Toddlers & Mass

I'm someone who actually enjoys going to church. I like the spiritual fuel, I like the community feeling, I like the tradition, I like the routine, I like all of it. Granted, I like it a whole lot more now that we're back in Milwaukee and going to our old church where I enjoy listening to the priests and feel good about what they're saying. However, I honestly do like it.

Unfortunately, that's changing. Bringing our son Philo to church has made it more of a chore than it was before. He's fourteen months old and is a highly active, high-energy, extremely curious kid. He doesn't stop moving and exploring when he's at home, and he doesn't see any reason to stop once we enter the church. Our church has a small crying room and we just sit in there, and usually Mass is hectic, but do-able.

Today the crying room was extra-crowded and there were a few little babies who were at the crawling stage. Philo was being nice, but at fourteen months he isn't capable of understanding how to be careful or avoid stepping on a baby's hands. Mike and I left the crying room before he could trample one of the babies. After it became clear that he couldn't sit still in the pews or confine his explorations solely to the church foyer, Mike took him out to "God's crying room" (a nearby park). I followed them soon after.

I was frustrated. Other parents, including some of my friends, get their kids to sit through Mass and they piously tell me that it's necessary to get kids out there in the pews so they can get used to sitting there. But those kids, I think, can be bribed to sit still with food or toys. Philo doesn't care about food or toys. He cares about RUNNING. I suppose I could force him to sit, just hold him down until he stops crying, but that wouldn't be pleasant for the other parishioners or for Philo. And it wouldn't be fair to him, either. He's not bad, or undisciplined, he's just energetic. As I walked to the park I mulled over how unfair it was for Catholicism to expect us to have a bunch of kids and then make it so freaking difficult to get through Mass with them.

I talked with Mike about what might be going wrong. Were we bad parents? Was Philo a bad kid? Why didn't we see other kids like him, kids who wanted to run and shout during Mass? Even the kids in the crying room were pretty quiet and content to sit. Was something wrong with him?

My mom called after church and I asked her how on earth she kept us contained in church when we were Philo's age. She confessed that when we were toddlers our family just didn't go to church - in fact, we took a church hiatus until my youngest sibling was about two or three years old. She said that sitting through Mass with toddlers was just impossible. She then said that my grandparents, the two most hardcore Catholics I know, didn't take their kids to church during the toddler years either. Instead one parent would attend the early Mass and one would attend the later Mass, leaving the other parent at home to care for the kids.

I began to suspect that I knew where the kids like Philo were - they were at home.

I don't know what to do to fix the problem. Actually, I do have one idea. One of the parish churches has a big hall downstairs, and the few times I've been there with Philo I've thought about how nice it would be to have a PA system down in the hall so I could hear the Mass while watching Philo dash from one end of the hall to the other.

No amount of discipline is going to make it pleasant for a highly active toddler or the toddler's parents to sit through an hour-long Mass. The church should find a way to make it easier on the parents, otherwise parents with active toddlers will just keep staying home.

Getting to church

I was home sick today, which meant spending some quality time with Comedy Central. I watched a comedian named Richard Jeni who was brought up Catholic. One of his jokes involved getting the audience to indicate via applause how many believed in God, how many were Catholic, and how many attended church every Sunday.

Guess which category got MUCH less applause than the other two.

"So you all believe that there's a man with a big white beard standing outside some pearly gates, and his friends are all people with wings, and his arch-enemy is this guy who wears a red suit. And the part you can't believe is that you have to get up early on a weekend," he said.

Now, Jeni isn't a practicing Catholic. But he does have a good point. Out of all the things Catholics believe in that others don't - Papal infallibility, praying to patron saints, receiving indulgences, and other things - the idea that I really, really have to be there every weekend is the one thing I have trouble with.

Before we had Philo we were excellent about making it to church. Even when my morning sickness forced us to attend a 7 PM Mass at another parish because I was vomiting too much to attend the morning Masses at our church, we were at church every Sunday. And even after we had the baby and still lived in Milwaukee we made it to church consistently, even though sitting in the crying room was more like sitting in the stands at a football game than attending a church service. But since we moved here we've had trouble finding a good church to attend. We nixed one because there was no crying room, and Philo was at an age where he was as likely to scream as sleep. We're currently attending a church that I'm not crazy about because the congregation seems cold and the priest likes to talk about suffering and sin. That's important, sure, but I'd rather be inspired to be a better Catholic than bullied into it. So we haven't been as diligent about it lately.

