Turn, turn, turn...

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

There is a boy in my 7th grade CCD class, whom I will call T. (not his real initial). T. has a medical condition that causes him a great deal of suffering. I didn't know about it until 2 weeks ago. I mean, it's on my class list next to his name, but I have to confess that I hadn't paid too much attention to it since the beginning of the year and T. had never exhibited outward signs of his condition.

Last night, I got the chance to talk to T.'s mom. We'd distributed report cards in the last week of January and had parent-teacher conferences and she wasn't able to make it. (Her family's been having a tough time right now, so they can really use all of our prayers.) Here is part of our 20-minute conversation:

T's mom: A few weeks ago, I don't know what you were talking about, but T. came home and said something to me...
Me: Oh, gosh, it could have been anything...we've been talking about a lot of stuff in class lately that's got some of the kids talking in school outside of our class time...
TM: Yeah... I don't know what it was, but he came home and he said to me, "I know why God let me have [this medical condition]. It's so I can show other people who have it that you can have it and be ok. That's what God wants me to do, to show other people with [it] that I'm OK and they can be OK too."
Me: Oh, wow.
TM: So I don't know what you said...
Me: I don't know either, but it was the Holy Spirit. Praise God. That's just so beautiful. Praise God for that.

On further reflection, I know what we were talking about in class. A week or two before Christmas, we were talking about why God lets bad stuff happen. It's the eternal question, isn't it? Why did God let 9/11 happen? Why hurricanes and earthquakes? Why doesn't he just put his hand down and stop it?

I was frank: I don't have all of the answers. I know that we all have a great gift from God: free will, and God does not interfere with that. But, I firmly believe what I told them next: even though bad, terrible things happen, God works immense good out of the results of those bad things.

I told the kids that I have lost three babies, two to miscarriage and one to an ectopic pregnancy, where I had internal bleeding and had emergency surgery. And I don't know right now what good came from those miscarriages. I do know that if those babies had been born, I probably would not have my younger two kids right now. But I know that I have three children in heaven who pray for me and I know that God will bring much good out of that suffering my family endured.

And T. was listening. And the Spirit moved him, at the age of 13, to do some REALLY deep thinking.

It's not easy to tell with teens when they are listening to you. They act too cool for you and what you have to say. But I am starting to figure out that they are listening ALL THE TIME and that the Holy Spirit moves them when we least expect it.

But all things happen in His time, don't they?

What I have learned is that I have to be open, to witness, and to try not to get in the way of the Holy Spirit doing His thing.

Praise, to you, Lord. Thank you for letting me be T.'s teacher. Thank you for letting me be in their lives this year. And please keep me out of your way.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. I have always loved this saint, even before I knew he was a Dominican.

One of the things I like about him is that when he was in seminary, everybody called him "The Dumb Ox" because he was fat and didn't talk a lot. Their teacher, St. Albert the Great (even better in Latin: Albertus Magnus!), said about him: "We call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world."

His parents were wealthy, influential Italians who wanted him to become a Benedictine, thinking that they could probably arrange for him to become the abbot of Monte Cassino, the original monastery that St. Benedict founded. But when Thomas heard about St. Dominic's upstart Order of Preachers, he wanted to join them.

But Thomas really wanted to join the Dominicans. He tried to run away from home, but his mom and dad sent his brothers after him and locked him in one of their palaces. Mom and Dad sent one of their daughters to talk some sense into him, but he talked her into becoming a nun. They tried to send a woman of ill repute to tempt him, but he chased her out of the room with the poker from the fireplace! After 2 years, his parents gave in and let him join the Dominicans.

He was really smart. How smart was he? They say he could dictate 5 books on 5 different subjects at once! He wrote songs that we still sing in church (mostly at Adoration: Pane Lingua). His philosophy is still studied by Catholic and non-Catholic scholars alike!

