taking notes

close-to-six-year-old younger lad to his sister the four-year-old elder lass,
with whom he is usually a jovial and willing playmate
(even when the game suggested is playing house):
"Why do you like to play mom?"

elder lass: "because you get to have a purse"

In typical fashion, the four-year-old elder lass has zeroed in on an aspect of the world around her and made it the linchpin of her carefully-considered plans.   As a mother, which she wants to be, she'll tote a purse around (likely with several books and who knows what else, like her own mother) -- but she does that already.

The elder lass at four years old has a very basic, age-appropriate understanding of how mamas are built by God to care for babies.  Realizing how closely the lass is watching me, the other women in her life, and her young girl friends (and taking notes, as evidenced by the purse reference, among others), I am ever mindful of my own attitudes, habits, and comments about myself and others.  I'm also humbled to think of imperfect I am, how prone I am to impatience even as I try to handle sticky situations with humor and fortitude.  I hope she and her siblings grow to be better at that than I am.

Yes, I do know she is four years old.  Remember I take a long view.

Should the Lord call the lasses to be mothers someday, I know they will draw from many sources (including the legacy their mother leaves for them) in approaching their journeys, which likely will not be exactly the same as my own.  As they seek to understand themselves and what roles they are called to play in this world, they will find many pundits -- not all of them trustworthy -- all too willing to supply them with information about what it means to be a woman nowadays.  Thankfully, we have recourse to a wealth of good, insightful, and spiritually-sound resources to help them wade through the static.

Just as Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so too are mothers who are seeking to care for the children entrusted to them both physically and spiritually.  The love we have for our children is a reflection of God's love for us. When we submit to the Lord's will and seek to conform ourselves more closely to it every day, the grace that flows freely is that which makes a job well done possible. 

I pray all our bambini will grow and flourish in the knowledge of God's love for each of them through the care they receive from our hands, so that they might in turn someday lead their little ones to Christ. 

the ultimate gift

At the end of January we observed Catholic Schools Week, one devoted nationwide to celebrating the unique gift that is a Catholic education.  After much discernment and continued prayer, we made the decision a few years ago to enroll our bambini in a parish-based parochial school for a number of reasons, chief among them being this particular school's faithful witness to the message of Christ as evidenced by its commitment to teaching Gospel values by example and living them in love.   While the academics taught at the school are first-rate, to have the reinforcement of a community actively seeking to live in accordance with God's law as we tend to the formation of our children's souls -- always by God's grace and with his help -- is priceless.

This was not the easy choice for us, but we feel it is the right one for our family.  Our bambini are thriving at this school, and they show an ever-increasing love for the Lord and consideration of other people, which we understand are the Lord's two greatest commandments.  We hope and pray this trend continues as the bambini grow to maturity, but maybe someday one or more of them will, to be blunt, chuck it all either by a willful departure from the faith or by an lukewarm apathy that creeps up over time.   There are plenty of stories of such alumni.

The pastor emeritus of the parish school often still presides at school Mass.  More than once I have heard him speak in reference to the gift that the students are receiving in the form of their Catholic education.  He always goes on to stress the importance of the students taking ownership of the gift they are being given and making it their own, carrying it with them, nurturing the seeds of faith their parents, pastors, and educators are working to plant every day, and guarding against the temptation toward laziness in the all-important matter of faith.

We can go to great lengths in the name of passing the faith on to our children, including providing access to a Catholic education for them (whether that's at a Catholic school, a  public school supplemented by parish-based faith formation classes, or home school), being active in a faith community, and living each day visibly seeking the Lord's will, all of which we know can heavily influence how the bambini filter all the messages they hear and apply them to their own lives. None of it will guarantee, however, that our bambini will ultimately become men and women of faith themselves.  That gift comes from God himself, and has to be sought, claimed, and lived by each person.

I pray the Lord will fan into flame the sparks of desire within our bambini and all God's children to know, love, and serve him in this life so as to be with him in the next.