The Contemplative Child

Unconditionally

I had a plan.

Knowing that my husband would be gone for more than two weeks this December, I had lists and ideas and great hopes for the gift I would give my husband for Christmas: a clean house.

Aside from a few near occasions of sin that surround trying to accomplish this goal as a single parent of 6 children, and some actual occasions (thank you, Jesus, for the Sacrament of Reconciliation!), I accomplished my goal. I rid my home of 50+ totes of clutter and trash and clothes and shoes that we'd been holding on to over the course of 6 children and 14 nieces and nephews who have been sharing clothes. Clean at last! Even the garage got a "scrubbing" before my darling husband returned.

He returned after a 14 hour drive and was very patient and kind as the girls excitedly showed him around our now-orderly (and in some places, newly-painted) home. It was about an hour in when my exhausted husband off-handedly noted behind me as I was cleaning up the dinner dishes: "Looks like we're back to filling the junk drawer up with junk."

I was heartbroken. I brooded for a while over this slight, and tried not to be angry at him for noticing "the one thing I didn't get to,"

I thought for a long while about why this bothered me so much in that moment. I already know that my husband does not love me because I am such a stellar housekeeper. He loves me for me, praise God, and he tolerates my tornado tendencies. He does his best to love me unconditionally, even if he gets frustrated with me sometimes for my faults. Usually I am happy with being loved unconditionally because I know that I could never earn his love. This time, though, I really wanted to be loved for what I had done because I thought it was perfect... Except I can never be perfect.

The best part of me didn't do all that hard work because I wanted my husband to be happy with me, but because I wanted him to be happy. Period. I have to be content with being loved for who I am, not for what I do, even when what I do seems pretty great to me.

As I was headed to early morning adoration last Friday, I began to understand that if I am not careful, I do this same thing with God. I sometimes try to earn His love by the good things I do, and I am heartbroken when I fail.

Just like with my husband, I could never earn God's conditional love. He knows me too well. I can, however, bloom and grow and produce great fruit in the freedom of knowing the God loves me unconditionally. He doesn't need me to be perfect, he just needs me to remain with Him.

As I look in the eyes of baby Jesus this Christmas, I pray that He will teach me to love Him and others the way that He loves me.

He comes as such a helpless baby. He didn't come on Christmas Night with miracles and power, He came tiny hands and trusting eyes.

In the baby Jesus, we can love our God not because He gives us all the things on our Christmas list this year, but because He gives Himself. And so I ask for the grace this Christmas to give the Him myself in return.

Unconditionally.

The Joy of Love

Fifteen years ago this Thursday, my husband and I made a promise that began the adventure of becoming a family. In honor of that momentous occasion, I have a few quotes and reflections to share from the reflection that Adam Storey from the Marriage and Family Life office of the Diocese shared with a group of parishioners last week on Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation, "The Joy of Love."

Thank you to Adam Storey for his awesome presentation at
our event: The Joy of Love (and BBQ!)

I found it not a little ironic when Adam pointed out that Pope Francis refers to the family as a "path of suffering and blood." As much as last Monday was meant to be a "date night" for my husband and me, we would all have known Adam (and Pope Francis) were lying if they said that marriage was an easy or painless road to heaven. Family can be a beautiful thing, but not always.

Still, it was a consolation to reflect on the fact that even in the holiest of families, the Holy Family, there was brokenness. Granted, I've always struggled to see how the DeVries household could possible imitate the Ever Virgin, sinless Mary, married to one of the greatest saints in the Church, along with their Divine Son, but Adam's presentation encouraged us to look further. Have you ever payed much attention to the genealogy of Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew? Jesus' family was FAR from perfect. There was jealousy, hatred, prostitution, adultery, and even murder in His family tree... and He was still pleased to become part of THAT family. It makes it a little easier to imagine how He would deign to become part of mine.

Another point that stuck out to me was how important it is to keep paying attention to your spouse. Pope Francis pointed out that much hurt and problems result when we stop looking at each other. The "sacrament" of your spouse is an opportunity to gaze contemplatively at another person as a good in themselves (not because of what he can do for me, but just because of who he is).

It takes a lot of intentional effort to keep looking at something or someone that you think you already understand. It is such a temptation to take for granted your spouse because you've seen them and you know them. But no matter how well you know another person, there is always a deeper mystery in them that you can't see or reach unless they reveal it to you. So my job as a good wife is to give my husband a secure foundation so that he knows that when he reveals himself to me, he will be received in love. When we both are certain of this foundation, we are more likely to become vulnerable to the other person, increasing our trust in each other and therefore our unity as well.

