AWAKENED AND STIRRED

A sad silence descended over the room, as Archbishop William Goh announced that at Confirmation Masses, he feels it is not a time for celebration but a time to bid farewell. Why? Because from that day forth, the church will say goodbye to 80% of her Confirmants since only about 20% will return as active church members. 

Deeply saddened and concerned by what Archbishop Goh said to a group of 200 Catechists at the recent launch of the Catechetical Year 2014, I felt the need to share this with fellow parents of our parish. Perhaps this message is somewhat timely for me, as I will be journeying with my own daughter who will be receiving her Confirmation this May.

I found myself drawn close to tears as he delivered those heart-wrenching lines and till today, struggle at these words when I share them in urgency with parents I meet in ministry and at the parish that was so clearly an outcry for help. Yes, help not for Archbishop Goh or for the Church, but for our children - your children.

Addressing the group of Catechists, Archbishop Goh continued to express what changes were needed within ourselves as Catechists and to take it seriously, even changes to be made in the Diocese and how critical our role as Christian examples are for the children in order to help deepen their relationship with God. Seated amongst these Catechists, there must have been many others, much like myself, called to be Catechists as well as given the grace of God to be parents. I felt a deep stirring in my soul and a sense of guilt as I heard the Catechists being given a strong mandate to check on one’s own prayer life and spiritual well-being for the sake of our children - my child.

It has been for me a privilege to be both a parent and Catechist, but to be honest every parent can share in this privilege, whether we are actively a volunteer Catechist or not, being a parent by vocation already makes us one. We are the first Catechist and the best Christian example that our children follow from birth. Think about it, if Catechists, who spend one hour or so a week with our children have been given this awakening, how much more we as parents should take heed and partner with the church in seeking out the God experience that our own child or youth will look for at different stages of their life.

Clearly this message is directed to us as parent catechists as well. We have a mission as parents – play it out well. If we want our children to live a God-centered life, we need to find out if we ourselves have shown them examples of how to live a God-centered life? Have we ourselves allowed God into the family daily or only once a week? 

Much like the lyrics to the hymn, “By the waking of our hearts by the stirring of our souls may the spirit of God abide and bring us together in Christ” – first allow our hearts to be awakened and our souls stirred so that God can abide in us and I pray that we will NOT be bidding farewell to our children at Confirmation.

A FLY ON THE WALL

Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall, so that you could keep watch over your teens’ safety, without intruding into their space or being accused of “stalking” or “cramping their style”?

Although, I would admit to have given my own parents a hard time while growing up in the 80’s – I think parents today are up against a lot more with caring for their children. Aside from the usual hormonal changes contributing to teenage angst and moods, these days we compete against a whole array of social media and the very accessible mobile devices that are seemingly glued to our children’s palms nearly all day and night!

Yes, parents hope to provide the best advice to guide and equip children to cope on their own when they are in the real world. Many a times, children (and adults alike) reveal and express way too much of themselves on social networking, for their own good – becoming vulnerable and falling “prey” to dangers around them. This is a very real concern for parents, especially when such information can get out there just within seconds after “posting” it and for some parents who are sometimes “blocked” from their children’s social network, will then be oblivious to what is being posted or messaged to all their “virtual” friends and strangers alike.

In my youth I frequently found myself telling my mother to be assured that I knew how to stay safe and would remember all that she had taught me. At times, when peeved over her parenting, would ask, “Have more faith in yourself that you’ve taught me well. Don’t you trust your own upbringing of your children?”

But having said that, I recall an incident in the 80’s that could have gone seriously wrong if not for the grace and protection from God. I was on a back-packers holiday to India / Kathmandu with my then spouse-to-be. We needed to change more local currency and asked the nice tuk-tuk driver to help arrange that. He then drove us to a busy marketplace and the two guys shot-off on foot, leaving me alone in the open vehicle in the middle of a dense market crowd. When I had lost sight of them, I began to realise that it was very risky and naive to have done that. Having no means of communication, no mobile phones, not knowing where I was, the worst thoughts crept into my mind. But alas, I was relieved when they both reappeared after about fifteen minutes later.

As parents, we can’t help wanting to protect our children and keeping them always in our sight, but naturally teens will want to start spreading their wings and make it on their own. So perhaps sharing our own “risky” experiences with our children will help them relate better and not seem like we were poking into their affairs. It does also make it more meaningful when we help interpret the realities of dangers to our children and not just dishing out the monotonous TO-DO or NOT-DO List.

