Flowers in the Sun

For Lent this year, one of my resolutions is to take the girls to daily Mass on Wednesdays. Daily mass by myself with both girls is difficult for me right now. Even that short little half hour crawls by and I spend every bit of it shushing little voices, stopping the girls from fighting, removing the baby from under the pew, trying unsuccessfully to distract her with a bottle or books, picking up said bottle or books from the floor where they are thrown, making trips to the bathroom or the vestibule and most frustratingly, trying, trying not to mind or think of what other quiet, child-less, daily mass goers are thinking about my children or me.


There is a church near us --one we do not usually attend on Sundays as a family-- that I like to take the girls to. The pews are slanted slightly down toward the altar and circle the entire sanctuary so one can see clearly the Holy Sacrifice from every place in the church. The tabernacle is lovely and every Sacred Vessel and article of the Mass is of the finest and most beautiful gold. My husband does not like this church for its circular shape, and the fact that everyone in the church can clearly see and be distracted by everyone else in the church and what they are doing, or what their kids are doing. Aside from the theological and liturgical problems with a round church that I understand, my main difficulty with the church is the feeling that all eyes are on me because of the circular set-up.

Despite this, this week I sat with the girls in the front row. I simply felt tired of struggling through Masses in the back row, Masses in which all the girls could see were the backs of people's heads, Masses that held nothing for my children but frustration and boredom. I wanted this to be a time for the girls too -- a mass for Turtle and for Rosebud as much as for me.


And so, this time we were so close to the altar that we could see everything. Turtle watched carefully. Even Rosebud watched carefully. And I felt noticed by the Good God on the altar, felt seen and known and understood there in the pew with my two little ones. I tried not to think of or see the eyes on me.

And then Turtle started talking, and her voice was not so quiet. "Fadder's wearing purple for preparation! . . . Are we gonna get crosses on our heads today? Oh, just one Fadder today. . . needa have two Fadders to do crosses. . . Why's he doing dat? . . . Look, he's washing he's hands! . . . What's he doin'? . . . Oh, he's reaching the bread up to Jesus. . . . And the wine up to Jesus too! . . . Why's he eating the bread? But, Jesus don't want him to!? Why's all the people eating the bread??"

I tried to keep up with her, telling her it wasn't Ash Wednesday today, that it was the bread that is Jesus and the wine that is Jesus, telling her that Jesus loves for us to eat the bread that is Himself, showing her that everyone else was "making silence" and she needed to "make silence" too. (To which she pursed up her lips, watched the priest purifying the vessels and said "Well, Fadder's not making silence.")

Finally as she was still confusedly whispering "Whaaat??" when I was trying to explain Holy Communion, I turned to the tabernacle. I looked at Him and I thought of the great and beautiful Mystery that my poor words couldn't describe. I thought of how much I wanted to be able to communicate the glory and the loveliness of this most beautiful gift of Jesus's Love.

And it was as if He told me then that I didn't have to to do it on my own. He would. I had to have faith in Him and have faith in my girls. One of the most beautiful core principles of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium is maintaining at all times a deep faith in the child's already existing relationship with God. The child is born already in love with God. The child is like a flower and God is like the Sun. All we, as educators and as parents, need to do is to water the flower and place the flower in the light of the Sun and the Sun and the flower itself will do all the rest.



And in that moment, there in front of the altar with the shine of the gold vessels and the light of the burning candles, my children were sitting in the Sunlight.


And, I had brought them there.

In that moment it no longer mattered to me what the priest or the other people in the church could see in us or what they were thinking about our little disruptive pew in the front row. I had brought my children to the Sunlight and they were blooming.