Pay close attention to number five, "make more of your time in the car together." This summer, as we travel from place to place for camps, hangouts and roadtrips, try to harness that time together in the car. Besides the recommendation they give, you can try these four other ways of having car conversations.
Today is the Feast day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! We've all seen the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (see image to the right). As a child, I always thought that must have been painful and, very practically, asked the question, how could Jesus be alive with his heart outside his body? Now as an adult, I ask a different question: what's the point of the Sacred Heart?
For the Sacred Heart is nothing less than an image of the way that Jesus loves us: fully, lavishly, radically, completely, sacrificially. The Sacred Heart invites us to meditate on some of the most important questions in the spiritual life: In what ways did Jesus love his disciples and friends? How did he love strangers and outcasts? How was he able to love his enemies? How did he show his love for humanity? What would it mean to love like Jesus did? What would it mean for me to have a heart like his? How can my heart become more "sacred"? For in the end, the Sacred Heart is about understanding Jesus’s love for us and inviting us to love others as Jesus did.
To emphasize that point, the end of the article tells a story of a priest showing the image to schoolchildren. The priest asks the students, "why do you think Jesus' heart is shown outside his body?" A girl responds, “because he loves us so much that he can’t keep it in!”
Read the rest of Fr. Martin's article for more information on the history and development of the Sacred Heart devotion.
Have you ever wondered where Communion hosts are made? Well now you can find out with a look inside the Cavanagh Company, the good folks who make the bread we use at St. Mark and throughout the United States. I like to think of this video as a Mr. Rogers-esq trip into a religious bread company.
This video requires Flash. If you're using an iOS device, sorry!
Note: There's been a lack of posting and updates on the blog mostly due to the flurry of preparation time that goes into First Eucharist. After first Eucharist and Confirmation are completed, we'll be back to regularly posting.
If you're looking for a way to pray the Stations of the Cross at home, I recommend taking at look at the Virtual Stations of the Cross put together by Busted Halo, a website run by the Paulists (in addition to the two I previously recommended). These stations are very well done, combining our Tradition with contemporary artwork and reflections written for people trying to follow Jesus in the world today. The Stations are pray at your own pace, so you can reflect on and pray with one station for as long as you wish before moving on to the next Station.
Each Friday at 7:30PM during Lent, St. Mark has a communal Stations of the Cross. But what if you're unable to make the Stations on Friday? Below are a few options for your family to pray the Stations at home.
Stations for Children
Loyola Press has put together a multimedia Stations of the Cross that can either be downloaded or viewed online in Flash format. Each station features a brief description as well as a non-gruesome picture. The primary audience for these stations are children. If you're interested at engaging your children further with these stations, ask them to come up with their own picture of each Station. You'll be surprised at what they come up with!
Shadow Puppet Stations
Put together by Jesuit Brother Edward Sheehy, the YouTube video below features a different take on Stations of the Cross, with shadows playing the part of the characters with "Were You There?" playing in the background. This almost 9 minute video is more of a meditation than the traditional Stations of the Cross, as the only words spoken announce each Station. Everything else is dependent on your imagination.
How does your family pray during Lent? Do your children know about the Stations of the Cross?
A February 27th article in the American Magazine pointed to four tested ways to raise your children Catholic. Written by a mother of four, these ways resonate with my (Isaac's) upbringing.
Below are two of the the four ways (another post later in the week will cover the other two). The entire article can be read here, but only if you have a subscription to the American Magazine.
Involvement
Consider your own participation in the life of the community. Your children will mirror your modeling of the faith, for better or for worse. Try to involve them in however you volunteer at the parish. Are you a catechist? Ask them for help on a lesson plan. Are you a Eucharistic Minister? Pray with your family before Mass for you to be the EM God wants you to be. Are you a lector? Practice reading with your child. When they get old enough (5th grade for St. Mark) they can become an altar server. And when they get even older (middle school) they can become a lector. Eventually, they'll see the good that you do and want to follow in your footsteps. My mom played flute in the choir, and now I share my musical gifts with our community.
