.  I’ve had more than one student ask if it were a sin for a soldier to shoot the enemy during combat — fully ready to accept that if that were the case (no), they’d need to put away the plastic Army men and think hard about how to break the news to friends and family.

The other fun part of 10,000 Gun Questions Night is keeping it strictly Catholic.  I often hear a double complaint about the Church:

1. How can we possibly have a firm teaching on anything?
2. And if so, why don’t we have a firm teaching on everything?

As if it were somehow more logical to worship a god who gave out brains and then refused to let you use them.  [Catholic moral theology tip: If God gives you something, He’s got a plan for how it’s supposed to be used.  Thy body is not a knick knack.]   The challenge with the 5th grade questions is that within the guidelines of just warfare and legitimate self-defense, Catholics are free to hold any number of opinions on what makes a good gun law, or whether those soldiers ought to be over there doing that.

***

I enjoy teaching as precisely as I can.  To be as aware of the limits and definitions of Catholic doctrine as I am able, and therefore hopefully pass on a view of the faith that veers neither right nor left.

In the short run, I avoid undermining the student’s family, and I like that.  If your mom has chained herself to the gate of  a nuclear weapons facility, or your dad is president of Kids Need More Guns Inc., those are positions a Catholic of good will could hold and still be faithful to the teachings of the Church.  At any age, students deserve to learn the faith without having it mixed up with personal opinion; in fifth grade it is particularly important to stay in the middle of the narrow road.

–> At ten and eleven, kids aren’t ready to form their own opinions on open questions. They do delight in wearing the opinions of the people they love. Politics is best left to parents.  (It is bad enough I’ve got to break the news about divorce and remarriage, and also about how, yes, you really do need to come to Mass every week.)  It makes for a better course if I acknowledge there is more than one legitimate opinion, and leave my own opinions home.

In the longer run, teaching plain old Catholicism gives students a firmer grounding in their faith.  As they grow older and are wondering if Mom should have chosen a different sort of peaceful resistance, or maybe Dad carried it a tad too far in his love of the Bill of Rights, they have already been told that the Catholic faith is not the whole crazy package of everything every Catholic they ever loved might have said.  They’ve already been told: You can disagree about _________________ and still be Catholic.

Teens and adults need to be able to sort through the world of ideas;  the Faith has to stand up to testing, and it will.  But to do that effectively, you have to know where the faith ends and opinion begins.

*Actually Nazis threaten the hypothetical doors of internet grown-ups much more than they disturb 5th graders.  10-year-olds tend to stick to situations being reported in the local news.  But sometimes, yes, the Nazis make their appearance.

Perfect Contrition

Last night I answered one last question about eternal salvation with a real quick “Yes.”  Under my breath I promised my stricken sidekick, who no doubt cringed to see me treat the subject so briefly, “We’ll cover ‘perfect contrition’ next week.”

We needed to keep moving with the class.  “Yes” was an accurate answer; Perfect Contrition was the detailed version.  We will cover it.  I assure you.  Do not think, dear junior theologian, that I would for a moment water down the faith.  No way no how.

***

Very late at night, I remembered where it was I learned those words: Perfect Contrition.

I was 17, kind of Catholic, and way behind on sacraments.  This beleaguered pair of faithful, practicing Catholics was tasked with the job of turning slackers like me into confirmandi.  Fast. We met once a week in a small group, and they walked us through the most essential essentials of the Catholic faith.  What do you do if you are bleeding to death by the side of the road and you are guilty of a mortal sin?  Perfect Contrition.  [If I recall correctly, they brought motorcycles into it somehow.  Fit the audience.  Totally.]

I can’t remember the name of the couple who taught me those words; I do remember their daughter was my friend (she went to a different school), and that she gave me a rosary for my confirmation, because I’d never had one and I’d told her how much I wanted one.

It eventually broke from excessive use, but that was later.  Also, I went to college and left the Church.

