Celebrating Lent with Children: A guide for the lazy and forgetful

     I'm taking the integration of Catholic customs a little bit slow around the house.  Now, I love holidays and traditions and little parties and stuff, and believe me, I have all kinds of celebrations all planned out to execute someday, but the kids are still little, and I barely have the brain space to remember what day of the week it is, let alone where we are in the ecumenical calendar.  So, while some of our "celebrations" essentially amounted to discussing what Amani did in preschool, we have plenty of time to get fancy later.

Lent, blah, blah..yay! Pancakes!

     Fat Tuesday was met with a lot of enthusiasm.  We were babysitting for a friend that day, so her two little ones got to celebrate with us. We did it full affect: chocolate-chip pancakes with syrup.  One year we did some ham and beans in honor of Mardi Gras, and maybe one year we'll do  a king cake, but I thought pancakes were enough this year.  I tried to explain that Lent was a time without of treats, so we were having lots of treats now, but I'm not sure how much that sank in; pancakes can be very distracting.

     We didn't do Ash Wednesday.  I know. I know.  Ash Wednesday is a big one Catholic-wise: official start of Lent: reflection, remembering death, sin; heavy heavy stuff.  We just didn't get to it this year.  Next year we'll do something.

We did do other things for Lent though.  I checked out "The Easter Collection" from the library and read a few stories.  It's a nice book with lovely illustrations.  Most of the stories were a little above Amani's level, but she enjoyed looking at the pictures and liked story about the children waiting for a man named Easter.  I pushed the words "sacrifice" big time around the house, reminding everybody that that Jesus scarified for us.  And we made pretzels, noting how they look like crossed praying arms.

See, Ash Wenesday: book and carbohydrates.  That's what it takes around here.

So now we are in Holy Week, and while we are not batting one hundred celebration-wise, (Can I spin watching Paw Patrol in pajamas as a traditional Palm Sunday celebration?) I've still got some stuff we can get to.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Give us sugar-loaded carbohydrates and a few books, and my family is pretty much down for anything.

Yay!  It's Lent!  I'm pretty excited to try to get Amani into all the Lent stuff this year.  She was really into all the Christmas traditions, and seemed to really understand so much of  the Christmas Story, so now I am very excited to teach her more about Catholic holidays.  Admittedly, she may not get as excited about 40 days of fasting, prayer and abstinence as I do, but we'll figure something out.

Pancakes: I'll hook her with pancakes, and books.

I mean, come on.

     This year I am thinking of using Make Room, but I have to give it a more careful investigation.  I have found I occasionally have to do a preview of the Christian children's books I read to my kids, just to double check they are the form of Christianity I want to teach.  Some people are far more eager to discuss the gory details of the Bible with their children than I am.

     I bought The Easter Story by Patricia Pingry and I thought it would be great. It had these sweet little illustrations of Jesus surrounded by children and seemed very simple and gentle. Then, we got to the part where they  mention the Romans nailing Jesus' hands and feet to The Cross, and then, naturally, Jesus dying.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, really.  It is not as though I was unaware of that plot point; I guess I just thought that detail would be sort of downplayed in a book for preschoolers.  I know; it is a little hard to talk about the resurrection of Christ without mentioning that Christ died, but Amani's four, and pretty sensitive: Jesus' death only made the story scary, and the lesson was completely missed.

     I tried another of Pingry's Books, The Story of Easter, and I feel like that did a really fantastic job of teaching the gist of the Easter story, while still being comforting and joyful for a preschooler.

     Generally, I highly suggest Patricia Pingry books.  We have two of them at home, and they are very sweet and clear, and have cute illustrations in which Jesus is a brown person.  (Side bar: As everybody knows, each portrayal of brown Jesus in your household earns you ten points on your Social-Liberal score card.)

Anyway, there are a ton of books out there to get me started, plus like 10 million craft ideas on Pinterest.  Somehow, I am going to get this child loving Lent as much as I do, no matter how much syrup it takes.

Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need *you*. I don't need anything. Except this. And that's the only thing I need is *this*.The ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need... And this remote control. - The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need... And these matches...

      I love Lent, what with the prayer, and fasting, and whatnot.  I will admit it is not exactly SUPER fun, but it is so freeing.  It's like a good hard run the morning after a really big dinner; it's just refreshing.  Purging all the crap and getting right down to the important stuff.  This year I did this mostly literally and not so much spiritually.  We are moving and spiritual reflection has proven somewhat difficult.  Believe it or not, watching a newly walking baby and a fairly rambunctious three-year old while also trying to  pack up all our belongings and get our house ready for sale is not as easy as it sounds.  Moving, however, does necessitate a garage sale, which is kind of like spiritual reflection.