Intellectual Engagement
Do you have an 8th grade understanding of literature? Or math? Or science? Our religious education shouldn't end with 8th grade either. As an adult, continue your own intellectual development of our faith. Visiting the RE blog or otherfaith-filledwebsites is a start. So is reading a good book or two about our faith. Encourage your children to think about our faith off the St. Mark property. Prepare for Mass before going to Mass. Talk about Mass afterward, asking if anything stood out, a particular prayer or phrase. Quiz them on the Gospel. Ask them good question after their RE classes. Read the Bible together once a week or more. Whatever works for your family, do it.
Check back later this week for the other two ways.
What do you do to engage our faith intellectually? How are you involved? Or how would you like to be involved?
Lent is a very popular time for parishes. It's popular because people know that Lent is a special time in the year, a time to focus on God. To help us "rend our hearts," many different communities provide a series of one-a-day reflections. Below are three online series that I've found helpful.
It's like an Advent calendar...that's fasting from chocolate.
Busted Halo does a great job of coming up with daily, relatable content 366 days of the year. [Insert Leap Day joke.] Their yearly Lenten offering does not disappoint. Each day features a quote from a cultural figure, real or fictitious, along with one way you can fast, pray, and give that day.
Take a look at Saturday, February 25. Yoda's famous "Do or do not -- there is no try" quote is featured. Then below we see our three Lenten disciplines:
FAST from overthinking decisions. PRAY to be more confident in your abilities and more active in your faith. GIVE a call to a parish or community ministry today to schedule time to volunteer in a parish or community ministry this week.
If you're a techie, they tweet these every day. You can follow them on twitter @BustedHalo. Or bookmark this page to visit the calendar every day.
Romero Center Ministries is an urban retreat and social justice education center in the heart of East Camden, NJ. Their daily Lenten offerings (Lenten Dimensions) are themed through alliteration. For example, today is "Wednesday Word" and yesterday was "Tuesday Television." Frequently focusing on social justice, these reflections take on a different flavor than others by sifting through our world and engaging our culture with the Gospel.
For example, take a look at yesterday's Tuesday Television. Using a clip from the movie Jerry Maguire, seminarian Kevin Mohan shows how important it is to say what you mean in prayer (and in life) and not be okay with God (or your spouse) knowing that you love them. Interested piqued? Read the rest of the reflection. Or subscribe to their calendar and get the link in your Google calendar daily.
Lent with the Saints
Short and sweet daily moments of prayer.
Lifted from a Daily Reflection book with the same name, Lent with the Saints has a short reflection on each day's Gospel followed by a prayer. Some days the reflection is replaced by a short profile of the saint of the day. To get the most out of each day's reflection, you should make sure to read the readings of the day (or go to Mass) beforehand.
Do you have a favorite Lenten reflection series? How does it stretch you during Lent?
Every year, I place before me the following reflection/prayer/poem that helps center my Lenten journey to help me prepare for Easter. This is reproduced from this St. Louis University webpage.
Fasting and Feasting
Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ dwelling within them. Fast from emphasis on differences; feast on the unity of all life. Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light. Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify. Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude. Fast from anger; feast on patience. Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism. Fast from worry; feast on trust. Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation. Fast from negatives; feast on affirmatives. Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer. Fast from hostility; feast on nonviolence. Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness. Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others. Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth. Fast from discouragement; feast on hope. Fast from facts that depress; feast on truths that uplift. Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm. Fast from suspicion; feast on truth. Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire. Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.
How do you feel called to fast? How can you feast on the other end?
After the Fat Tuesday party dies down today, be prepared to answer the ubiquitous Lenten question: "What are you giving up for Lent." Using the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, there's more to Lent than not eating chocolate. But even if you repeat your Lenten practices from last year, it's still a good idea to think about what it is you're doing and so make your Lent an intentional pilgrimage with the Lord.
Enter: the 7 Steps for a Good Lent, as conceived by Coming Home Catholic (CHC), a group focused on renewing religious education in the family. Their guide is focused on your family and how your family will keep the Lenten practices. Below are their Seven Steps with additional suggestions.
Before Your Start Your Lenten Practices
Decide as a family what to do for Lent.
Step 1: Take the Family Inventory
CHC put together a good inventory/assessment tool (PDF) your family can use to think through major areas of family life. With your entire family, answer the questions and highlight a few areas your family needs to improve on.