***

The parable of the sower popped up this week.  Several years ago my pastor helped me greatly (and presumably everyone else who heard his homily), by pointing out the gardening solution to the problem: Compost.  If the soil isn’t so great, keep working on it.

There’s something else, though, that Perfect Contrition brought to mind: Weeds.  And wanted plants that act just like ’em.

Have you ever completely given up on a plant . . . determined it was dead and gone, and never to be seen again . . . and then it pops up one summer when you’d given up all hope?  That’s weediness.  The ability of one lone seed to sit hidden in the ground for years, and then when the time is right, it shoots up and takes over.

That’s what those words, Perfect Contrition, were to me.  That little good-weed seed.

***

Catechists, don’t lose heart when everything you say seems to get lost.  When you watch a student who was once so eager to learn about God suddenly grow up and move out and completely walk away from the Catholic faith.  It wasn’t that you did nothing.  It wasn’t that all your work was a failure.

The human heart is not some tiny little square of the garden, stuck with its rocks and thorns.  It is a vast and varied territory.  What you teach becomes these tiny grains of faith that spread everywhere into your students’ souls.  There’s good ground somewhere in that garden.  Somewhere in a corner you didn’t even see, didn’t even realize your words had reached.

And twenty years later, your very words — words like Perfect Contrition — come sprouting out of  a mouth you’d had every reason to assume was a lost cause.  And they come out, and your long-ago student who can’t even remember your name, who might have once even said, “I didn’t learn anything in religious ed,” your student knows exactly where that seed came from, and who it was who cooperated with the grace of God to put it there.

***

Also, God knows.  And He does not lose track.  Not ever.

3.5 Time Outs: Paying Attention

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is proof dark lords must have many skills.

It's still the New Year. I know because I keep writing the wrong date on my checks.

1.

There’s a short list of things I can only do with 100% concentration:

• Clean my desk.
• Order a new toner cartridge.
• Read Pope Benedict.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the one’s I’ve noticed.

2.

Which is why it is taking me 10,000 years to get my review done for this book:

So I’ll just tell you it’s a good book.  At least, the first half is.

–> But last week, St. Alphonsus Liguori was our saint for the chapter for religious ed, and of course I knew he was going to rock, but I secretly thought he might be a boring saint, but look, he’s a Doctor of the Church, and hey I have this partly-read book and maybe he’s in it.   Sure enough, yes, Liguori rocks.  Seriously cool saint.  Definite patron-to-catechists action going on.

Funny story though: I always research our saints because usually kids prefer a good re-telling with lots of dramatic (but censored) details, and I didn’t want to show up at class and just read from the textbook.  But I told the kids to flip to the page in their book with the big picture so they’d have something to look at . . . and they just wanted to read aloud.  So I let them.

3.

Today I discovered one thing I can do with a steady flow of distraction and interruption: Work on the homeschooling book.  Indeed, sitting on the couch staring at the backs of two children who have to be watched constantly in order to get their homework done?  It practically inspires.

I think I can knock out a 1,000 words a day just between 11am and noon, after littles have been sent to recess, and I’m sitting there playing overseer to the big people.

3.5

The other thing I do to keep from going barking mad while kids are doing school homework and can’t really be left alone but also don’t need help the whole time?  Mindless cleaning jobs.

Which is how I finally got around to asking what I’d started to ask last time I attempted to clean the porch: “Why do we have a bread bag full of dirt stuffed in a pillowcase?”

My Offspring.

Me:  Get your work done while I take a shower.  I’m going to do the check-off at 2pm, because I have the catechist meeting tonight, so I can’t check you off after dinner.

Child: I want to go!

Me: ?  Um.  Why would you want to go to a catechist meeting?

Child: I want to hear you talk.

Me:  You hear me talk all day long.

Child: I want to hear about catechist stuff.

Me:  The DRE might switch plans and not have me talk.

Child: There might be soda.

[Ah.  Yes.  Now you sound like a normal child.  Whew.]

Me: Yes, there will almost certainly be soda.  They are serving pizza.

