Readying Kids to Return to Mass

 Why do we have to go back to church in-person?

Why can’t we just watch Mass online?

What if we get sick?

But we don’t have to go to Mass, so why are we going?

Can’t I just watch Mass later?

 

These are some of the questions I have heard over the passing months as our family navigated shut downs, waves of quarantines, and now some of us are dipping our toes back into society and full communion with The Church. How we answer our children’s questions, will help them to understand with some clarity, why any of us ever go to Mass.

Helping your children understand why we attend Mass is a life lesson.

 

We attend Mass weekly because our souls need to be in contact with Jesus.  The Eucharist sustains us. Now, more than ever, we need the supernatural strength found in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We don’t attend because it is an outward obligation. We attend because our souls require it.  Thus, we attend when we can, if we can,  even when the dispensation is in place.

 

Watching Mass online allows us to listen to scripture, and the Homily helps apply that scripture to our daily lives, but Catholics are not Sola Scriptura. We are a sacramental people. Our souls long for confession, for Eucharist, for connection with the Lord in these most intimate ways.

 

If we ourselves are healthy and able, we go. If we are careful and follow the guidelines, many of us can safely worship together and participate in this celebration and sacrifice of the Mass. It is important not to put physical comfort or irrational fear above spiritual health.

 

Prepare your children for the changes they will see when they enter the Sanctuary. Pews are now taped off, sanitizer is in place, Holy Water has been removed and the passing of the peace is skipped over. Offering baskets may no longer float the pews, and at our parish carpets have indicators to remind us of social distance. It looks different. It feels different. Depending on the attitude of your priest and parishioners, the members of the congregation may, or may not, be wearing masks. All this said, the beauty of the Mass remains as it has for 2000 years. The important things remain the same.

 

We are all trying to make sense of the risks and weigh those risks for our own families against the rewards of a fully sacramental life. God willing, at some point, those who have been participating in online worship rather than in-person Mass, will return to the Sanctuary. Hopefully by reflecting upon why we attend in person will help us all to appreciate the Sacrifice of the Mass more deeply, and help us all to draw closer to Him.

For more tips like these be sure to catch my podcast Parenting Smarts, or join me on Instagram.

Thanks for stopping by!

How to Raise Anti-Racist Kids

For Christmas this year, I got Dr. Crystal Fleming’s 2018 book How to be Less Stupid about Race. In it, Fleming writes “living in a racist society socializes us to be stupid about race”.  The main premise of her book, is that the current broader culture, in her words “exposes us all to absurd and harmful ideas that, in turn, help maintain the status quo” p3. When something is part of the mainstream culture, it becomes our normal. Good-hearted people, can then contribute to the pain and suffering of others, without realizing it. With the proliferation of thoughts and ideas, of opinions and emotions, ignorance to the issues of race can no longer be an excuse for perpetuating racism.

Addressing issues of racism from a parenting approach, can be a way to address the culture in our own home- how we look at situations, how and when we discuss things on the news, with whom we socialize and how we interact with others, how we answer difficult questions. In and through our conversations, we can work to change the culture in our homes, and can continue to change our culture as a whole. Change happens on a micro-system level in the 1:1 interactions we have with our children and our friends.

Development of Racism

Racism is a way of thinking about something – it is a thought process that begins with stereotypes, biases, and prejudices based on an oversimplification or a generalization of groups or people.  This starts as soon as we notice differences, because our brains strive for simplification – our brains are going to try to classify, generalize, and oversimplify. We have to combat this because racism, biases and prejudices are inherently evil.

By age two, children recognize physical differences and by age 3 and 4 children start classifying things, including people. Children may start questioning why people have different hair or skin tones, and just like with gender they don’t necessarily see race as salient.  By age 4 children show age preferences – then by age 8, children come to understand racial constancy. And this is really a ripe time to talk about cultural awareness and racial identity.  Obviously as questions come up, we can and should talk about it with younger children as well. We should not shy away from dialogue. There is nothing shameful about talking about race.

How to be a good mother in 5 sort of easy steps

How to Be A Good Mother...

According to our pastor, being a good mother really isn't that hard.

And as much as I have to laugh at the suggestion that parenting is easy, he made enough points that I started to take notes. With his permission I have summarized and compressed and paraphrased and added to put together a join list of 5 sort of easy things you need to do to be a good mom.

1. Consecrate our child to God.  Baptism is the first step here. We should consecrate our babies to God and bring them in communion with God and His Church.

2. Give your child Jesus. My Pastor brought up of the old adage "you can't give what you don't have".  Mothers should be setting aside time to develop their own personal relationships with Jesus so that this can act as a model for normal living. Just as you may give them an appreciation for sports, or art, or music, or literature, you too can give them Jesus.