This is his deathbed prayer (from the Catholic Encyclopedia):

The end was near; extreme unction was administered. When the Sacred Viaticum was brought into the room he pronounced the following act of faith:

If in this world there be any knowledge of this sacrament stronger than that of faith, I wish now to use it in affirming that I firmly believe and know as certain that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, is in this Sacrament . . . I receive Thee, the price of my redemption, for Whose love I have watched, studied, and laboured. Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee: if anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous concerning this sacrament or other matters, I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.

A Prayer for Guidance by St. Thomas Aquinas:

O creator past all telling,
you have appointed from the treasures of your wisdom
the hierarchies of angels,
disposing them in wondrous order
above the bright heavens,
and have so beautifully set out all parts of the universe.

You we call the true fount of wisdom
and the noble origin of all things.
Be pleased to shed
on the darkness of mind in which I was born,
The twofold beam of your light
and warmth to dispel my ignorance and sin.

You make eloquent the tongues of children.
Then instruct my speech
and touch my lips with graciousness.
Make me keen to understand, quick to learn,
able to remember;
make me delicate to interpret and ready to speak.

Guide my going in and going forward,
lead home my going forth.
You are true God and true man,
and live for ever and ever.

--St Thomas Aquinas, 1225-74

I have learned...

...that you can tell you are doing God's work if the resistance to it is so strong it makes you start wishing you had never started.

Independence Day

On July 4, a delightful man I know from church (he taught CCD and helped with our Confirmation prep class), John Lyp, was liberated from lung cancer and went to his eternal reward.  

John is just an amazing person.  He loved the Lord so much: with all his heart, with all his mind, and with all his strength.  He has left behind his lovely wife of 40 years, Ellen, and his 7 children and 4 grandchildren.  I know his daughter, AnneMarie, because she also taught CCD with us.  All of his kids are really fantastic.  

John's death was really sudden.  I saw him last on May 18 right after the 12:00 Mass at church.  He seemed totally fine.  By Memorial Day weekend, his name was on the list of the sick members of the parish for us to pray for.  Last week, John went into hospice care.  Lung cancer killed him, but he never smoked a day in his life.  It moved very quickly.  

It is a privilege to know someone as great as John Lyp.  He loved telling people about Jesus.  He preached the Gospel in everything he did.  In addition to the work he did with the men's group at the parish he volunteered with Covenant House in Newark.  I never saw this man down.  

There were so many people who came to the wake that the parking lot was full.  There were probably 150-200 people at the funeral Mass: family, friends, fellow parishioners.  All whose lives are enriched by knowing John Lyp.  

The Church's teaching on the Communion of the Saints is very comforting at times like this because John isn't really gone.  He may be in purgatory (here for more), he might be in heaven already!  But he's still with us and he's praying for us.  He's doing even more for his family now than he could do while on earth.  The priest said in his homily at the funeral Mass: "For the many of us who are here on earth who sadly say, 'There he goes,' how many more are in heaven, excitedly saying, "Here he comes!'"

John, pray for us.  We'll pray for you.  

Hey, Jesus, here he comes.   

Life is a Highway, Part 1

In my line of work, I get to talk to lots of different people who are at different places in their faith journeys.  I get to talk to everyone from the "pray the Divine Office, attend daily Mass in the vernacular and Sundays in Latin" types, to the "I go to Mass on all the holidays: Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter, Mother's Day" types.  

But in general (except among the Latin Mass, Divine Office folks), I get to talk to a lot of people who sign their kids up for CCD so they can "get/make sacraments."  And I encounter an general misunderstanding (miseducation?  misremembering?) of what the sacraments are actually about.  So I've decided we're going to have Back to CCD night and we're going to talk about sacraments: what they are and why Jesus gave them to us.  This talk has been brewing in the back of my head for a few years now and it all just sort of came to me through the grace of God a few weeks ago.  What follows is generally how I'm going to approach this and this is where you come in. 