Step 2: Think About Lenten Resolutions
Pick at least one area your family can focus on from your inventory results. Consider how your family can pray, fast, and give alms to make a difference in that area. CHC recommends resolutions that are easy enough to do for 6 weeks but still challenging.
Step 3: Celebrate Mardi Gras / Fat Tuesday / Shrove Tuesday
Many, many years ago, Lenten dietary restrictions included restrictions on dairy products. Shrove Tuesday was the day when all those products were used up. What do eggs, milk, and butter play a prominent role in? Pancakes!
The key is not to go overboard and eat everything in sight. Instead, taste whatever it is you're eating and celebrate life.
Lent: Prepares You For Easter Step 4: Learn About Lenten Practices
To prepare us to celebrate Easter, the Church recommends three practices. Learn a little about each of them below.
Fasting increases our awareness of our bodies and our minds, sharpening ourselves that we may better be attuned to God. This practice has overshadowed the other two, and is where we get the "giving something up" part of Lent. Here are some ideas on how your family can fast.
Step 5: Follow Through
Write down your resolutions on the refrigerator, the door, all your mirrors, your alarm clock, your arm, even your face -- anywhere that will help you remember your family's resolutions. Keep your family in your prayers!
Holy Week
Soon, but not yet.
Step 6: Prepare Your Home For Easter
Once Holy Week rolls around, start scrounging around for Easter decorations. Holy Saturday is a great time to put up the decorations. You've just spent 40 days fasting -- it's time to celebrate with all we have, including our house!
Step 7: Participate in Triduum
Come to Mass on Holy Thursday, participate in a Good Friday service, and attend the Vigil. These are the three holiest days of the year -- make the most of it! (More on this in April.)
What will your family do for Lent? Where do you want new life in your family?
Continuing our series of looking at websites on Wednesday, we turn our gaze to a website focused on praying through the daily mass readings: Pray.nd.edu. Run by the University of Notre Dame, my alma mater, "Pray" includes different content every day, centered around the Gospel for that particular day. Each day, you find the text for the Gospel, a brief reflection written by someone connected to the University, and a prayer.
One of the strengths of this website is the sheer number of contributors. Tapping into the vast resource of Notre Dame students, alums, and friends, Pray has featured past Notre Dame football stars, current students, priests and religious, and of course alumni. Hearing from many different individuals keeps the site fresh. There are "as many ways [to God] as there are people," as Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) once said. The different perspectives allow us to see God with new eyes.
Let's take a look at a few of the other parts of the site.
Seasonal Sections
During Advent and Lent, "Pray" features videos for each week of the season. Each video includes a well thought out, well delivered ~5 minute reflection on a particular aspect that shines forth in that week's mass readings. I particularly enjoyed the one for the 2nd week of Advent:
Free Online Prayer Cards
Ever hit a patch where you don't know how you want to pray, don't feel like you have time to pray, and need to pray something short and meaningful? So do I. The prayer card section on the Pray website is an incredible resource for people in that spot. Each prayer card is a PDF that can be printed out, cut, and folded up to fit in your wallet. Here's an example of one of the prayers, a prayer for healing (PDF):
A great resource for Catholics on the go (they'll send you daily emails) or Catholics not on the go (watching videos), Pray.nd.edu can help you grow closer to God day by day.
If you have a website you recommend, leave a comment or send Isaac an email:
In our more reflective moments we sense the importance of prayer; yet, we struggle to pray. Sustained, deep prayer doesn't come easy for us. Why?
First of all, we struggle to make time for prayer. Prayer doesn't accomplish anything practical for us, it's a waste of time in terms of tending to the pressures and tasks of daily life, and so we hesitate to go there. Coupled with this, we find it hard to trust that prayer actually works and brings about something real in our lives. Beyond that, we struggle to concentrate when we try to pray. Once we do settle in to pray, we soon feel ourselves overwhelmed by daydreams, unfinished conversations, half-forgotten melodies, heartaches, agendas, and the impending tasks that face us as soon as we get up from our place of prayer. Finally, we struggle to pray because we really don't know how to pray. We might be familiar with various forms of prayer, from devotional prayers to different kinds of meditation, but we generally lack the confidence to believe that our own particular way of praying, with all its distractions and missteps, is prayer in the deep sense.
