Simplicity
I wrote most of this post at the beginning of Advent. Now it is the end and I am looking back happy with the beautiful simplicity of our month. Thought I would go ahead and click "post" . . . despite the perhaps irrelevance of the post now. :)
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Simplicity.
That elusive state, that place somewhere between nothing and too much. A word used to christen a plain thing with an extra gloss of purposefulness or to tout a cool, new sleekness. "Simplicity" is an in word, desirable People talk about simple food and simple living, simplifying their possessions, their schedules or their wardrobe.
When I look up "simplicity" the third definition reads: absence of luxury, pretentiousness, ornament.
And that's the kind of simplicity I would like to talk about tonight. This time of year is a crazy one. Lists, and lists and more lists. The Christmas season is here according to the major retailers of the country, and if you haven't bought everything on your list, well then HURRY and get this BEST SALE of the SEASON before its gone!
Even among Catholic families, who are doggedly and against ever earlier and earlier Christmas frenzy celebrating the rich and beautiful season of Advent, I think there can be an overload of feast day celebration ideas, themed food and crafts and domestic church activities, all right at one's fingertips, overwhelming one and helping one to feel the pressure to get our one's glue guns, novena booklets and picture books and fill those days with the Best Catholic Activities there are. Advent is so rich and we need to fully drink every bit up! But perhaps this "celebration" of Advent can become too ornamented, too rapid and too distracting. As my mother, a Catechist for many years, is fond of saying, "We must give children rich food, and not too much of it."
In the light of this time of year, I would like to quote Sofia Cavalletti now, the beautiful Italian woman who is largely responsible for the formation of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a way of bringing children to God that has spread all over the world. In The Religious Potential of the Child, she writes:
"And above all, the adult has lost in his relationship with God the essentiality that is one of the most characteristic aspects of the religious personality of the child. The younger the child the more capable he is of receiving great things, and the child is satisfied only with the great and essential things. . . .
"First of all, what the adult should not do: We should not give too many things, we should not offer too many stimuli. We should not alter too often or too rapidly the object of the child's attention, in which case the child would defend himself with an intentional indifference to this kind of wearying, continuous movie. If the child does not have the time to dwell on anything, than everything will come to seem the same to him and he will lose interest in all things." (emphasis added)
I would like to point out this quote and commit to myself, I am going to focus on Jesus' coming this Advent with my young ones, on waiting, on anticipation and the beautiful Infancy Narratives. Not Our Lady's feast days, not St. Lucy, not St. Juan Diego and whoever else. While all good and beautiful feasts, they are, as Sofia says, not essential. "The essentiality of the child is perhaps the element that imposes the severest discipline on the adult. . . . If we want to help the child draw closer to God we should, with patience and courage, unrelentingly strip ourselves of these superfluous elements and seek to go always closer to the vital nucleus of things."
It seems to me that what is the vital nucleus, the simplest, most centric point of Advent is the Waiting -- for the coming of the Prince of Peace! -- and the Wondering -- Who is this special Child? Who is this special Mother? What can I do in my household to really enter into these aspects of this season, while leaving behind the elements that are distracting, especially for the small child, from the true center?
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Happy last days of Advent!
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Simplicity.
That elusive state, that place somewhere between nothing and too much. A word used to christen a plain thing with an extra gloss of purposefulness or to tout a cool, new sleekness. "Simplicity" is an in word, desirable People talk about simple food and simple living, simplifying their possessions, their schedules or their wardrobe.
When I look up "simplicity" the third definition reads: absence of luxury, pretentiousness, ornament.
And that's the kind of simplicity I would like to talk about tonight. This time of year is a crazy one. Lists, and lists and more lists. The Christmas season is here according to the major retailers of the country, and if you haven't bought everything on your list, well then HURRY and get this BEST SALE of the SEASON before its gone!
Even among Catholic families, who are doggedly and against ever earlier and earlier Christmas frenzy celebrating the rich and beautiful season of Advent, I think there can be an overload of feast day celebration ideas, themed food and crafts and domestic church activities, all right at one's fingertips, overwhelming one and helping one to feel the pressure to get our one's glue guns, novena booklets and picture books and fill those days with the Best Catholic Activities there are. Advent is so rich and we need to fully drink every bit up! But perhaps this "celebration" of Advent can become too ornamented, too rapid and too distracting. As my mother, a Catechist for many years, is fond of saying, "We must give children rich food, and not too much of it."
In the light of this time of year, I would like to quote Sofia Cavalletti now, the beautiful Italian woman who is largely responsible for the formation of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a way of bringing children to God that has spread all over the world. In The Religious Potential of the Child, she writes:
"And above all, the adult has lost in his relationship with God the essentiality that is one of the most characteristic aspects of the religious personality of the child. The younger the child the more capable he is of receiving great things, and the child is satisfied only with the great and essential things. . . .
"First of all, what the adult should not do: We should not give too many things, we should not offer too many stimuli. We should not alter too often or too rapidly the object of the child's attention, in which case the child would defend himself with an intentional indifference to this kind of wearying, continuous movie. If the child does not have the time to dwell on anything, than everything will come to seem the same to him and he will lose interest in all things." (emphasis added)
I would like to point out this quote and commit to myself, I am going to focus on Jesus' coming this Advent with my young ones, on waiting, on anticipation and the beautiful Infancy Narratives. Not Our Lady's feast days, not St. Lucy, not St. Juan Diego and whoever else. While all good and beautiful feasts, they are, as Sofia says, not essential. "The essentiality of the child is perhaps the element that imposes the severest discipline on the adult. . . . If we want to help the child draw closer to God we should, with patience and courage, unrelentingly strip ourselves of these superfluous elements and seek to go always closer to the vital nucleus of things."
It seems to me that what is the vital nucleus, the simplest, most centric point of Advent is the Waiting -- for the coming of the Prince of Peace! -- and the Wondering -- Who is this special Child? Who is this special Mother? What can I do in my household to really enter into these aspects of this season, while leaving behind the elements that are distracting, especially for the small child, from the true center?
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Happy last days of Advent!
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