I need criticism of this approach from any of you who read this.  If you're lapsed from Catholicism, I want to hear from you.  If you're practicing, I want to hear from you.  If you're a priest or religious, I want to hear from you.  If you're looking to "get sacraments," I want to hear from you.  I am interested in challenging ideas people have of the Seven Sacraments.  I know from 5 years of experience, I am going to tick some people off with this talk, but in my line of work, I am always ticking people off.  As long as I'm not ticking Jesus off, I can live with it.  We're both going to be OK.  

And let's remember, this is a parent meeting, not Mass.  Let's start.  

Thanks for coming to Back to CCD Night.  I'm glad so many of you were able to come.  

Tonight we're going to discuss the seven sacraments, what they are and why Jesus gave them to us.  Let's start off with thinking about the following scenario: Let's say that you and your family are going to go on an RV trip around North America.  Gas is 99 cents a gallon (remember those days?)  and the plan is for you to go all over the USA and maybe hit Canada and Mexico while you're driving around.  In your small groups, come up with a list of the sorts of things you would load into the RV so that you had what you needed for the trip.  I'll give you just a few minutes then I'll ask your small groups to choose a person to report back what your group came up with.  

[Now at this point, I would expect answers like: food, change of clothes, soap, first aid kit, sunscreen, money, radio, dvd player, passport, maps (since you'll be going outside of the USA), tool kit, etc.  I'm going to have a backpack or suitcase with props in it on the table next to me that will correspond with some of the answers I'd expect.]

Those are really great answers.  I think you're well-equipped for your journey.  

Let's talk about this journey around North America in a slightly different sense.  Many of you have heard of the concept of faith being a journey.  You're probably not in the same place in your relationship with God that you were when you were four.  And you might not be in the same place 10 years from now that you are today.  Your relationship with God changes as you change.  As you come to rely on Him more, or less, things change.  Most of us don't have the same simple faith that we had as small children.  That's why Jesus reminds us that we need to have the simple faith that children have.  

In my work with families, I have met many people who register their kids for Religious Ed classes so that the kids can "get Sacraments."  I am SO glad that those families are in our program.  There are lots of baptized kids running around today that are not going to RE classes.  If you are sitting here and if your kids are in our classrooms tonight, this matters to you.  And I am glad you're here.  And I know God is glad you're here too.  

When we think about sacraments in terms of something you "get," it sounds a lot to me like they are stamps in our spiritual passports.  And I guess they can be in a sense.  The day of your Baptism or the baptism of your children is a HUGE deal.  Confirmation is a HUGE deal.  First Holy Communion is a HUGE deal.  But I think we're missing something if we think about the sacraments in only the terms of "things to do before I die."  

We need to think about the sacraments not just as stamps in our passports, but in terms of the essential items we pack in the RV so our journey through life into the afterlife goes as smoothly as possible.  

So, you're packing clothes, right?  [pull out a white T-shirt that says "Catholic" on it] Your nice, clean clothes can symbolize Baptism. In Baptism, you are marked for Christ, you are given a share of God's life in the form of the sacramental grace that wipes away Original Sin (the stain on the souls of all human beings-except Mary and Jesus- that is a result of Adam and Eve's first sin) and makes us members of the Church.  

And you're going to need to eat, right?  So you're packing food [pull out loaf of bread] and something to drink [pull out water, juice]? Maybe a little something to make the camping even more pleasant? [pull out a bottle of wine]  The Eucharist, or communion, is something that Jesus gave us to sustain us, to keep us going on Earth so we can get to him in Heaven.  Let's read from the Bible about what Jesus said about this bread that He has given us: [have a volunteer read aloud from John 6, The Bread of Life Discourse].  You're not going to eat only once during your month long trip, right?  You're not going to pack only enough food for one meal, are you?  You won't have enough energy to drive or to enjoy your family or your surroundings, right?  If you're like me, you get downright unpleasant to be around when you're hungry.  The Eucharist is what feeds us spiritually.  The sacramental grace we get from the Eucharist, Jesus' Body and Blood, no longer just bread and wine, is what makes being with the other people in your life even better because it brings you intimately close to God.  You eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood.  It doesn't get more intimate than that.  