Then what is left for us after, is to be diligently praying parents and call upon our God to be that “fly on the wall” watching over our children?

Psst... LET'S BE HONEST!

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. If Jesus is truth, then it is clear as day that lying will separate us from God and not following in the footsteps of His son, whom He has sent will be disastrous!

As parents, we work hard at teaching our children to be honest, yes? You know, how we sometimes readily call out the phrase, “Honesty is the best policy”- encouraging our children to tell the truth and to let us know what’s on their minds.

Honesty is a virtue that can be taught to our children. Yet, it is not something they finish learning at a specific age or skill level, such as learning to walk at about one year old or learning to tie shoe laces at five or six and so forth. Teaching honesty to children begins very young and will take different forms and approaches to suit their age and level of understanding and is continually nurtured along with their level of maturity.

Just like any virtue or values, teaching honesty by example is the most effective. Young children copy or mimic their parents and therefore, a “do as I do” approach is always more successful than a “do as I say, not as I do” approach. We cannot deceive them, as children grow up they will begin to question these discrepancies.

Perhaps sometimes we are the bigger culprit of dishonesty ourselves! Maybe at that moment being honest can sometimes mean acknowledging or accepting failures and we all know how hard it is to accept our own failures. Other times it may be an attempt to protect our own child’s feelings, or to soften the blow for our child’s disappointment, we as parents keep the truth from them or even tell a white lie to others to protect them from feeling shame. But honestly, this does not help make situations any better. What lessons are we teaching our children if we do not accept failures or face realities? Are we, to begin with, guilty of demanding or imposing nothing but perfection from them, where quite often, we ourselves are unable to attain?

I recall an awkward experience with a parent whose response completely mismatched her child’s pure and honest reply to his unsuccessful placement in the school of his choice then. That incident brought embarrassment to the child and he was dumbfounded. Sadly, a quote from author, Krista Delle Femine, had its moment of reality right there, when “children lose their innocence the very moment they are forced to make excuses for their parents’ bad behavior.”

We need our children to learn that “honesty” is very important in life, as it leads to others seeing us as being “trustworthy” and friends will know that they can rely on us. There are many verses in the Bible that teaches us about honesty. To help us “grow” in honesty together with our children, in Luke 16: 10, we learn that “whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” 

A CRY FROM WITHIN

A recent experience has left me feeling affirmed that God knows exactly what we need at every moment of our lives. How it had been shown so clearly to me that the promise of God is in the very heartbeat of our lives. If we keep closely in touch with the spirit of God and be aware of his presence, knowing that He will take care of all areas of our lives, we are able to lead a calmer, less anxious life.

Some weeks back my daughter needed to go for a fairly major dental surgery to have six teeth out at one go and had to be administered general anaesthesia for that. To add to my concerns over GA, I was told that there were 2 teeth that were embedded and their roots were very close to the nerves which would pose some risks during the procedure. At that point of time, you could just imagine how daunting it was for me and I was paranoid with a capital ‘P’!

The night before the procedure, I was at my wits’ end, not knowing how else to pray, what else to say, as I had made every prayer petition I could think of during the weeks before - asking that God guided the hand of the surgeon, anaesthetist, and everyone else involved. I had texted a few close friends to lift us up in prayer in search for comfort in them.  When there seemed nothing else I could do, amid incessant ‘mind chatter’, I decided perhaps I should turn to reading something – the Bible, an online commentary, a book, whatever – to get my mind off it.

Now there were some spiritual books that had arrived through mail order just days ago, and I picked one up looking for some peace of mind. In “Secrets of the Vine” by Bruce Wilkinson, to my amazement, the first words that I read, though first seemed unlikely, yet brought me to the peace I was looking for. I clearly saw God’s promise in reading: “Abundance – You’ll be surprised to discover how much God wants abundance for you. And you’ll be relieved to know that you never need to misread His ways in your life again.”

How amazing that I should immediately find my peace in those words, yet, I thought I should be looking for words like ‘peace’, ‘be not afraid’, ‘find comfort’ or ‘it’s the right thing to do’.  Yet, “Abundance – … God wants abundance for you”, was all that I needed! He spoke and I understood. I felt a great burden lifted and just knew God has this promise for me, that everything would be alright and I will be blessed with life in abundance of all things from God. And all that comes from God is good. God had answered my cry, the prayer from deep within my heart have been answered. Truly amazing experience!