People using a prayer aid:
our reality the next few months
Finishing our series on the New Roman Missal, we turn our attention to the prayers surrounding our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist. Even though I knew the change was happening, the degree of change in the Eucharistic Prayer really caught my attention. Below we'll take a look at a few of the different prayers prayed by the priest and the assembly.
Hosts ≠ wafer
We've been praying the revised Holy, Holy, Holy for a few months now in song. There's only one minor change. Instead of being a "God of power and might," we now pray that God is a "God of hosts." Ask any second grader preparing for First Communion and they'll tell you host means wafer, but that's not the cast. Here, hosts means a multitude of angelic beings.
As with many of the changes, "hosts" is a direct allusion from Scripture, this time Isaiah 6:3:
One [angel] cried out to the other:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
Sounds familiar? Here, the prophet Isaiah is having a vision of God sitting on a thrown on high surrounded by angels (whose name literally means messenger). Having dwelt with God, the angels should know a thing or two about God, so their proclamation that God is holy should be taken seriously. And just before this prayer, the priest invites us to join the heavenly choirs of angels in praising God. When we do this, we're uniting our voices not only to their voices, but the voices of countless generations of Jews and Christians who have acclaimed the holiness of God through multiple millennia. Our prayer and worship of God becomes united to the prayer and worship of all those saints and angels. What a truly awesome experience!
Chalice not cup
The best summary I've found of change from cup to chalice is found in the Life Teen video for Parents, the same one I posted previously. Below is that video linked up to the time where he talks the shift (the explanation is less than one minute).
As an aside, the change from cup to chalice reminds me of the fictional Indiana Jones scene where Dr. Jones is picking the Holy Grail, believed to be the true cup of Christ (he chose poorly, he chose wisely). Even though the vessel the poor man chose looks more ornate than the vessel Dr. Jones picked, Indy's choice does look like the chalices we use at ST. MARK.
Is many less than all? One of the more controversial changes was the decision to translation the Latin word promultis from "all," as in the previous translation, to "many." Does this mean Jesus didn't die for less than all, because many is less than all? No.
Does this mean that Christ did not die for everyone?
We believe Jesus died for all
No. It is a dogmatic teaching of the Church that Christ died on the Cross for all men and women (cf. John 11:52; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; Titus 2:11; 1 John 2:2). The expression “for many,” while remaining open to the inclusion of each human person, is reflective also of the fact that this salvation is not brought about in some mechanistic way, without one’s own willing or participation; rather, the believer is invited to accept in faith the gift that is being offered and to receive the supernatural life that is given to those who participate in this mystery, living it out in their lives as well so as to be numbered among the “many” to whom the text refers.
What is the significance of “for many” in this context and in the context of the Gospel?
With these words, Jesus identifies his mission to bring salvation through his Passion and Death, his offering of himself for others. In a particular way he identifies himself with the Suffering Servant of the Prophet Isaiah, who suffers to “take away the sins of many” (Is 53:12).
Again, this shift focuses on harmony with our biblical texts. Matthew 26: 26-28 says (emphasis added):
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.
Enter under my roof
Like many of the revisions, when we pray "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my souls will be healed," we're alluding to Scripture. If you're unfamiliar with the story of the centurion, there's a brief recap below:
When he entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” -- Matthew 8:5-8, 10
Swap servant for soul and we quote Scripture directly. When we pray this prayer, we're placing ourselves in the shoes of the centurion who showed great faith. And we're hearing from Jesus about how great our faith is "as you have believed, let it be done for you" (Matthew 8:13).
We're all searching for healing in life. Others hurt us and we hurt others. Words, actions, inactions, thoughts, social systems, our complacency: we are a world in need of a savior, in need of a healer. Jesus is that healer. When we say "roof" we're not talking about the roof of our mouth. Instead, we're praying that because of our unworthiness, because of our sinfulness, we feel unworthy to have Jesus enter into the house that is our heart, our soul. May Jesus continue to heal us as individuals and as community!
Yesterday we learned about Advent in two minutes. So how do we practice preparation in our family? Here are five ways your family can prepare for Christmas this Advent.
Decorate
My wife and I started a tradition last year of decorating our house on the third Sunday of Advent. Why the third Sunday? Because it's Gaudete Sunday! It's a Sunday of Joy and we mark that time as a Church by using rose (pink) colored vestments at mass and light the rose (pink) colored candle. Decorate with various greens, religious icons or drawings or pictures, lights, a creche (see below) and of course all the usual Christmas decorations.