     Oh.  My.  God.  We have so much crap.
     I feel like I just want to take a snow shovel and throw it all into a furnace.
       People often say that when they start packing up their belongings they realize how much stuff they don't need, but honestly I am really baffled by how much stuff our family does need.  Why?  WHY do I need fancy dishes for holidays? Where did all these vases even come from?  Do the kids really need all these toys?  WHY? Why do we need this rug? or this table?  or these shoes?  Is it really worth packing them all up?  I HATE EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!

     Never mind that my sister is also moving and, as she brought things to the garage sale, I would immediately carry it into my house like a crazy hoarder.  It's just that all her stuff is so pretty! and there is no poop on it.

     Sigh.  Sometimes I think we are moving just because that house is cleaner than ours.

What was I talking about before?

Oh, yes.  Lent and getting rid of crap.
Yeah, maybe I did less of that than I had previously imagined.

   
But you know what I DID do?  I made Amani a place mat.  prayer place mat.  See?  That's pretty Lent-ish.

Cute little place mat in a terrible little photo.

     I was thinking that, although Amani goes to a Catholic preschool, we don't really incorporate Catholicism into our daily lives at all.  We don't talk about God, or Jesus.  We don't pray.  We don't go to church.  I mean, how would she know we are Catholic at all right?  So, since Lent has the prayer element in it, I decided that we should start praying before meals.  I had been wanting to pray before meals.  It seems like the perfect time to pause and give thanks, and reflect for all the work that goes into our meal.  But, I would always forget.  (I get very excited about food.)
     So, the place mat.  At first I didn't really have an accompanying prayer I just knew the things that I wanted Amani to reflect on.  I took some of Amani's finger paint paper, and drew the main ideas, then laminated it at it OfficeMax.  Amani was obsessed with it for a short time; I think we prayed about ten times she first day. Once we practiced a bunch of times, we had kind of figured out a rhyme and rhythm.  We say:

We thank you for the sun, the rain and the soil

The animals that give, and the hands that toil

for our family both far and near

and all of those that we hold dear

For running and playing and all of our friends

and for Your love that never ends.

So that totally counts.
See, God?  See?!  I am totally trying here!
That means You're gonna help me pack, right?

Celebrtating the Assumption with Small Children

     I have been looking for ways to create Catholic identity in Amani.  It's tough since we don't really attend Mass that often- (see my earlier post about Mass)- so I have been looking for ways to incorporate little Catholic celebrations in our life.  My mom brought me this book recently, Follow the Year and it has some nice stories and ideas for celebrating feast days and major Christian holidays.  I especially like "John The Baptist Day" or "Midsummer's Feast", mostly because I always wondered what the people were celebrating in Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night's Dream, and also, I like the idea of leaving food out for fairies.

     One of my favorite Catholic holidays is the Feast of the Assumption.  Now that I am a mother I really dig Mary, and appreciate reflecting on and honoring the feminine side of God.  I mean- Catholics don't actually recognize Mary as a God, but she without sin, and didn't die so she is pretty much Catholic Church's way of honoring the feminine God-like elements of creation.  I like the idea of finding power and grace in feminine elements.  Too often in our culture they are thought of as weakness.
     Anyway, Follow the Year didn't actually have any suggestions for celebrating The Assumption, but I found a few sites that really helped me come up with something simple and fun to remind the family that we were honoring Mary.  Since The Feast of the Assumption began as the Roman harvest festival of "First Fruits", the Catholics traditionally bless fruits and herbs on this day.  One site suggested making blueberry cobbler since blue is the color associated with Mary in the Church.  This is perfect.  We actually have a blueberry bush in our yard, and they are well ripened by this time of year

It looked better in the photo on the site, but it tasted good!

     For our celebration this year however, I made a brown-butter nectarine cake.  Amani had already eaten a TON of blueberries, and Erik is not a really a baked-fruit kinda guy, so this was a happy compromise.  We also bought a big bouquet of blue irises, and I wore a blue dress with flowers on it.  I told Amani we were celebrating Mary, and showed her a picture.  I mean- she's not even two- the central focus for her was the cake, right?  I didn't think she was going to be able to take in much more that that.  Surprisingly though, as we were nomming down our cake, I asked her who we were celebrating and she shouted, "Celebration for Mary!" as she shoved another piece of cake in her mouth.  That's my girl!

