My little girls are growing up. This has been a big weekend for them; one they've been looking forward to all school year. Aren't they sweet? Just a very biased mom here. Hmmm... the picture doesn't look right now that I've shrunk it. Oh well. They looked beautiful, they acted beautifully, they had a very special time. Fr. Bruno, our Tanzanian priest said Mass. He had all the First Communicants come up around the altar for the homily; he got down on their level to talk to them. Then during the Consecration, he again had the children come up and kneel around the altar. B.G. and Abby (B.G. is on the left, Abby on the right) volunteered to distribute and pick up collection baskets, a task they took very seriously. They children did the readings, prayers of the faithful and took the gifts to the altar. After Mass they went back up front and sang a song. Very sweet. The chidren are able to be so much more involved than back in my day. After Mass there was a reception in the church hall. Rachael's fiance was here this weekend, and he joined us as well as Hannah's boyfriend. Neither one of them are religious, but were willing to come along. I appreciated that.
Helping prepare them for First Communion and Reconciliation this year proved to be a struggle for me. I started off the school year saying, okay, if I'm catechizing my children, I need to believe what I'm teaching. So I went through this period of faking it. I fake it by saying 'I believe', 'this is the truth' when down inside of me I don't believe. Made me depressed. So I stopped. Put up the catechism (they get a little bit at RE) and just started reading stories. Spiritual stories, stories of justice and love. And just talked to them about love, justice, etc. No dogma, doctrince. I'm just not good at pretending. I can say, the church teaches this, but I can't say I believe this. I do share with them what I believe - just not doctrine so much. And I do love the traditions, the connections that I feel to all other Catholics out there, past and present. I love the liturgy. I'm not sure what I believe; if pressed, right now I would have to say I probably don't believe in the traditional understanding of the Eucahrist. I'm working on my own belief, what I can say 'yes' to. Oh well. Enough of all that for now.
Rachael and Dan came by so I will go talk to themf or a while.
3 comments:
These are the times that try men's and women's souls! The most important belief you have is Love and that is really the only thing that matters. Trite as it may sound it is at the core of who we all are and what is at the center of our relationship with the Divine. The rest is a nice story to help us move forward. Sometimes the details of the story has to change to help us go deeper in our Love-journey. You do your best with what you have and what you know today. I think it is much better to be honest about where you are than to try and fake it. You know that deep down, every time you share from the heart, it is a Eucharistic meal, a breaking of the bread of your life. The true nourishment comes from those simple moments in which you are sharing something that stirs the fire in you and touches up close to The Mystery.
I've been thinking about you a lot lately. I wish you would consider looking into Second Life. There are others like you who are exploring and expanding their spiritual life that could benefit by meeting together to talk. There may not be a group of women in your area that you could connect with. In Second Life you can be anonomously meeting with "kindred spirits". www.secondlife.com or you can e-mail me about. this. Many blessings,
thinking of you xo
I just walked away from all of that.. I could not bear it any longer.. but it is difficult to do when you have small children.. email me anytime if you want to chat about this xo
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