A guest reflection by Jeremiah Evans. Jeremiah recently completed our Level I training course in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. I asked him to share from a man's perspective how this course impacted his life. This was his response.
Isn’t it weird how you can say a word again and again until it loses its meaning? Isn’t it sad how we can hear a passage of scripture again and again until it loses its meaning?
You don’t see that same tendency in children. As G.K. Chesterton says, the child never tires of the swing, or the story, or the game. “Again, again!” they cry with glee, and again and again it is as new to them as the first time. But then we grow up, and we say, “This again?”
I wonder if this is part of what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 18:3, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” We cannot tire of listening to the Word of God, or ever assume that we understand it completely.
Training in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is often called “Remedial Childhood,” and for me I don’t think that there’s a better example than Psalm 23. It’s probably one of the best known verses, certainly the best known Psalm. How many of us have written it, recited it, cross-stitched it, or reproduced it in some other craft as children, but how many of us think about it on a daily basis? How many of us are moved when we hear it proclaimed at Mass?
I wasn’t.
How sad it is that I can become immune to the wonder that every child seems to experience so naturally? People tell me I know things, I clearly love Jesus, shouldn’t I be dumbfounded by this?
Well, I am now. Not through knowledge, but through humility.
Psalm 23 is a very hard teaching. Not hard to grasp intellectually like how Jesus is both Human and Divine, or how the Eucharist appears as bread and wine but is actually the very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. It is hard because it demands humility, which as an adult with adult responsibilities, in a culture that tells me to focus on myself and what I want, seems almost impossible to have.
There is nothing I lack? What about the new car/clothes/computer I want? What about the will power to control my temper or my appetites?
What about the four children whose names are inscribed on a block of marble?
Don’t tell me there is nothing I lack.
But maybe I just haven’t been listening. Maybe I need to say as the child does, “Again!”
What does it mean to lack nothing in the face of loss? How can I become a child again with all the responsibilities that come with being an adult, a parent, a member of my faith community?
Going through CGS training helped me to rediscover this verse, to see it in a light I hadn’t before. To sit with it, ponder it, taste it. To ask for the Father who gives so many good gifts to show me those gifts.
I’m still learning to be as a child. I’m learning to not be defined by what I have, what I know, or even what I’ve lost. I am not those things, I am a child of the Father, a sheep in the fold of the Good Shepherd.
The Father, the giver of gifts, who has given me every one of my talents, has blessed me in countless ways. He has given me so many friends, my family, my wife. The children I hold in my arms, and the children who intercede for me without ceasing.
He is my shepherd, and He has given Himself to me.
And if I have Him? There is nothing I lack.
We are happy to announce that another 90-hour Level I formation course will be offered beginning this September. All Saints is able to offer this course at a significant discount for parishioners. For more information, check out our parish website at www.dmallsaints.org/cgs-formation-courses.
This Advent, we've had two special feast days land on Wednesdays, and the children in our CGS program have been quite busy celebrating them.