A day after the operation, I was looking to reflect on some materials for Catechism and chanced upon a video-blog by Terry Modica, writer & web-master of Good News Ministries’ website. She shared this quote from St. Clement of Alexandria, “Prayer is a conversation with God. Even if we whisper, even if we do not open our mouth, a cry rises within us. And God never fails to hear this inner conversation.” I simply said, “AMEN!!”

IN THE EYES OF A CHILD

Once again, Corrinne May puts together a beautiful repertoire of songs, each with such meaningful lyrics, in her latest album, Crooked Lines. Lyrics and tunes inspired by people and events surrounding her life, streams from her heart and so, mother to young Claire, sings, “It’s in the eyes of a child…”

Since that concert evening at our church, I have not quite forgotten that phrase from her song entitled, “Beautiful Life”.  I am sure as parents ourselves, not unlike Corrinne May, we see every hope and every reason in our children’s eyes, making sacrifices at times, to provide and see to their needs. Yet, we know that each child is different and so we are often guided by what we see in our children’s responses – their sadness, their joy, what motivates them; their questioning eyes looking for answers and finally finding comfort and security in us or in our support.

Often as parents, we have the privilege to discover and experience together with our children, if only we allow ourselves the time, to look through the eyes of our child! Discovering what those young eyes see and what impacts them when seen for the first time? Much like any other experiences, we often wonder how we can journey with our children to give them a faith experience that would etch into their lives to draw upon it in their later years.

In Gretchen Wolff Pritchard’s book entitled “Offering the Gospel to Children” (Cowley Publications, 1992), she strongly encourages to teach children our faith language — authentic symbols, images, stories, and songs — in their daily lives so that church and Christian faith are as natural a part of their life as teddy bears and tricycles and friends and grocery stores and playgrounds. And so I wondered, what about the more current digital and mobile distractions so accessible and available to our young these days? What good could possibly come out of these?

Well, incidentally, I need not wonder much longer. Just last week, a co-catechist, shared an amazing experience of her 12-year-old son, who recently discovered the iMissal^TM (Catholic App and Missal available on mobile devices) on her iPad. That Sunday evening, Nigel insisted that the whole family stayed up to play “Mass” with him as “Celebrant” while he diligently read through the entire Sunday Missal to the family, who in turn had to make their responses as “Congregation”. How precious that moment must have been for Nigel as he engulfed himself in performing the prayers and rituals of the beauty and power of the Eucharist. As for the family - perhaps because it was past ten o’clock - it may have felt like it was the longest hour they had endured. But for mom, she still managed a smile, for it was indeed the most amazing and beautiful sight before her. What any parent wouldn’t give to be there that night!

And so, in unison with Corrinne May, we couldn’t agree more, “Smile, it’s a beautiful life.” 

"ARE WE THERE YET?"

As parents we cannot help but worry. We probably spend an awful lot of time in our lives worrying. At home, we worry about getting our children to the “right” schools then about if they can cope and their grades in school. We worry about bills to pay and rising costs of necessities and then about keeping our jobs to pay those bills and the list does not stop there. Over the span of our lifetime, we may find that worrying accounts for hours and hours of invaluable time that we’ll never get back.

When you think about it over the years, in spite of all the worrying, we seem to fair pretty well and all our bills eventually get paid. So, why do we worry so much? Should we not spend our time more wisely and more enjoyably with the family?

painting by Jan (age 9)

If you're not convinced yet to give up your worrying, perhaps one of the great biblical reasons to tell us not to worry could be found here in Matthew 6:25-26: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” What an awesome assurance from God!

I don't know about you, but I seem to get busier each year. So worrying is really a waste of very precious time, won’t you agree? Worrying won't help you solve a problem or bring about a solution, so why waste your time and energy on it?

Well, with so little time, I admit that I am not a big fan of going to the movies. It just feels like I am “trapped” in a seat, in front of a big screen, not able to do anything else for nearly 120 minutes of my life! I find it unproductive, but that’s just me. Occasionally though, I would make time to join the family in a movie, especially when it comes highly “recommended” by my young daughter. Understandably then, it usually would be a children’s cartoon or animated movie.

So here’s a scene from a movie I want to share, that was somewhat an awakening for me. In the movie, The Incredibles - a cartoon about a superhero dad going through mid-life crisis (I often wonder, why does it feel like children’s movies are created not for children, but for parents?). The superhuman family travels to the scene of the film's climax and one of the children asks, "Are we there yet?" repeatedly. To that, each time the father would reply, “No!” But after several times being asked, the irate father yelled out, “We’ll get there when we get there!” On that cue, the punch line received much laughter.