But you won't eat with dirty hands.  Of course you wash up before you eat.   So you need your soap [pull out soap labeled Reconciliation].  

Later: Getting cleaned up, and when some healing needs to take place...

Too gimmicky?  On track so far? Reserving judgment until it's all here? Say it in the combox.  

Hello, it's me

I know.  I've been away awhile.  Allow me to update you.  In no particular order:

1. Bubba got himself a shiner on Monday night from tripping over a fan on the floor of his room and landing on the corner of his brother's open dresser drawer.  It's pretty.  I'll have to post a picture. 

2. Today, Bubba graduated from Pre-k.   He's officially a kindergartener now.  Primo finished 1st grade on Thursday.  Now the praying about the 2nd grade teacher begins.  

3. My confessor and sometime spiritual director was transferred to another parish and the farewell Mass and reception was last Sunday the 8th.  I chaired the committee for the party which caused some stress on my marriage.  Seems Scott likes it when I'm home.  He's fussy like that. 

4.  I had Jury Duty starting last Tuesday the 3rd.  I got picked for the case on Wednesday.  We returned the verdict on Friday afternoon.  It was a very pleasant experience.  I'm not even kidding.  I made a new friend.  (Hi, K.!)

5. My stepbrother, B. graduated from High School last Thursday the 5th.  His party was the day we handed down our verdict. 

6. After many visits to many doctors (including a horrible allergist right here in Linden.  Email me if you want to know whom to avoid. ) and dealing with symptoms that seemed like Congestive Heart Failure and an anaphalactic latex allergy, my mom went to an awesome internist and he figured out she has a...wait for it...B-12 deficiency that is exacerbating all of her MS symptoms.  Why her neurologist didn't figure this out is really sort of beyond me.  

7. I made it safely out the other side of Sacrament of Initiation Season (ie: the month of May) and I have learned the value of asking others for help.  

8. I anticipate a change in my work schedule that will make life better for all who reside in my home.  Full report when the contract is signed. 

9.  Our awesome next door neighbors, Hector and Diana, here on Diana's work visa, had to return to Colombia because her visa ran out and she couldn't find a new job.  After a lot of nonsense on behalf of the buyer's attorney that gave them 24 hours notice on the date of the closing (I am NOT kidding), they sold the house to a woman who so far has asked us to put out $3500 in cosmetic improvements to the exterior of our duplex (For those of you who don't know what a duplex is, we own one side of the building and she owns the other side.  We share a wall and if one is going to say, reside the house or reface the steps it probably ought to be done jointly so it doesn't look like Frankenstein house.).  This of course would not bother me if a. we had the money for it (we are going to do the siding since she "know[s] a guy"and b. I were confident she knew our last name (I don't know hers.) and c. She were not so gall darned freaking pushy about it.  So not only have good friends moved about 2000 miles away, they have been replaced by someone I don't like yet, but I hope that I will be able to like after she finally freaking decides to move in.  This probably deserves a post of its own.   

OK I think that's everything.  Back next week with some work related stuff I'd like you guys to help me with.  

What have you been up to?

Yesterday, one of our diocese's bishops came to the parish for Confirmation.  It was a great day all around for everyone.  I'm glad the stress of getting ready for this day is over.  But I wanted to share with you something that happened yesterday that made me just stand back and praise God.

In our parish, the Sacrament of Confirmation is conferred in 8th grade.  The kids are all 13 and 14 years old and they bring with them to their classes and other sacrament preparation all of the things that 13 and 14 year old people are into (and not into).  

There is one young man who I had the pleasure of working with one-on-one for some of his Sacrament prep.  And he seemed really serious when he and I worked together.  