3. Be sacrificial in your mothering.  Serve with love - not begrudgingly. Don't hang on to the past or worry about the future - just give what you have to give. My father used to say "if you don't go to bed tired, your didn't do enough".  Never is that more true that with mothering. Somedays it feels like we don't do enough, yet we go to bed (and some mornings wake up) exhausted. Motherhood is a sacrifice and we often have to do things that we dont want to do... but we know we are going to do them anyway so put a smile on your face and take a deep breathe and bring God in to your moment to moment acts of service.

4. Pray for your child. At all stages in their lives. And don't stop praying.

5. Bless your child. Numbers 6:22-27 instructs the israelites how exactly to bless their children and we have adopted it as our bedtime blessing.

The Lord bless you and keep you!

The Lord let his face shine upon 

you, and be gracious to you!

The Lord look upon you kindly and 

give you peace!

So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, 

and I will bless them.

It gets a little awkward now that my oldest is bigger than me, but I still try to bless him at every opportunity.

Too often, we moms set ourselves an impossibly high bar. Our kids have to be the smartest, prettiest, most polite, most creative, and most athletic or we have failed. Our measure of motherhood shouldn't hang on the snippets of our children's behaviors, but rather should focus on what we are doing in these five areas. Beyond that we have to let go. Our children have free will. All we can do is love them, keep them relatively safe and well fed, and give their spiritual life a firm foundation so that they can develop a relationship with Christ.  Now doesn't that seem easy?

Listening for God's Call... Keeping our children's hearts open to vocational life

I love God with all my 

heart, mind, & soul...

yet I don't always 

respond to His call.

My children don't even listen to me... 

how do I help them 

develop the ability 

to listen to God's call?  

If I want to ensure that my children are open to vocational life, then (according to a favorite priest of mine), there are two things I need to do make sure my kids know:

1) God will call them at some time

2) They need to be ready and willing 

to answer with courage to God's call

It is fine to tell my children this on a regular basis, but how do I help them to internalize these two truths?  

* Pray the If. When we pray, we pray for their future spouse IF they are called to the vocation of marriage. By actually saying "if they are called to the vocation of marriage", we make clear that our expectation is not that they grown up, get married, have children. We are leaving open the reality that they may be called to be a Bride/Bridegroom to the Church, and that would be great too.

* Priests are people too. We try to develop personal/family relationships with priests and sisters in our community so that our children can come to see these men and woman as people, not just clergy. This can be really really hard in some communities! For those of us who don't ourselves have personal relationships with those who have been called to Holy Order it can seem impossible.  I recommend baby steps. If you don't click with your parish priests, look for a community of religious who have a vocation of evangelization or outreach in your area. Explore a little. Listen to podcasts like Catholic Stuff You Should Know and share them with your teens. The priests are hilarious, personable, and well informed. 

* Plan a little and pray a lot. We try not to plan out our child's entire life, nor do we encourage them to plan their entire life. My husband holds two masters degrees, and I hold both a masters and a doctorate degree. We obviously worked hard in school and planned ahead taking all the requisite courses. However, when my son's Jr High announced that they would offer college planning for the young students I balked. There is a season for everything and in childhood I want my child to be a child.  I want my child to do what is right - work hard, take interesting courses, explore, dream, play, volunteer. I want him to experience childhood as something more than a stepping stone to prepare him for the next phase of life. Jr. High is hard enough without having to worry about college applications and accumulating the right accolades before high school. There are saints like St. Therese who were called to religious life early, but most 12 year olds aren't listening. By setting our child up for life as an engineer (so make sure you take AP math and do the robotics club and the summer science camp!), we are sending the message that our child's will (to be an engineer) is the will which we should be facilitating, rather than facilitating the will of God for our child. 

My job as a mother is to help facilitate my child's call to holiness. Sometimes this involves helping him get to soccer practice (where he learns perseverance and teamwork and pushing beyond his own temporal needs for the greater good), and sometimes it means making him attend mass or adoration when he would rather not. It means helping him attune his ear to God. It means helping him develop a prayer life. It means switching things up and letting him drop out of youth group and instead join an apologetics club because it is a better fit for the way his mind operates. It means letting him choose his own service project instead of making him do one that I think looks fun/is easy/fits my schedule. Facilitating my child's call to holiness means recognizing the unique gifts he has been endowed with and helping him develop and expand those talents.  It means helping him to see the possibilities of life without making him choose his path before he has developed the ability to hear God's whisperings. 

Who knew being a parent would be this hard or this rewarding? Looking at parenthood from a stewardship approach can help as we really embrace the role of being stewards of their lives rather than as directors. May you continue to listen to our Lord and serve as an example to your little ones!