On a related note, theologian Dr. Tom Neal posted on his blog "Neal Obstat" a thoroughly honest and, well, amatory discussion of what marriage lived radically can be. It was called "Significant Sex." The message was simple: No matter how short or long a couple has been living this, there is always further to go. Catholics are not meant to be prudish about what marriage is meant to be.

The Church's message on marriage is not tame. It is radical, it is total, and it is more powerful than nuclear fusion when it is done well. When the two truly become one, the power unleashed in the world is magnificent. If we can live this truth, we will set the world ablaze!

God's blessing on your and your family this week and always!
Mandie DeVries
Director of Religious Education

The Best Thing I Ever Did

About 11 years ago, someone invited me to take a class on how to teach preschool religion. I had an almost-preschooler and a new baby. The cost was a bit steep at $375, but everyone spoke so highly of this 8-day course, I decided to go for it. After a few days in the course, I was more than intrigued by the formation - I was hooked! That was when I realized that this was only Part ONE of the Level I course, and that the following summer would be another 8 days and another $375! But it was too late. I was already sold. Eleven years later I will still tell you it is the best thing I did for my faith, my parenting, and maybe my life!

Not everyone begins formation for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd as blindly as I did. I showed up the first day unaware that this was more like a college course than a workshop. Even if it was more educational than I forsaw, it was also far more of a spiritual investment than I expected.

Ever since that summer in 2004, I have been telling everyone I knew to give some time to be formed in CGS, and if they can manage it, to get trained in all three levels (270 hours!) In the years since I was trained, things have changed quite a bit in our area. The biggest change is that we have local trainers, and the cost and format of the trainings have been streamlined.

About 2 years ago, with much prayer and trepidation, I began the discernment process of working to become a formation leader for Level I of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. It was about 6 weeks ago that I received my recognition as a formation leader from the National Association. I have long desired to open this opportunity to adults who are not quite ready to make the commitment to be catechists, but who have been hearing of the spiritual fruit that is coming from these incredible formation courses and want to come and see!

I am thrilled to announce that as part of our Adult Faith offerings at All Saints, we will be offering a national Level I course (serving 3-6 year old children) beginning in January for a parishioner rate of $60 for the whole course! (Out of parish participants will pay $300 for all 90 hours).

For more information about CGS, this course, or to register, check out our parish website: www.dmallsaints.org/cgs or our blog at allsaintscgs.blogspot.com. Class size is limited to the first 15 participants (and it is my secret hope that many of them will be MEN). I hope to see you on the first day, January 16th!

The Very Best Way

"Mommy?"

My very sad 7 year old sat down next to me as we returned home after Holy Thursday Mass. "Wasn't there some other way that Jesus could have saved us?  He was God.  Couldn't there have been another way?"

Another Way?

I had seen this little girl's tears at the end of Mass as the Eucharist was taken in slow procession from the Church and as the women reverently stripped the altar and removed the candles and left our tabernacle open and empty for all to see.  We were living that moment when Jesus had been taken from us, and it didn't sit well with little Leah (or me, either, to be honest).

Many worshipers had remained several moments in silence before quietly exiting or making their own sorrowful procession to the Altar of Repose that seemed to represent for us the imprisonment our Lord underwent before his death.  Our family had sat before this altar before we headed home, and I remembered how Leah's sweet little tears flowed quietly.

"Wasn't there another way?" she begged.

"Oh darling," I responded, too quickly for the words to have been my own. "He is God.  There may have been lots of ways to open the gates of Heaven, but He didn't just come to offer us salvation... He wanted us to receive it.  He chose the Cross to make us feel His love, and to draw out our love for Him.  He is God, Peanut.  So I think of all the possible ways, we can trust that He chose the very best way."

His Blood be on Us and on our Children

I'm reminded of the scripture verse from Romans 5:8: "God proves His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  To put this another way, He died for us while we were still enemies.

The crowds infamously responded to Pilate after he washed his hands "of this righteous man's blood" by saying, "His blood be on us and on our children" Matthew 27:25.  Their vitriol and hate in that moment was flung into His face and His response still shocks us...



"Yes," His love responded. "So be it."

As death was wrought and his heart was pierced, His blood did flow out and continues to flow even now over us and our children. Not as guilt or condemnation, but as an ocean of mercy that washes away all stain of sin and enmity.




You Can't Make Someone Love You

But why all this labor to win over our hearts to Him?

Jesus' parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the story of that privileged one who wished death on his father to prematurely claim his inheritance, and found himself in dire poverty and misery, bears an explanation.

After reflecting on this parable a few weeks ago, I asked the children in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium, "The father must have heard about the famine. He must have been so worried for his son. Why didn't the father just go and get his son and bring him back?"

A 10 year old boy answered simply, "Because he didn't want a slave. He wanted his son. You can't make someone love you."