Then there is his other personality: the one he has when he is with his other 13 and 14 year old friends.  This is the personality I am a little bit more familiar with.  The "Why do I have to stalk you to get you to turn in your paperwork" personality.  The "Can I go to the bathroom 50 million times so I can meet my friend in the bathroom to talk" personality.  This "split personality" is pretty typical of the teenage animal  (But indeed, when it comes to "God stuff," don't we all suffer from this a bit?).  It doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  

Well, it being Saturday, Confessions started at 1:00.  Confirmation Mass was at 2.  This young man was in church at 1:30, when the kids and their sponsors were to be gathering to process into Mass.  I was sort of taken aback.  I thought at first he was hanging out, but none of his friends were there.  I thought about telling him to go on downstairs, but I'm glad I didn't.  He was there for confession.  When I talked to his mom after Mass, she said that he wanted to get to church early so that he could go to Confession.  I was surprised that he even knew that confession was going on then.  

You've really got to hand it to mom and dad.  They are doing it right.  They have set an excellent example for their son and they ought to be quite proud.  

Let's pray for T. that he will use the gift of courage that he received sacramentally yesterday to stand up for what is right, to set an example for his friends to stay close to Jesus in His Church.  Let us pray for his mom and dad that they may never tire of doing the right thing by their kids.  

Hello Bloggy Friends!

Well, we are in the middle of Sacrament of Initiation insanity here at the parish. We've had 2 of our 4 First Communion Masses and Saturday we'll have our 2 Confirmation Masses. I will be happy when Saturday at 6 rolls around!

I always like this time of year in spite of how busy we are. The Masses are always extra great and it's wonderful to see the kids receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit sacramentally. It's kind of like all of our hard work in the office is paying off.

So, pray for our confirmandi (113-small group this year) and for our First Communicants (120). And pray for the CCD ladies so we don't go too crazy.

November calendar letter

Thought you guys might like to see the letter to the parents in our Relgious Ed. Program that was on the flip side of our November calendar. We're talking about purgatory.

Dear Parents,

During the month of November, “we remember all of those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith” (from the Eucharistic Prayer). We start the month with All Saints’ Day, a day where we celebrate all of those people who are saints in heaven, but who have not been canonized or beatified. November 1 is their feast day.

Immediately following is All Souls’ Day. On this day, we pray for all those who are in purgatory, getting ready for heaven. We offer prayers and Masses for them that they may be released from purgatory soon and spend eternity with the Lord.

When I talk with the children about purgatory, we first talk about why the Church teaches that there is such a place. Let’s say you have just been eating lunch in a fast food restaurant. You leave and get in your car and you smell like Chicken Nuggets and French Fries. You’ve got a big fancy party to go to later that night, and you don’t want to go to the party smelling like old fast food, so you go home and get a bath and put on your party clothes and then you go to the party.

Purgatory does for us what that shower after the fast food place does for us. People who are in purgatory are absolutely going to heaven. There is no question about it; they are on the way. They just need to get the “smell” of earth washed off first. They are purified from the venial sins they committed before they go to heaven forever.

Many of our non-Catholic Christian friends find purgatory to be a big stumbling block when they think about Catholicism. They ask where we can find such a teaching in the Bible. We can find these answers in the Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraphs 1030-1032. In Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 3:15, and in the First Letter of St. Peter, Paul and Peter speak of a purification as if through fire, like gold that is purified by fire. As Pope St. Gregory the Great pointed out at the turn of the 7th century, in Matthew 12: 31-32, Jesus talks about sins that will not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come. “From this sentence,” St. Gregory says, “we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.” Also, in the Second Book of the Maccabees in the Old Testament, there is mention of the Jewish tradition of praying for the dead. From the Church’s earliest days, it was customary to pray for the dead and to offer up almsgiving and works of penance on behalf of those who have died.

We set aside an entire month to remember the dead because they can’t do anything for themselves right now to make their time in Purgatory go faster. They need us, those who are on earth working our way to heaven, to remember them and to offer our prayers, our trials, and our good works on their behalf. I know a man who, when he kneels in the pew to get ready for Mass, offers the Mass for the soul who is closest to entering heaven from Purgatory and also for the soul who is the farthest away. He calls it “inviting” those two souls to Mass with him.
When you go to church these November weekends, please “invite” some soul in Purgatory to Mass with you. Please remember those souls in your prayers. Someday, we will be in Purgatory waiting for someone down here to “invite” us to Mass so we can be closer to being with Jesus in heaven.