The Real Story: 5 Practical Tips for Surviving Mass with Kids

A little while back a friend asked for some concrete advice regarding mass with children. I had to admit that as our family has moved from stage to stage I have become less and less concerned with what others thing about my children in mass, and more about whether I am able to really enter into mass despite the chaos around us. I wrote a post to that effect (read here), but the need for concrete help and tips doesn't go away. Here is your practical pos to help you get through the hour.  


Tip 1. If your church has a childcare use it for the 1-2.5 year age. These kids are sooooo little. It is a rare child (our 3rd was like this) who actually will sit quietly at this age. For the rest of them it is just asking a lot to sit quietly for 1+ hours. Having the little ones out of the picture, let my husband and I focus helping the older kids. Once the little ones turned 2 we would start talking about the time when they would be able to come to mass: "Soon you will be big enough to come with us!" etc. You have to keep it positive though. And it is okay if they do not like the childcare. It is just temporary with the goal of having them WANT to leave it to stay with you.

Tip 2. Remind them of the expectations. We remind them all to quiet their hearts and minds as they walk into mass. "Prepare you minds and hearts for Jesus" is a great line.

Tip 3. Try to be reverent from the start. We never really did the snacks-in-mass thing. Up until age three I was fine with a sippy cup in the pew, but not really beyond that. We get drinks from the drinking fountain before we sit down and try not to get up again. We used to also give the kids one mtint each during the homily. It kept their mouth quiet so we could focus on the message but it did tend to make the thirsty. We would also bring mass/saints books. For a while we had a little backpack ready with books and religious activity pads for the littlest ones. It initially worked, but it got to be more of a hassle.

Tip 4. Touch. We are big on affection in our house. I rub the kids hands during the worship. I let the little one bring her blanket and paci in and she snuggle and often falls asleep. One daughter loves to sit in daddy's lap or beside him most of mass. We want our kids to associate Mass with Love.

Tip 5. Practice. When possible, take the kids to daily mass. It is shorter and a stripped down version of Sunday. The parts of the mass are very clear and it helps them to identify the really really important parts of the mass. The congregation is generally very quiet but also very tolerant.

Mass with children is so hard. It really is. Give yourself a little break. Work towards your goal just one week at a time. By keeping the Eucharist at the center of your lives as a family however you will be bringing God's into your life each week. Attending mass and keeping Christ at the center will keep you grounded in the most difficult times!

Thanks for stopping by!

6 Tips for Talking to you Children About Evil

6 Tips for Talking to Your Children About Evil

A priest recently rocked our little Catholic school when he delivered a homily about the Devil. More specifically it was about childhood possession by the Devil. If you are thinking “Yikes!” you aren’t alone.  He didn’t beat around the subject, but rather came right out describing his experience with a demonically possessed 6^th grade girl. In his discussion, he did a few really great things, which parents can and should model when talking with their own children. First, he spoke honestly about the presence of evil, and secondly, he gave the children specific ways to guard oneself against evil. These two things, honestly and hopefulness are both important components of any tough conversation with children and are essential when talking to your children about evil.

It is important for children to know that evil does exist. And not the far off, unrelated, impersonal sort of  “bad people do bad things sometimes”, or “Abortions happen because there is evil in the world”. Kids need to know that real evil is our there. Don’t lament or be dramatic in our presentation of the facts. Rather give your children a concrete understanding of spiritual warfare and how it works. Just as we talk with our children about helping them to hear the Holy Spirit in their hearts, we need to help our children discern when the Devil is whispering lies. The reality is that as children of God we know we will be under attack but we also know that we will win. Here is how you can prepare your children…

1. Teach them that the Devil Speaks Lies. Remind your children when they are faced with conflict, anger, sadness, that the Devil will whisper lies. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states  that Satan is “…a liar and the father of lies…the deceiver of the whole world” (CCC2852).  As a parent, you can help them to seek the truth. They need to hear the lies for what they are – Lies!  The lies are designed to break us away from those with whom we share love.  We need to challenge the lies with the Truth from God.  We need to ask God to show us evidence of the opposite. 

 

For example, if we are fighting with a sibling and we are angry it may be tempting to believe “he hates me”.  So examine that evidence.  Ask God - Does my brother really hate me? Then open your heart to God’s evidence because He will show you the truth: What about yesterday when he gave you his orange? What about last night when you sat and played games together? What about last week when he came to cheer you on at your game?  Find evidence to the contrary. God can show you that evidence, so invite him to show you the truth. 1 John Chapter 4 provides instruction on discerning when the spirits we hear are from God or not from God. John tells us that any spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. So bring Jesus into your conversation and He will bring clarity to it all and help us determine the "spirit of truth" from "the spirit of deceit" (1 John 4:6).