Child: Pleeaaase can I go?

Me: It’s out of the question if your homework is not done.

–> Child panics, drops toys, runs to desk, starts working diligently.

Is it the soda or the catechist talk?  I don’t know.  If she gets the homework done, I guess I let her come?  Or tell her she can stay home and watch Anne of Avonlea instead.  That would work.

3.5 Time Outs: Jesus Fairyland

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy for inspiring countless countable numbers of bloggers to add structure and scandalous images to their Tuesday.  But not that scandalous — take a look at his 3.5 takes to see not see images far worse than derelict toddlers.

1.

I won a prize!  Oh it cheers me up.  Lisa M. encouraged me to turn out for the Amazing Catechist Giveaway, which I did not want to do, because, well, I didn’t want to be commenting just to indulge my book lust.  But you know what? I didn’t have to fake it.  There’s useful information in that place, and friendly bloggers who answer combox questions, which means even more useful information.  Needless to say, I learned about a pile of new books I want to check out, and look, I won one of them:

And now it is in my hands!  I can’t wait to read it.  Yay!  Check out the Keep Infants of Down Syndrome blog, if you are like me, giving Catholics a bad name by chewing out telemarketers for major charities that seek to “prevent birth defects” by killing off the people who don’t meet spec.  Yeah, I’m cranky.  Killing innocent people makes me cranky.

2.

Respectable Christians are sending Sarah Reinhard photos of their Advent wreaths. I don’t qualify.  Here’s the one we used to have:

That’s Santa and his reindeer, flying towards Christmas.  (Which had not arrived at photo time — observe the recycled candles.  There cannot be a single shade of purple.)

Allow me to explain: I did not donate this item because it was too tacky for me.  It was because, well, look how big it is.  You can store a lot of books in that cubic foot.  My one vice had to give way for the other. But you who own proper Advent wreaths, send in your photos.

3.

Dear Small Children of Mine,

We have been building a model of Bethlehem in our living room every Advent since before the eldest among you was even conceived.  It pleases me greatly to combine Lego, Fischer Price, and Playmobil structures into a giant sprawling representation of the Holy Land.  I am not the least disturbed when the Seven Dwarves turn out for the census.  Presumably the Romans counted even the very short and sneezy.

But I draw the line at calling it “Jesus Fairyland”.  It is Bethlehem.  B-e-t-h-l-e-h-e-m.  Get it straight.

Sincerely,

That Catechist Lady Who’s Supposed to be Educating You

3.5

Rapunzel, opiate of the masses. This weekend I shipped the Y chromosomes off to Hunt Camp, Eldest Daughter did homework Friday and then spent the weekend at her friend’s house, and my two listless littles watched our new library find: Tangled. Continuously.  From 9AM Friday until 3PM Sunday, with breaks only to sleep, attend church, and sometimes to eat.  I got a lot of work done.  And hey, it’s a pretty good movie.  Edifying, even. And boy am I glad my 5-year-old is still enthralled, because last night at the ER

***

Relax.  I will finish that story next week.   All is well here.  Offer up your suspense for the half-dozen people I’m praying for who have real problems.  One in particular needs you today, desperately.  God will know which one.  Thanks!

Book Giveaway at Amazing Catechists

Seriously fun.  Check out the Amazing Catechists website, and leave a comment to be entered in the many many drawings for free books.

Think eternally, shop locally

Sarah R. on Reasons to Support Your Local Catholic Bookstore.

Yes.  Yes.

If there is not a local store you are able to shop at, mail order is the next best thing. For that reason, I’m 100% behind all catholic retailers.  But you’ve got to support your local shop, because they do a work the mail-order folks can’t do.  Mine:

• Provides real live friendly clerks to answer questions about the faith from passersby.
• Opens a whole world of catholic thought to people who just stopped in a for a first-communion card.
• Lets you look at the books!  It’s way easier to size up a book in person than on the pc.
• Supports local catholic events with a bookshop presence.
• Turns out for parish sales, allowing Catholics who would never even know great Catholic books exist to browse at their leisure.
• Provides a venue for authors to sell books and meet readers.
• Offers free book study courses — authentic, faithfully Catholic religious ed that reaches an audience your parish may not be equipped to teach.