Amid the laughter, I took in a poignant moment, thinking that we should not be too bothered about “getting there” but instead be glad that the family is still on a journey. Whilst we stay on this journey, we should just be glad for the time we have together - to live, learn, renew and love but not to worry. Indeed, we should not be too eager to hear that we have “arrived”, because then we would have ran out of time!

A QUESTION OF FAITH

          The birth of a baby is always an exciting experience for the whole family yet one that can bring much stress and anxiety especially for new parents. The responsibility of guiding and caring for a dependent small life can be quite daunting. When you stop and really think about it - it is no wonder that parents assume the role as primary educators of faith for their children - at the Rite of Baptism, a tiny little baby first experiences God in the arms of his or her parents!

         

       As I recall twenty-one years ago, my spouse and I stood before God, while the priest posed three big questions to us preceding our marriage vows. The two questions on ‘giving of each other in marriage’ and ‘honouring each other’ were the easy ones – after all, we have known each other for some time and knew exactly what we were getting into. Then was the question about ‘accepting children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church’ – Honestly, how could we be sure of the unknown? Nonetheless, in good faith, we responded, ‘we will’. We both agreed to bring children up according to the Catholic Church, but did we really know ‘how’?

We have, since, come to appreciate that as parents we are gifted with a privileged role of cultivating faith in our children. We are comforted in knowing however, that we are never alone in this task. We realise that for our children to have faith, we ourselves as parents must first have faith. After all, it is in our home and through us that our young children will first experience the sacred presence of God. Whether this experience is one that is personal and intimate or impersonal and indifferent, it would be reflected in the way we ourselves embrace our faith. To have Christ dwelling within us, to constantly share His Word in Scripture and to join with our church family in the Breaking of Bread are all essential in living our faith. Children watch and imitate their parents, from learning how to love, to listen and respond, to forgive, to pray, to reach out and to serve. Perhaps the saying, “faith is caught, not taught,” holds much truth.

Indeed the Catholic Church also has many mechanisms in place to help us. One of which can be found in the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), particularly in paragraphs 2221 – 2230, sub-headed “the duties of parents”. However, contrary to finding a list of do’s and don’ts, I found much encouragement and am reminded of our ever-loving and forgiving God, gently drawing out the great love that He has planted deep inside a parent’s heart.

It can be reassuring to know then, as parents, that bringing children up in faith is not so much a question of ‘how’ but rather by living the faith at home and trusting that with God’s grace we can find holiness in our everyday family lives. 

A GIFT FROM ABOVE

At the start of the October school examinations last year, a very good friend and mother shared an article with me, saying “It was a timely and inspiring piece”. 

So this month as we celebrate Mothers’ Day amidst the unavoidable exam anxieties, perhaps it may bring us, as it did her, a sense of perspective and sanity, to our otherwise motherhood mayhem.

The article, entitled “I Don’t Want to Raise Successful Children”, may not immediately strike you as something to share with others, but I would strongly encourage you to take the time to read it. The premise of Lysa TerKeurst’s article⁽¹⁾ is, My job isn’t to push success for my kids. My job as a parent is to recognise the unique way God created each child and point them to Jesus at every turn along their journey toward adulthood. Yes, I want my kids to learn and thrive and grow up educated, but it’s not a flaw in me or them if they don’t have straight A report cards and trophy cases full of sports medals.

In her search to make sense of her role as a Mother, TerKeurst’s thoughts stemmed from a particular scripture verse: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6). This struck a familiar note for me - something I had quite forgotten from 13 years ago - back to the time when I was blessed with a gift from above, my daughter.

From birth till she was nearly five, “Train Up This Child” and a series of other comforting and inspiring songs would play from this old cassette tape by Kelly Willard called “Bless My Little Girl”⁽²⁾. It played every time I prepared her for nap or at bedtime. But really these became more my prayers than it was songs for her to fall gently to sleep. Willard sang beautifully these tender lyrics: 

Give us Your wisdom and teach us the things that we need to know.

To train up this child in the way that she should go.

Lord you have placed a precious life in our hands.

Now give us the grace that she may be raised according to Your plan.

I have always felt that our children have been hand-picked for us according to God’s plan. They are only temporarily ours, a loan of love and we are to keep them on the path toward His plan and purposes. As they come from God, so they are gifted as God intended. Each child is specially made to be part of the larger plan of God that we cannot yet see. 

⁽¹⁾ http://proverbs31.org/devotions/devo/i-dont-want-to-raise-successful-children/

⁽²⁾ Music CD from Integrity Music, Inc. (matching baby boy version also available)