God bless, Amy Giglio

It's That Catholic Show!

Go to the website to see episode 1: "Sit, Stand, or Kneel"

Durn. I tried to embed a clip, but the code from the website didn't work. Oh, well. You can watch all 5 episodes at the website. They're awesome. I'm planning on sharing them with my catechists for this school year.

Where have I been?

Very busy with work and the rest of my life, but here's a quick recap:

Recovered from the surgery
Mom came back from California :)
First Communions have begun
Confirmation is Saturday
Many computer problems at work which prevent me from blogging there
Held a parent meeting about changing our 7th and 8th grade RE program and endured 35 minutes of parents telling me how terrible the plans I made are. which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't spent the last 6 months planning.

I will have some more to write about all of this later, but not as much as if I blogged anonymously. Some parishioners have discovered my blog! (Hi everyone!) I wouldn't have posted anything that wouldn't have said to anyone's face, but it's better just not to go there. Don't want any misunderstandings.

God bless you. Back under my rock with me!

stained glass window by Frank Schoonover

As much as I complain about being back at work, being the DRE at my parish has been a huge blessing to me and to my family in many ways. Being in this ministry has deepend my faith so much and the Lord has seen fit to bless me with meeting people in our parish whom I would never otherwise interact with.

Especially beautiful to me are the times when the Lord sees fit to use me as an instrument of His Grace by my interactions with parents and students at Sacrament times. The Lord has softened many parents' hearts at the times when their children receive sacraments and it is such a privilege for me to be a small part of their return to the sacraments after a long absence.

Especially rewarding for me was the chance I had last winter of becoming involved with a family in our parish who had adopted 3 brothers (ages 13, 11, and 2) out of our state's foster care system. The elder boys decided that they wanted to become Catholic and their father contacted me about getting them ready to be received into the Church. We met once a week and the depth of their faith impressed me. The older son is wise beyond his years and has a great love for Christ and His Church. The younger son was an 11 year old through and through, but he took our time of preparation very seriously, as seriously as one can expect an 11 year old to do.

All 3 of the boys were baptized today, but the older two, the ones I had the honor to work with, were also Confirmed and received the Eucharist for the first time today. It was a beautiful Mass and I was so proud of them. They truly seemed different when Mass was over. Their parents have done a superb job of instilling in them a love of Christ, and it was obvious how happy they were to finally be able to recieve Our Lord in the Eucharist with their parents.

Please join me in praying for Sean and Xavier (their Confrmation names), and for their little brother Thomas (new Baptismal name) and for their parents and godparents as they celebrate the boys' intiation into Christ's Church. St. Thomas, St. John and St. Francis Xavier please pray for them!

Whisper Down the Lane

"Whisper" Cartoon by Matt Myers of Virginia Wesleyan College, 2002

I decided last year that we would add a little Latin to our curriculum. The 4th graders are learning the Signum Crucis and the Pater Noster and the 5th graders are learning the Gloria Patri and the Ave Maria. I would really have liked to have the kids learn them at a younger age, but I figured they really ought to work on the prayers in English in 1st grade and 2nd grade is First Reconciliation and first Communion, so there is already enough there. Third grade's curriculum focuses on the Apostle's Creed , so they learn that prayer in 3rd grade. 4th and 5th grades didn't have any specific prayers attached to the curriculum, so I put them there. I think it's going well so far.