This is not a profit-making venture.  No one is getting rich stocking GKC and nun-of-the-month calendars. Book stores have miserable margins, small dealers face higher costs than the big guys, and the Catholic niche is tiny.  These shops are run as a ministry.

If you knew your parish religious education program was evangelizing hundreds of non-Catholics and fallen-away Catholics, wouldn’t you put a few bucks into the special collection for that ministry?

If your parish had a full-time staff person whose only job was to answer questions about the faith from people too shy to darken the door of a church, don’t you think a little contribution towards that person’s puny salary would be in order?

Support your local Catholic bookstore.

***********************************

Here are the ones I know about in my corner of the universe:

St. Anthony’s in Greenville and Spartanburg

St. Francis Shop in Columbia

Pauline Books and Media in Charleston

UPDATED to add:

Queen of Peace Bookstore in Vancouver, WA

If you know of others, please add them in the combox.  Or write a post with your own links.

 

Booklet Review: The Mass Explained for Kids

The Mass Explained for Kids is my latest Catholic Company review item, and as usual it is a good one.  I’ll cut to the chase: This is an excellent tool for anyone who wants to make sense of the Mass.

What it is: A short, affordable booklet from Pauline Press that walks through the new translation of the Mass.  Even-numbered pages contain the text of the Mass and all the necessary instructions (sit, stand, kneel, rise, bow, beat chest, shut up priest says . . ., etc.).  On the facing page are notes explaining what is happening, what difficult vocabulary words mean,  and all kinds of other useful information.

Why I like it:

1. I’m always looking for a good Missal to give to non-Catholic grown-ups who come to Mass, that makes it easy to follow along.  This one wouldn’t stand out as a kid’s book, if you put a sticker over the “for kids” on the cover.  At $1.95 retail, you can afford to send them home with your guests as souvenirs.  It would be pretty easy to put post-it notes at key places when your guest needs to pick up the hymnal.
2. The explanations are great.  Tons of good info.  But the format makes it easy to read as much as your brain can take, and leave the rest for another day.
3. There are definitions or explanations for all the new words showing up with the new translation (“consubstantial”, “incarnate”, etc.).  In addition, all the changes are in bold face.

Who is it for?  People who can read pretty well.   Other than the cover art, there are no pictures.  All the explanations are written clearly, and my very average-reading 4th grader says she had no difficulty understanding them.  But you do need to be ready to tackle big words and gather useful information from your reading.    Words like “epiclesis” and “anamnesis” have pronunciations (“ep-ih-CLEE-sis” and “an-am-NEE-sis”).

Useful for catechists?  Absolutely.  The format makes it super easy to find the info you need for class, and the explanations are already translated into plain English.  Much easier than tearing through a pile of Scott Hahn books trying to remember where you found that quote that one time, and/or trying to translate The Catechism into something ordinary mortals can understand.  Plus I learned some things I didn’t know.

Other important info:  It’s 5.5″ x 8.5″, with a flexible heavy-paper cover, very trim, so designed to be stuffed into your purse in doled out during Mass.  But note the cover is not paperboard, so don’t let the baby put it in her mouth. Also there’s some info about the Daughters of St. Paul in the back, who have got to have the coolest charism in the universe.  Nuns that run bookstores and a publishing company.  How awesome is that?

****************************************************************

Thanks to the Catholic Company for filling the mailboxes of bloggers with excellent products; this one is coming to Mass with us this Advent, no question about it.   In addition to asking for an honest review (check), our sponsor would like me to also tell you that if you need a Catechism of the Catholic Church or a Catholic Bible, they sell those too.

DMV Follow-up: Catechists and the buildings they like.