So the father watched and waited for the day that his son would come to his senses and remember the goodness of the father that he treated so poorly.  He waited for his son to love him. Yet that prodigal had no idea how deep his father's love was until his return - when this pitiful and contrite penitent begged enough forgiveness to be considered a slave and was instead overwhelmed with mercy and received again as a son.

The Very Best Way

It is the greatest mystery of love that God would choose to die at our hands so that we may know that "truly this is the Son of God." Oh that we would have the grace to suffer so well at the hands of our enemies so as to make them our friends!  It is the path that our Savior has blazed for us, and we ought to follow. He is God after all, and has shown us not only the way, but the very best way.

That We Might Become God

At Palm Sunday services, many moments can stick out as memorable: the procession with palms, an unusual number of people wearing red, the moment of extended silence as we kneel in the middle of the Gospel to be present in that moment of Jesus' giving up His spirit...  Yet, something new struck me last week.

It was just one sentence, I think it was in the Eucharistic Prayer, and Father said, "He died for our transgressions..."

Just a few moments before this, we heard the charges against Jesus: "You have heard the blasphemy," Caiaphas had said. Jesus was condemned by humanity because He sinned against God when He made Himself God.

But that wasn't Jesus' transgression. It was ours.  Isn't that every human's transgression? The Original Sin and all of its distant cousins and relatives have that one common thread: a man or woman desiring in their pride to be "like gods" and choosing for themselves what is good and evil.

The irony is that we as humans instinctively know that this is wrong. We ourselves condemn it as blasphemy and order death to any who would claim to be God. Against the One accused of this transgression we cry, "Crucify Him!"
Much like King David clearly pronouncing judgement against his own murderous actions after hearing Nathan's story of the rich man's treachery (2 Samuel 11), we are caught in our own net as our sin is finally and irrevocably revealed and we cannot claim ignorance or hide behind relativistic reasoning any longer.  Once we have proven our ability to pronounce fair judgement on one who would choose to be his own god apart from the One True God, we face King David's choice: to persist in our error or to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God.

Jesus Christ did not come to condemn the world, even when the world preferred darkness to Light.  In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (460) repeats the shocking truth that Jesus came to offer exactly what our first parents sinned in grasping for: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." But let us not make their mistake. There is only One True God, and apart from Him we can do nothing.

It is through His great love and mercy He comes to each of us today to offer us a share in His Divine Life.  I hope you will join me in my prayer as I proclaim my gratitude for the triumph of God's great love! Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

Religious Education and Spiritual Orphans

I read a really thought-provoking article last week that made me reflect more deeply on what exactly a religious education program can and can't offer families.  The article was critical of the Church for her "hero complex"--you know, the tendency for priests, DREs, youth ministers, Catholic school teachers and catechists to swoop in and attempt to evangelize and catechize a child who has little to no understanding of the faith,without really identifying and addressing the problem that kids are coming to them as "spiritual orphans."

If I had to make an educated guess, it is probably the fault of some well-meaning people from years ago who led a subtle or not-so-subtle campaign to tell parents: "You can't teach this!  The faith is difficult and hard to understand! The Bible? What do you know about the Bible?  You must send your child to religious education classes or Catholic schools so that we "professionals" can pass on the faith."  

Well, something awful happened. While so many people trusted the "experts," the faith simply slipped through the cracks of the generations. We as an institutional Church have discovered that 1 hour per week (or even several hours per week) plus Sunday Mass (if we're lucky) isn't enough to pass on a living, vibrant faith to the next generation.  There is a generation of parents and maybe even grandparents, who may be in the Church, but have never really had a life-changing encounter with Christ.

You see, the idea of "either/or"--where either the parents teach the Faith or they trust Father or Sister or the catechist--misses the point.

The family is the first Church, the Domestic Church.  Everything the family does: from prayer, training in virtue, to modeling forgiveness and acts of mercy, prepares the child for a fuller Christian life.  We as a parish education program promise to do all we can to support you in this role, but we can never replace you.

If you were one of these "spiritual orphans" growing up, and still don't have a lot of confidence in your prayer life, or in your knowledge of the teachings of Jesus and His Church, it is not too late! We are always offering opportunities for adults to go deeper and mature in their understanding and relationship to Christ. Also, as any CGS catechists will tell you, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd formation is a most excellent training to help you understand how to meet the needs and serve the spiritual potential of your little child or grandchild.

Opportunities and graces abound! Our Lord wants nothing more than for parents to become more serious in their role as primary educators of their children in the Faith. But as the old Latin saying goes: "Nemo dat quod non habet"--"You can't give it, if you don't got it!" So go and get it!