This Just In: Pope Openly Proclaims the Word of Christ

     I had a good feeling about this guy, and I'll tell ya he has not let me down. Now, granted, Pope Francis has not written any Earth shattering encyclicals, or even really an Earth shattering off-the-cuff remarks, but his welcoming approach is just so darn refreshing. I mean, first he is visiting prisoners and washing feet which is lovely and inclusive. Then he talks about Jesus saving atheists in this sweet almost Pooh-bear kind of language "...Do good: We will meet one another there." And now he is "not judging" homosexuals.  I love this guy!

     Now, as I said, nothing he has said or done runs counter to what the Catholic Church has preached all along; everyone knows that Jesus loved prisoners: it's totally in the Bible; Catholics are told on our first Sunday school that God gave his Son to the World, not just Catholics; and John Paul made it very clear that homosexuals are to be treated with sensitivity and welcomed into the Catholic community.  It is just so nice to see a leader of the Church actually practicing the Catholic faith instead of running their mouths about their own personal fears and biases.

     Frankly, the active antipathy among Catholic leaders against homosexuality is ridiculous.  I understand that the Catholic Church sees homosexuality as "disordered" and sinful, but divorce  also sinful, and Catholic leaders are not holding rallies against that.  Archbishop Timothy Dolan, head of the American Conference of Bishops, who stated in a sermon that divorce is the greatest threat to marriage, still forbid a LGBT group into St. Patrick's Cathedral.  He doesn't ban divorced people from entering the Church; why all the focus on homosexuals?  I kind of hope that the Pope's recent statements will expose homophobic rhetoric and action of the leadership for what they actually are: pompous statements made by very old men.

     It's just really too bad that aforementioned old homophobes get so much media exposure.  Catholics do not hate gays; really.  Okay, so the Pope John Paul's "disordered thinking" encyclical does not get us off on the right foot as far as our public image,but the truth is that Catholic doctrine is very nuanced in its approach to homosexuality (No other group of people get a "sensitivity" clause).  Most American Catholics support gay marriage and there are plenty of Catholic leaders who are completely supportive of gay rights, and speak out against the homophobic elements of the Church. 

     My church actually just participated in the Gay Pride Parade.  Amani and I went, but we didn't end up marching; after waiting two and a half hours, our portion of the parade still hadn't moved anywhere near the starting point, so I had to take Amani home.  Still, it was really great knowing that there was a vibrant Catholic community that didn't embrace hate.  (And Amni learned to say "pretty costume" which was awesome.)  I was moved by what my pastor wrote in the bulletin explaining why he marched in the parade.  The whole letter is worth the read if you have the time, but this is my favorite part: 

"...We  are chosen in love and called by love to tell others that they, too, are chosen and loved, not because they can become like us but because they already are like God".

Now that is a message I can get behind.

Higgs Boson particle walks into a church...

      So I have been fighting with people on the internet again.
     I need to stop doing this, but it is just so tempting.  I am always so right, and the people must know.

     What is troubling right now is this article.  Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with Mr. Gresko being atheist, or raising his kid without religion.  That's fine.  What troubles me is that Mr. Gresko is under the impression that people who believe in religion don't believe in science.  (It may be only implied in this article, he certainly states it quite clearly in his other entry on faith, stating:  To be frank, religion comes from an era of ignorance. People didn’t know how the seasons changed, or how weather patterns evolved. They invented the existence of higher powers as the ultimate explainer as to why it got cold in the winter, eclipses made the world disappear, or why volcanoes exploded.)