Or, make your own calendar. On the days from today to Christmas, write a different action you or your family can do in preparation for the coming of Christ. For example, write a Christmas card to a relatives, clean the house for guests, or make Christmas presents instead of buying them.
Make a Creche At the manger scene, you can gather each night for prayer. Tell your kids to place one piece of straw in the cradle for good deeds they or their family did that day. The more good deeds, the softer the cradle becomes for Jesus. My family has a tradition of placing baby Jesus in the cradle when we come back from Christmas Mass on Christmas Eve. Use that or create your own tradition.
Donate Gather some clothes, toys, and other items to donate to a local charity. Try donating a favorite toy or favorite article of clothing. It may be difficult, but giving up our favorite items can foster a deeper love for others and remind us that others deserve the best we have to offer.
How does your family prepare for Advent? What's your favorite family tradition? What do you hope your children pass on to their children? Share your ideas, leave a comment.
Another big change in the revised translation (coming to a parish new you in 6 days!) is the Nicene Creed, the statement of belief that we Catholics say together at Mass. It's more than just a statement of belief, but a prayer of identity, for when we recite the Creed we say together "this is what I believe," and our beliefs help form us into a local and universal community.
Open this PDF to view our new translation of this ancient statement of belief and prayer, the Nicene Creed, with the changes in bold. Read through it a couple of times and become a little more familiar with the text. Keep the PDF open as we look at three phrases or words that are different in the new Roman Missal
All things visible and invisible
With the translation, we say we believe in a God who is a maker of "all things visible and invisible." The visible is easy to understand. Look outside and you can see the beauty of creation all around us. But what about the invisible? Our belief that God is the maker of "all things invisible" is not an expression of belief in object permanence, that things exist even when we can't see them. Instead, there are somethings that are invisible by nature: love, virtue, truth, etc. God created all those invisible things too.
There are also things that become invisible after time, namely people. This belief helps unite us with our brothers and sisters in faith who have gone before us in faith who are "invisible" to the eyes, but approachable in our faith when we ask for their prayers.
Consubstantial
My spell checker tells me consubstantial is not a word, so why are we is it part of what we believe? What does it mean?
"Consubstantial" is an entirely new English word – based on the Latin word "consubstantialem." When the Nicene Creed
first appeared in Greek, it used the Greek "homoousion"
which literally meant that the Son is constituted from the same divine "stuff"
or substance as the Father. In the Latin
translation homoousion became consubstantialem, which could be
translated "one in substance with" the Father.
Indeed, as many older Catholics will recall, those were precisely the words
in the first provisional English text of the Roman Missal. But in the 1975 translation "one in
substance" was changed to "one in being."
In the new translation the "divine sameness" of Father and Son is
conveyed by the word "consubstantial."
Incarnate
Think Christmas. Now think 9 months before Christmas (the Annunciation, March 25). That's the Incarnation.
With our previous translation, we could have possibly misinterpreted our faith, which is not a good thing. Instead of saying that Jesus was fully God and fully man in Mary's womb when the Holy Spirit acted, we could have understood "by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary" to mean that Jesus wasn't God until birth. We believe otherwise, that from Jesus' conception, He is divine and man.
Fun video on new Creed translation
A group of youth from St. Mark in Fallston, MD created this YouTube video to help introduce the new translation of the Creed to their community. Check it out, a minute or so into the video, for a run through of the Creed.
With the implementation of the New Roman Missal, the first change everyone will notice is the re-translation of the Latin "et cum spiritu tuo." The previous translation, "And also with you" will be replaced with "And with your spirit," which aligns the English-speaking Catholics with Catholics across the globe. In Italian, this phrase is translated "E con il tuo spirito," in French "Et avec votre esprit," in Spanish "Y con tu espíritu," and in German "Und mit deinem Geiste."