That doesn't mean that we haven't been gettin' our churchin' at all. There's actually a televised Mass put on by the Milwaukee Archdiocese on Sunday mornings. We love the priest and we actually look forward to hearing his sermon every Sunday.

Which only makes it all the more heartbreaking to go to actual church on the Sundays where I feel too guilty to watch Mass on TV.

We need to find a new church.

Godmothering

Recently a friend of mine asked me to be her son’s godmother. I agreed happily, but I had one reservation.

“I…uh…they know I’m Catholic, right?” I asked. Her husband is Lutheran, and she converted when they got married.

“Yeah, they know,” she said. “They’re okay with it. They just wanted someone who was Christian and took Communion seriously, and I figured you would since Catholics take everything seriously.”

The whole thing made me happy. When I first met her in college we were sharing an apartment with another mutual friend. I can’t remember what flavor of Christian* she was, but she was slightly leery of Catholics, the way a lot of fundamentalist Christians are. People act like there’s a little bit of voodoo or mysticism mixed in with our religion, something that makes you want to stand back a bit. That’s okay. I did what I always do…not make a big deal out of it. Pretty soon she realized that I was normal and the questions started rolling in…what’s the deal with your services being so long? Why do you go to church on November 1st and New Year’s Day? What’s the deal with First Communion being so early and Confirmation being so late? Why do you do so much standing up and sitting down? I answered the best that I could and soon my religion seemed as normal as hers.

The whole thing validated my point of view, and reinforced the wisdom of St. Francis’ famous quote: “Always preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” I’ve helped several people, from fundamentalist Christians to adamant atheists, see that there’s nothing wrong with religion. And I did it by being as kind, open, and helpful as I could. If I had yelled and threatened and said they were going to hell for not believing I don’t think I would have won anyone over.

I don’t know if my approach is the right one, but as my friend and I joked around before her son’s baptism it certainly seemed right.




* My husband seemed to think that referring to different types of Christianity as different “flavors” was offensive or flippant. But I use the term “flavor” to describe different types of the same thing, like “My favorite flavor of ‘Law & Order’ is SVU.” So I don’t just use it to describe religion.

Legislating Morality

With the recent Democratic win I've heard some religious Republicans going on about how the country is going to go to hell, and I've seen petitions asking Obama to consider the Christian position on abortion, gay rights, and other issues.

Now, I'm about as Catholic as they come, and yet...I wonder whether we really should be legislating morality.

I guess I don't understand. For one thing, the religious right is selective about what it chooses to legislate. They go after gay marriage because they say it's immoral, and yet they don't make a move to herd people into church, or stop using the Lord's name in vain, or stop adultering (adulterating? adulterring? committing adultery.). I guess some things are absolutely protected under the Bill of Rights, but it just seems like the religious right picks and chooses what it deems as immoral, and uses morality as an excuse to legislate those things.

I also don't understand the overall goal of passing laws based on morality. Perhaps people just don't want to live in a country where those things happen. Well, I have news for ya...those things are going to happen, regardless of laws. Perhaps people think that they're saving souls, that if citizens don't have the opportunity to sin that they'll go to Heaven. I don't know if that's true, that if someone avoids sin out of a desire to stay on the right side of the law that it's the same as avoiding sin out of love of God.

What I do know is that I've never seen someone improve the way they live because they were bullied into it. I also know that I have seen people improve the way they live because they were inspired by someone's example, or touched by someone's love.

Maybe I really am a lousy Catholic because I think this way. I'd be open to hearing someone else's opinion. But this is the way I feel now.

Baptism

Last weekend we had Philo baptized.

I'm actually surprised at what a moving experience it was. Our parish has three church buildings and we had the ceremony at the same church we got married in. It was the same priest, too. It was amazing to think that it had been almost two years since we'd stood at the front of that church and said our vows. Now we were standing in front of that church again with our son.

I felt really happy that day. I felt like I was doing something very important to Philo...I was introducing him to something that would shape his life in a way few things would. But I also felt like I was inviting him to share in something that was a huge part of the way Mike and I were raised...from Sunday Mass to Catholic school, from fasting on Ash Wednesday to celebrating on Easter Sunday, from praying to patron saints to appreciating the small blessings we receive every day. Catholicism seeps into your everyday life in a way that's very pervasive if you stop and think about it. It was a big part of Mike's and my experience, and now it would be a big part of Philo's.