  Well, hang on.  Mr. Gresko's ignorance is not what is troubling me.  I don't really care that Mr. Gresko thinks a belief in religion and a belief in science are mutually exclusive; what actually troubles me is that a lot of people seem to be under that impression.  What is that about? Where did that come from?  Religious institutions have had a leading role in creating modern scientific thought. Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Darwin, Newton; they were all religious.  I mean, yes, some of them were threatened with death by the Church, but that doesn't mean religion itself is against science, and certainly the scientists themselves were very religious.  And those are just the Christian scientists!  While Europe was in the dark ages (admittedly a tense time for the Christian Church and science), science was going full blast in the East with absolute support from religious/political leaders.  Why are people not thanking us religious for our generous contributions to the science everybody seems to like so much?
    For the record, my religion was not developed as an explanation for "why it got cold in the winter, eclipses made the world disappear, or why volcanoes exploded".  My religion was created to express an awe in the world and to guide people to live within the principals that work in unity with that wonder, beauty and power.  Catholics not only believe in science, many seek it out as a means for communing with the sacred.  There is a Pontifical Academy of Science, a Vatican institution to promote scientific and mathematical inquiry, that has been around since the 1600's.
And our Pope is a chemist.
    We Catholics do not lack in the area of critical scientific thought.  So, why is it that so many people are under the impression that the religious are these ignorant sheep who blindly accept what is spoken to them from the pulpit?  Where did that idea come from?  Was it the whole Galileo thing?  I mean, come on!  People just need to let that go.
     Honestly, I think the misunderstanding about faith and science is two fold. First, I think there is some confusion with regards to the word "faith".  I think that a lot of people believe that if religion relies on something that has no physical evidence, then it must have some kind of disdain for physical evidence.  That's just silly.  Just because you think something is beautiful or awe inspiring, that doesn't mean you think it was created by magic.  You can have a sense of sanctity of human life, and still understand cell division.  There is really no conflict there.
     Then of course, the second element that might suggest there is a conflict between religion and science are the people who go around screaming about the conflict between religion and science: or as I like to call them- stupid people.  They certainly do get lot of news coverage.  After all, the news station that runs a story about how Catholics embrace modern scientific thought are probably going to sink in the ratings that night.  But its not really fair to equate all Christians with people who think science is straight from the bowels of Hell.  I feel like that should be obvious, but maybe not.
     Are there people who think that the Kardashians are just your typical Americans?
     Well, if there are they had better not post anything offensive on Facebook because I can be pretty feisty.

Has Vatican Been Reading My Blog?

     It is kinda funny how excited people became over the installation of the new Pope.  I mean, like non-Catholic people.  There were all these "authorities" interviewed on the news speculating on who the candidates were, special news editions outlining the leadership of the church; live coverage of the smoke coming out of the chimney of the Vatican; so weird.  Then when the Pope was finally chosen my Facebook feed lit up with everyone announcing their thoughts and opinions, most of them not Catholic.  I mean, sure, it's a big deal but it is just so bizarre that anyone cares about it outside the Catholic Church.  Maybe I am just unsure how to handle news coverage of the Church that isn't scandalous.

     I've got my fingers crossed for this new guy; he's got a lot of potential.  Whats more, I am excited by this new direction the leadership of the Church seems to be taking by making this decision.  For starters, I like that the cardinals did not choose anyone who was once a Nazi.  I am firm believer that when faced with a difficult decision, the step that leads away from the Nazis is a probably safest.  Write that down, and put it in your wallet: that advice is golden.
     But this guy has a lot of promising qualities, outside of his not being associated with the Third Reich.  For starters, I am pretty psyched that he is a Jesuit.  Jesuits are kinda the rebel order of the Catholic Church.  They are the academic branch of the Church that while technically vowing submission to the papacy, are definitely willing to go their own way if they don't like what the Vatican is up to.  They are more into good theology and social justice, and not so much about dogma, or maintaining specific traditions.
     And they make the conservatives crazy, which is super fun.
     Now, that is not to say that they are necessarily socially progressive.  This Pope in particular while  demonstrating a liberal attitude towards the traditions of the Church, is supposedly socially conservative.
     But, you know what? I'll take it. God knows the Church has gotten all out of whack focusing on maintaining tradition, all the while completely forgetting about the actual mission of Jesus Christ.
     Then, the new Pope chose the name Francis, for St. Francis of Assisi.  For those of you who don't know, St. Francis is AH-MAY-ZING.  Focusing primarily the brotherhood of all living things, he lived in poverty and emphasized love and charity above all.  Oh, and he could talk to animals.  So, this Pope is interested in emphasizing charity, humility, and may or may not teach us to communicate with animals?    Oh my God, after eight years of a Pope who seemed enamored with the decorated garments and gold crusted trappings of Church, it is nice to see a Pope who emphasizes humility.
      I am really hoping this guy is all his initial impression makes him out to be.  If so, we're in for a very different Church PR: a refocus on Christ's mission rather than entrenching tradition; the embodiment of humility, charity and sympathy.
Plus, learning to talk to animals.
Oh my Gosh!  Everyone will want to be Catholic!