Why, you may ask, are we teaching the kids their basic formal prayers in Latin? Well, a. Latin is the official language of the Catholic Church and b. Pope Benedict asked all of us to learn these basic Latin prayers so that people from all over the world can gather and pray in the same language (see World Youth Day). Bonus: learning some words in Latin will help them in their secular lives as well, especially in their languages classes (as long as they elect to study a Romance language) and when it comes time to take standardized tests (since so many English words have their roots in Latin or in Romance languages). My hope is that some of the kids who have an affinity for languages will become interested in Latin and learn it so that all of the people who can read and speak this dead language don't die off and then it's a REALLY dead language. (Side note: I think it's shameful that most American diocesan seminaries don't require that the men in formation learn Latin. my$.02)

You should HEAR some of the stuff that's going around the parish about this one. Our pastor got a phone call from someone who wanted to know why the kids had to learn Latin prayers before they could make their First Holy Communion (?!). Only better than that is what my mom heard at the hairdresser's 3 weeks ago. The pastor that hired me retired in June (passing away in July). So, we got a new pastor in July. The rumor around Curl Up and Dye (a real beauty salon name, but not the name of the one mom goes to-isn't that a great name?) is that Fr. Bob is trying to get rid of all of the priests at our parish and that our extremely popular 40 year old parochial vicar is being forced to retire (remember all of the above is UNTRUE-except about Curl Up and Dye being a real salon name. THAT's true).

It's like the gossip spread by the game "Whisper Down the Lane." 2 weeks ago I had Confirmation Parent Meetings and stuff I said there is coming back to me totally twisted up. The person who fell asleep in my meeting is going around repeating the half sentence they heard. And that half sentence taken completely out of the context of the rest of the sentence can be considered pretty inflammatory (RE: candidates' Mass attendance, I said, "It's not like we're going to say, Three misses and you're out." I heard that I said "three misses and you're out." oy vey!)

And all I can do is shake my head and laugh sometimes. People are going to get mad at me no matter what I do in my job. All I can do is my best to work joyfully for the Lord and pray hard.

Just another day at the office

As my URL indicates, I am a DRE (director of religious Education) at my parish. I started this blog intending to write more about work, but it didn't really evolve that way, but that explains the URL.

Anyway, tonight I am going to post about work because I have to admit I'm a little mystified about something and maybe some of you good folks can help me. This post is 100% snark-free. I genuinely can't understand this.

Last year, a few weeks before First Communion, two of our five First Communion Catechists told me the kids weren't going to church and as a result didn't know the responses during Mass. Nor did most of them remember the basic prayers of our faith that they learned in the first grade. So, it being six weeks before First Communion, we instituted a policy where all of the First Communicants would have to go to Mass and have a bulletin signed by the presiding priest each week before First Communion. Parental grumbling happened, but, no big surprise here, the kids really improved overall in their knowledge of what happens at Mass and they could remember their prayers.

Since, from our point of view, this experiment was such a huge success we made it a year long thing for both the First Communicants and the Confirmation candidates. At first we were going to require that the bulletins get signed, but then our priests pointed out that they would be signing bulletins for half an hour after each Mass since we hve 250 kids who would have to do this. So, early in the year, we required only that the kids turn in a bulletin as proof that they attended Mass.

Here is where I am genuinely mystified: Both times, I heard from a few parents who were very angry and insulted at having to get these bulletins signed. These parents who contacted me are regular churchgoers who said that they didn't feel like they had to prove anything to us as a parish about Mass attendance. I had one mom this past summer say that she wanted to pull her kids out of our religious ed program (that they've been in for 8 years) because she was so insulted. She said that this was a policy that made the parish very unwelcoming to her.

I just don't understand it. I thought that the people who would be the most upset would be those who weren't going to Mass regularly. I wasn't asking that much more of those who were there anyway, just that they stop by and see Father before they went home. I just can't understand how they could have been insulted by this. I hope some of you can explain this to me becuase I really do WANT to understand where they're coming from. The lady who threatened to leave didn't leave, btw, but I haven't spoken to her about it since she emailed me in August while I was on maternity leave and I read her email on All Saints' Day. Another thing, now that I have read her email, should I reply, even though it is more than 2 months later? I'd like to apologize for insulting her, but I'm not sure if I should leave well enough alone in this case.