I was also happy because the priest mentioned what a great name Philo is. I've had a lot of people hating on the name Philo, so it was nice to hear that someone liked it. He also mentioned that Philo of Alexandria was one of the early philosophers of the church, and it's a neat coincidence considering that Philo's middle name is Alexander. Before that I had only read about St. Philo who helped St. Ignatius (I don't feel like finding a link, so just Google it if you're curious). Anyway, it was really neat.

So now Philo's been a baptized Catholic for a week. Mike and I were hoping that he might immediately become more serene and at peace, but judging by the fact that he spent some time today screaming loudly in the car, that hasn't happened. Maybe with his First Communion.

(PS - I just wanted to add that my last entry was about praying to St. Gerard to start labor. I prayed that morning, started having contractions that afternoon, and was timing them by 9 PM that night. Thanks St. Gerard!)

St. Gerard

I'm now 40 weeks pregnant and ready to have this child already. I've been ready for weeks, actually, but now I'm really getting impatient. Last week at church I lit a vigil candle and prayed that God take care of my labor and delivery. I prayed that everything happen according to His plan and His time, but if it didn't happen soon that he somehow grant me the patience to wait until it did.

I'm finding it really hard to wait, but there's nothing to be done. I try to console myself that everything is still happening according to God's plan, but it's hard.

It's also difficult because I've been feeling slightly abandoned by the Church at this time. I feel like I did what they wanted...I used natural family planning, when it didn't work out I kept my baby, and I'm going to raise him in the faith to the best of my ability. We're even naming him Philo Alexander* after two saints. And yet, I've been having a tough time finding information on Catholic support for pregnant or laboring women. This hurts because every other possible topic seems to be covered. Want to pray off your hangover? St. Bibiana will listen to you. Need some help whitewashing that fence? Hey, you've got St. Colman, St. Killian, and St. Totnan to assist you. There are even saints to help out with our feathered friends. But I was having a tough time finding Catholic support for women who were pregnant or facing childbirth.

Today I was looking again and stumbled upon a whole bunch of saints to help with childbirth and pregnancy. This made me happier. One of the saints was St. Gerard Majella. I found this prayer that I particularly liked:

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers. Preserve me from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which I now carry, that it may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

So that made me feel better. Hopefully I'll have the strength to make it through childbirth whenever this kid decides to make his debut.



* I went to find a link to St. Alexander, and it turns out there are about a thousand of them. Yikes. However, a link to Philo was easier to find.

Palm Sunday

Today was Palm Sunday, which meant that we were going to get some palms at church. This is always a little awkward for me because we have lots of palms already but few places to put them. Our cats are pretty adventurous and love to chew on palms so there are not that many places we can put them where the cats won't get to them. We already have two behind our cross in the living room, and more on a shelf waiting for me to hang another picture we can stick them behind.

"You can never throw away palms, you can only burn them," I said to Mike as we walked to church. "I wonder how that works."

"You bring them to the parish office," Mike said.

"Really?" I asked.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "But they make the Ash Wednesday ashes out of the palms, so they must collect them somehow."

"But you never hear about a big palm collection," I said. "You can bury an American flag, at least. But you can't bury a palm."

"You can't bury a flag," Mike said, "there's this big ceremony for flags. I've been to one."

"I'm pretty sure it's okay to just bury it too. But you can't ever just bury a palm," I said.

Sure enough, we went to church and a little kid handed us each a palm. But then Mike's palm cracked into two separate fronds, so we had three.

After Mass we walked home and I said, "I think you can fold the palms into crosses. Maybe I'll Google palm origami when we get home and turn them into crosses."

So I did.


Two of the crosses came out good, but one was very lopsided. It was just very resistant to folding. I thought about putting a dot of hot glue on the back to hold it together, but I don't think you're supposed to hot glue holy objects.

So now I have three palm crosses. I suppose I'll hang one in Philo's room, and put another on a shelf in the living room. I also read that palms can be burned during storms while you pray for protection, so I guess the lopsided cross and the old palms will go into a box to be saved for that.

Next winter I'm going to see about giving them to someone to be burned. I feel bad about constantly hoarding my palms.