(Photo Credit Pexels)
By Holly Gustafson
One of my favourite Catholic family memories is Mardi Gras in what must have been 2007 or 2008. My four kids at the time were all under the age of seven, at the very most, and for some reason, all of the kids – even the oldest, who would have been in kindergarten or grade one – were home for the day. To celebrate Shrove Tuesday, we held our own Mardi Gras parade: I dragged in all the riding toys from the garage, put on some zydeco music in the background, and the kids danced and rode in an endless loop around the main floor in our house. I can still see them, half of them in diapers or pull-ups, the boys shirtless as they often were at that age, all of them with the dollar store beads I had bought hanging around their necks. That evening, my husband probably made chocolate chip pancakes for supper, and I probably had a solid plan for Lenten activities (videos! coloring sheets! DIY stations of the cross!) lined up for the next 40 days.
Life was like that in the early days. I came up with a plan for my family’s spiritual formation and the kids joyfully went along with it. Every evening in October we would gather them at bedtime and read from our Treasury of Saints before tucking them in for the night, and every evening in Advent we’d read from The Advent Book and put another hand-made ornament on the Jesse Tree. In May we’d pray a daily decade of the rosary together, and on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe we’d have tacos and play Mexican music (one year we even had a piñata). Every liturgical season brought new life to our little family – new crafts to make, new activities to do, new events to attend – and during Ordinary Time, we read aloud chapter books on the saints (while reading Edmund Campion: Hero of God’s Underground, my youngest daughter slipped me a note as the story was getting especially perilous that read: “Edmund Campion’s head is coming off. I know dat.”
It was easy to pray as a family, and to get my kids to weekly Mass, back in those little days, when I was the one in control. And I guess I thought that all that groundwork that I had laid would protect my kids from ever having questions or doubts about their faith. I think I expected that I would be handing down a nicely packaged faith to my children – here it is, all this doctrine, all these beliefs, wrapped up in a box with a tidy little bow – that they would accept at face value, never questioning or debating or doubting its worth. And they’d avoid all the mistakes that I made along my own faith journey, which consisted of more detours than straightaways, and many, many stumbling blocks on which I tripped and often fell.
But of course, my kids didn’t take at face value the gift of faith I worked so hard as a young mom to give them; they didn’t simply accept it as is, tuck it under their arms, and go forward into adulthood avoiding all the pitfalls I myself encountered. Lately, they’ve been sifting through the box, taking things out, examining some beliefs with real questioning and thought, and rejecting some without much thought at all. And sometimes I feel like I can only sit and watch as they tear apart the box I so lovingly filled with my joy and my faith, and my memories of rosary crafts and St. Lucy buns, and a Mardi Gras parade through the living room.
My faith tells me, however, not to despair over my children who seem to be drifting from their faith. The story – their story – is not yet over; this is really just the beginning of their spiritual journey that will likely have as many, if not more, detours than my own. In many ways, it feels like my Martha days are fading fast – the time of doing, making all the preparations, teaching the lessons, planning the parades – and my Mary days are here. “Martha, Martha,” Jesus said to the frantic host, “you are anxious and worried about many things, but there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.” I, like Martha, put the time and effort into preparing my home and my little children to welcome Christ, but as they grow, and encounter Him in their own ways, I mustn’t forget the better part. There is need of only one thing now, to sit with Christ, at His feet, and listen to Him, and to know that this too, this prayer, this peace, this trust, is just another form of mothering, another way of continuing to lead my children to Christ.
Saints Martha and Mary, pray for us.
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Holly Gustafson lives with her husband, James, and their five children, in Regina, where they attend Christ the King Parish. Holly received her Masters in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba, and now pursues her love of language through art, writing, public speaking, and unsolicited grammatical advice. The best advice she ever received was from her spiritual friend, St. Faustina, who told her that when in doubt, “Always ask Love. It advises best.” |