2. Stay Away from The Occult and Other Forms of Magic.  This is a hard one in our culture because “Magic” is found in books and movies and even popular children stories. Many children grow up without an understanding that witches do exist (although they don’t ride brooms or even closely resemble those who attended Hogwarts). Any attempt to study or practice Black Magic is off limits. Children should not play games in which they attempt to summon spirits. They should not wear jewelry that offers them special powers. Teach them that interest in The Occult serves as an invitation to evil. It is serious and should not be trifled with.

If they show interest in spirits, help them to study and develop a relationship with some of the saints. Many saints were given special skills by God, like bilocation, incorruptibility, ecstasy, levitation and the gift of tongues to name a few.  They have some pretty amazing stories! Get them a special saints medal and teach them how to talk to ask for the intercession of the Saints. Use their interest in the supernatural to bring them closer to God. Teach them the difference between wearing a cross or medal  or even a scapular as a sign of respect and devotion, and wearing an amulet for special powers.

3. God’s Grace is Found in the Sacraments. We are given God’s grace through baptism and have His continual Grace in the sacraments. Staying close to the Church, the Holy Mass, and the Sacraments fills us with a sort of Holy Armor to defend against attacks.

4. Stay Close to God in Prayer. Most children can become pretty adept at rote prayer. As they get older they develop the ability for more mental prayer and can really transform their prayer life. Teaching our children rote prayers to say when they are scared or overwhelmed is not only healthy, it provides them with tools they need.  Our family favorites are The Guardian Angel Prayer and the Prayer to St. Michael.  When the children get scared or have a hard time sleeping they will often pray these two, a decade of the rosary, or repeat the Our Father until they fall asleep. One of the lines in the Our Father is “deliver us from Evil”. Calling on the name of Jesus is a powerful way to ward off the evil around us - so teach your little ones to pray.
 

5. Keep blessing your children. Remind them that you bless them for a reason. When you draw a cross on their foreheads you are recommitting them to Christ and drawing the battle lines against evil. Your children should know that they are branded for Christ.

6. Talk and Don’t Stop. Children are capable of much more than we give them credit for in our current culture. We shelter them from the truths assuming they are too young for serious talks, but the reality is that this shouldn’t be just one talk, but rather an ongoing topic that your family can discuss on a regular basis. When they complain about going to mass you remind them that the one hour they spend with Jesus is time for their soul to be strengthened by His presence and His grace. They will need that strength to turn from the temptations of evil. When they misbehave during family prayers, gently remind them that developing a relationship with Jesus in prayer will help them to hear His voice and discern what is true and good versus what is evil. When they repeat the lies of the Devil (you don’t love me!) remind them that the Devil is whispering lies in their ear. You would give your life for them, and you gladly sacrifice daily for them.

Parents need to keep talking to, praying for, and giving blessings to their children.  Children need to develop and ear for The Truth and learn how to discern truth from evil. They need to understand the importance of prayer, The Sacraments, and The Church in keeping them spiritually grounded. Parenting our children is hard.  Ultimately our children will choose to follow or to reject a relationship with Jesus.  Our job is to set them out on their path of holiness prepared for the journey. Keeping the truth from them does not prepare them. God never leaves us and he has given us the tools to for these encounters. So pass along the truth and equip the next generation for good.

Possible questions, responses and suggestions…

Is the devil out to get me? The devil wants more followers, but if you devote yourself to God, then the Devil can't get you. God lets us choose to follow Him (goodness) or to turn away from good and turn to evil. Just choose God in your heart and your deeds and you will be okay. In 1 John 5:18-19 it is written “but the one begotten by God He protects, and the evil one can not touch him”.

I am scared. Well it is pretty serious stuff but God tells us to Have No Fear. He is always with us. And we each have a guardian angel to be with us a guard against the devil at all times. So you have your own spiritual body guard which is pretty cool!

What if I mess up? God know everything and in His infinite wisdom he knew that we would mess up. He gave us the sacrament of reconciliation to help wipe away those sins. We all make little mistakes so each night we should think about our day and pray to the Lord for forgiveness for the little mistakes we are bound to make.

But what about our loved ones who are not Catholic? It is a little harder for non-Catholic Christians because they don't have the Grace of the sacraments to give them spiritual strength. But God loves all of his followers and if they have a strong prayer life and turn from Evil to Jesus then God will keep them close too. God desires that we all serve Him and know Him and love Him. That is why we were created. It is easier when you have the fullness of the faith, but non-Catholics can still grow to know, love, and serve God. And we can pray that they too will be brought into the fullness of the faith so that they can fully participate in a sacramental life and do things like take part in communion and reconciliation. But that is their own choice and their own journey.