Abraham's Offering

The first reading last week on the Offering of Isaac led to some very interesting conversations in our home.  Our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level III (9-12 year old) atrium happens to have just finished our study of Abraham this year, so there was a lot of fodder for discussion.

Sacrifice of Isaac by Rembrandt (1635)

In the atrium, we have walked (figuratively, anyway) with Abram from his home in Ur to "a land I will show you" and have seen Abraham's incredible trust and faith in the promise of this voice: to give him a land and descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky who will bless ALL nations.  Abraham was already 75 years old when he received this promise.

Fast forward 25 years.  Now the promise is seen with Abraham's own eyes: a SON.  Abraham holds the promise in his arms.  It kind of reminds me of Simon, in the Presentation in the Temple, who holds the Christ Child in his arms and says in effect, "Now you may let your servant go in peace! I've seen the promise!"

But Abraham's faith, made strong through 25 years of hope realized, is put to the test. This promise... this EVERYTHING of Abraham's... God asks him to offer as a sacrifice.  

It is striking and maybe shocking to us that the same Abraham who intercedes so beautifully for the Lord not to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah would not intercede for his son! It's almost like Abraham was expecting this, and indeed, if we look at the history of the peoples surrounding him, sacrifice of the first-born son was indeed a common practice.  Do you give your god the sickly and weak animal? Do you offer your leftovers to him? No.  The idea that led to this practice was that to prove your love for your god, you must offer your best--your everything.

But Abraham was not like the other people of his time, and the God who revealed Himself to Abraham was not just another god among gods.  He is the One, True God: the God of Life. 

Abraham's offering was total obedience and trust to this God of Life.  He trusted in a God who would not lie.  Isaac was the son promised, the beginning of an explosion of blessings through Abraham's descendants.  The author of Hebrews saw in Abraham's offering a New Testament faith: 

"By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.' He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol." Hebrews 11:17-19  Abraham obeyed God because he trusted in His promise.

As incredible as Father Abraham's faith is in this story, I hope you don't miss how God totally flips the sacrifice on its head.  For so much of human history, we see human beings wishing to prove their love and devotion to their god or gods.  They gave their best for the love of their god.  Yet, the One, True God says, "Do not do the least thing to him... I know now how devoted you are..." and provides his own Lamb for the holocaust.  In offering His only begotten Son,  the Father in Heaven reveals the unfathomable reality that He offers His Best for love of us.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." John 3:16

Catechist Formation

There are so many offerings coming up for catechist formation for those who are ready to jump in for the first time and even some old-timers who are wanting to dive even deeper.  One awesome event is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is an International Celebration of Catechists in Phoenix, AZ to celebrate the 60th anniversary of CGS.  Many of our catechists are highly considering going, and we have put together this event to help!  If you are nearby, I hope you'll come by and support this worthy effort!

Parables and Signs: A Retreat for Adults

This article is part of a "column" I write for our parish bulletin each week called Faith Formation Begins at Home.  This week it is an invitation to a retreat I am putting together based particularly on two chapters in Sofia Cavalletti's book, The History of the Kingdom of God, Part I: From Creation to Parousia.

Parables and Signs: A Retreat for Adults Probably if your children are older than high school or if you don't have children, you don't think too much about religious education methods and modules. Or if you do have young children, one religious education program vs. another might not make that much of a difference to you so long as your child is being formed in the faith. I doubt I would have had much of an opinion either, once my children were grown, had it not been for the discovery of Sofia Cavalletti and the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Aside from Dr. Cavalletti's ground-breaking discoveries relating to the religious potential of the child, she was also unmatched in her ability to distill her vast knowledge of Scripture, Sacred History, Liturgy, and the Gospel into its most essential and life-changing points. This week's article is a heart-felt invitation to you as adults to "come and see" what thousands of adults from around the world are discovering for themselves in the world of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd: a transforming gift. Monday, December 16th, from 6:30-9:30pm, step into a world where the greatest Mysteries of our Faith are presented as simply as Our Lord intended.   When Our Lord taught, He used one language.  Whether by parable, or miracle, or Sacrament, Jesus Christ uses the language of sign to simultaneously communicate and hide a Mystery.  This language cannot be translated.  It must be experienced.  It holds within its simplicity an invitation to an interaction, to a reflection, to a response.    Come and hear. Come and see.  But mostly, come and reflect and respond to the mysteries Our Lord has made accessible to us in the simple form of seed, leaven, pearl, miracle, and sign.  There are just shy of a dozen spots remaining for Parables and Signs.  Please RSVP to mandie@dmallsaints.org by December 9th to reserve your spot.  We will begin at 6:30 with an appetizer potluck and a bit of fellowship, so please bring something to share!

God's blessing on you and your family this week and always, Mandie DeVries, CGS Catechist and Director of Religious Education