Ha, who would have guessed that hidden among the backlog of catechist posts (which you should also read), Christian LeBlanc also has a little post with non-DMV-looking* churches.  To give you ideas. Apparently when he isn’t teaching CCD, he gets to design buildings and stuff.

***

Funny story about a certain space-cadet catechist:

So I was in Aiken, SC, Saturday afternoon and had an hour to spare before meeting a friend for dinner.  I knew from their website that St. Mary’s was now holding weekend masses at the parish hall, but I thought I’d see if the old church building was open and I could just take a peek.  Door was open, but when I looked through the windows in the vestibule doors into the nave of the church, there were evidently people gathered there for some kind of service.  A handful of ladies in chapel veils in the pews, someone praying at the tabernacle, and a few more clustered along one of the walls.  Very silent. Intent.  Maybe they were praying the Stations of the Cross?  I couldn’t see everything happening.

A cleric appeared out the sacristy, bowed at the altar, walked to the rear of the church and out of sight.  No one else moved.  Finally one of the ladies in the pew got up and left with a handful of children.  I whispered, “Is there some kind of service going on?”

“Yes,” she answered.  “Confession.”  And of course encouraged me to go on in . . .

Not DMV. St. Mary's Help of Christians Church, Aiken, SC. It is more beautiful than this, but you get the idea. Not my picture, h/t to the St. Mary's website people. Click this image for more.

See all that blue and gold squiggly stuff on the ceiling up front?  Here’s a flyer that tells you what it all is.

 

***

Even cooler: After I was finished being amazed at how much more beautiful St. Mary’s is than I had  remembered, back outside I overheard a church-mom telling a big kid, “I’m going to go into the adoration chapel for a few minutes.”

“Adoration?”

Yes indeed. I have no photo for you.  But the little St. Clare chapel is everything an adoration chapel ought to be.  If you are in Aiken, go.  Go go go.  Fabulous.  Only open to the public during daylight hours.

 

 

 

*That’s the technical term.  You might be more comfortable with the vernacular “Romanesque,” though of course that is just one of a multitude of non-DMV styles.

Vocation and Education

Glad I clicked on this article by Elizabeth Scalia at First Things.  (I almost never click on anything that doesn’t arrive whole and entire in my feed reader.  This one was worth it.)  She writes:

A sense of calling is an idea to which our children often lack an introduction. We tell students they can plot their futures based on test scores measuring information regurgitation; we have no means of measuring their imaginations or their dreams, yet is from these that their deepest and truest longings—and thus their vocations, the things they were born to do—are discovered.

Last year I tried discussing vocations with the fifth graders.  I began by asking, “What are you good at?  What do you love to do?”

My own children have a clear sense of these things by late-elementary school.  They know what they like — military history for that one, emergency medicine for the other.  Even younger, they know what they are like.  This one reads massive quanitities of everything, writes satire, and loves hard manual labor; that one has a talent for teaching and connecting with small children; this one wants to know how it works and then make her own; that one feels everything very, very deeply.

Those were the types of answers I expected from my 5th graders.  Instead, they produced a list of academic subjects and school sports.  They were a room full of people who like math and play soccer.  Very few had a hobby other than an organized sport or club; even fewer had an interest in a field of study beyond whatever passes for “social studies” or “language arts”. The idea that you might, say, love poetry and have developed a taste for this or that type of poem? Nope.

Their worlds, it seemed, were so narrow. No room in the schedule for finding out who they were and what they loved.

Sometimes I feel like the music instructor pushing the talented kid to attend a thousand workshops and camps, when I take parents aside and tell them that this son or daughter has a talent for theology, and needs to be given more instruction, above and beyond the regular parish offerings.

I tell my DRE that if we don’t offer a serious high school religious ed program, we are like a school praying for more pre-med students, but never offering high school biology.  Do we really want more priests and religious?  We have to give our students a chance to discover the depth and riches of an adult faith.  And then, if they are called, to fall in love.