Scriptural Influences
The greeting between the priest and the assembly is not foreign to our faith, but an exchange the springs forth from Scripture. Let's take a look: "The Lord be with you." The priest's greeting to us is plucked almost word for word from the Gospel of Luke:
And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” -- Luke 1:28
Mary is hearing from the angel of God for the first time. Another translation of the verse implores Mary to "rejoice" in hearing the greeting. We too should rejoice when we gather and are greeted because we know that we enjoy God's favor as we gather to receive the Word of God in the Scripture and the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. And like Mary, we have a choice to work with God to bring about the Kingdom here on Earth.
"And with your spirit." Again, we find a very strong link to Scripture:
The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you. -- 2 Timothy 4:22
At the end of his letter to Timothy, Paul asks the Lord to be with Timothy's spirit. When we reply to the priest, we are asking the same. The entire greeting expresses a desire for God's presence to be with us as we enter into prayer together either at the beginning of mass, or at other new moments during mass.
The First Day of the Rest of Our Catholic Lives
Ok, so a little over the top with the header above, but it's true: the First Sunday of Advent, 2011 will be the first day of the rest of our Catholic lives. The words we use to pray together as a community will change. The next few weeks this blog will have a series of blog posts to focus in on preparing us for the weekend of November 27. Hundreds of resources exist to help parishes, parents, teenagers, and teachers get up to speed about the New Roman Missal and its translation. It's my goal to highlight some of the best ones our Catholic churches have to offer for adults and children alike.
Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II before him have expressed their desire to restore greater mystery, transcendence, and reverence to the celebration of the Mass.
To dig deeper, St. Mark's own Mickey Edwards provides an excellent brief history of the Mass in the 20th century in one short article. You can read the whole article in our August/September Maneline (PDF warning). To quote from this article:
In 1982 a second edition of the Roman Missal appeared in Latin, and in 1998 the bishops of English-speaking countries submitted a translation to Rome for approval. But in 1999 the translation principles of Comme le prevoit [nb: published after Vatican II] were set aside by a new Vatican document on translation, Liturgiam authenticam, which rejects the principle of “dynamic equivalence” in favor of “formal equivalence.” Formal equivalence requires that every word in the Latin text be rendered in the translation and it also directs that the vocabulary, syntax, punctuation, and capitalization patterns found in Latin must be reproduced as far as possible in the vernacular translation. Gender-inclusive grammatical forms now commonly used in English are not acceptable.
In 2002 a third edition of the Roman Missal was promulgated in Latin. Guided by the new translation norms in Liturgiam authenticam, the ICEL produced an English translation which was approved by Rome in 2010. This is the translation that we will begin using on November 27th.
Process: How Did This Happen?
LifeTeen has a great video summary of how the translation came into being:
In future, we'll dive into specific parts of the New Roman Missal. Do you have any questions? What would you like to see us cover? Leave us a comment and let us know.
"Accepting that you're not in control is a reason not only for humility — but also for more joy. You can work hard and leave the rest up to God. Pope John XXIII once said that when he woke up in the night, worried about the future of the church, he would relax by asking himself a question. 'Giovanni,' he would say to himself. 'Why are you so worried? Who is in charge of the church — you or the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit! So go back to sleep, Giovanni!' "
You are not God. And if you forget this, God will remind you. So we need to lighten up about life and ministries. Not that our work and family and religious lives are not important. But we're ultimately not the one who brings about results."
Fr. Martin was also recently on the Comedy Central show Colbert Report, answering questions about Between Heaven and Mirth, and showing the world that you can be joyful and humorous while being seriously faithful. Embedded below (and linked here) is his interview with Stephen Colbert:
"How do we bring our young children to mass?" This question is on the minds and lips of many first time and veteran parents who risk stares if their young children make even a peep at mass.
Much ink has been spilled by way of pamphlets and brochures to help parents raise their kids in the faith. A new article on ForYourMarriage.org distills many suggestions and presents them through the eyes of a couple with two young children. Among the suggestions I found most interesting:
We physically hold our children in our arms during Mass. In fact, we adopted the position that our children’s feet do not touch the ground during Mass until they are three years old. This helps in many ways. The children get a get a better view; as they grow and mature we can talk them through the stories and the actions; and we have a bit more control over their behavior. If an infant or toddler gets squirmy, often switching who is holding them is enough to calm them down. Otherwise we might play a quiet game of “point to the…candles, priest, altar, cross, etc.”
Read the rest of the article for more tips on bringing children to mass or leave a comment to share your own.
