They are not mine, they are only in my keeping…

So my beloved Precious (dd 10 yrs old) has lost a fourth pet.  Three cats, and now this bunny have gone on to her future heavenly hovel to wait her arrival. I was at a neighbors house when he passed (reverence must be kept, if not because of the bunny, because of the devotion of my daughters heart) and when I came into the room, Precious was blowing out a candle she had lit and had put down her rosary.  She looked up at me with a red, tear-stained face and said, “I shouldn’t be sad, he’s in heaven now.”  God love her… she placed him so tenderly and lovingly in his little paperboard box coffin, and wrote a small euology on the top professing her faith that God would take care of him, and that she would someday join him in heaven, along with all the love in her heart. 

We put him in a safe place until we could have a funeral for him, and she was given her sisters bunny to love on as the children thought those who mourn would best be able to comfort one another.  We sat around her sharing both loving and funny memories of her pet, and then a lull came into the discussion and after a moment, she looked up at me and said, “Mom, you know how I’m thinking about becoming a Nun?”  I said yes, and she replied, “Well, I read somewhere that it is good for someone who is going to be a Nun to have a broken heart.”  I swear I heard mine crack.  She accepted this loss and the resultant suffering as preparation for what God has in store for her, and chose to look upon it as a good thing.  She aspires now to the possiblity of the religious life, and may someday indeed become a Nun… but regardless, she is right…

In the face of such loss, the death of four pets in total- all hers, can be nothing less than preparation for something God has in store for her.  I know that, even the thought of it now brings chills to the back of my  neck and arms, but what on earth can He have ahead of her that requires her to experience and become proficient with such grief and loss and suffering at such a tender age?  Not to mention that this is no typical child, she has always been different… special in a unique way that even her sisters acknowledge.  Such a loving, kind, and tender child with such a heart for others, always so selfless and yet required to bear such suffering… it has made me think even more of Mary. 

What was Christ like as a child? Did he also have that tender spirit I see in my daughter?  Did the animals come to him and did he love them?  Was he as giving and helpful to his parents? Was he as concerned for the welfare of others instead of himself even at such an age?  Did she know? Even if she didn’t, did she suspect that something great and terrible might lay ahead?  Is there something great and terrible ahead of my child as well?

Like Mary, I can not know… and yet my limited experience with God, my pathetic understanding which is so inaccurate and so skewed, somehow makes me apprehensive… in an alert and preparatory way… and so, in my alert ignorance, I pray over her.  I fall asleep praying, I wake up and resume, only to fall asleep again… urgency continuing to bring it to mind.  I feel so inadequate as her mother, as her teacher… and that helps keep me on my face before the Father.  God knows what I do not, and I have committed myself to His use as their teacher, their mother, unto death  if I am not His useful tool any longer. 

May He continue to equip me and knowing my weakness and repeated failure, honor every effort and not lay it to my children’s account, but bring them to the task prepared for them completely equipped to all good works, His ready and able servant. This is my prayer… and the mission of my heart until it is completed.

 

Dante’s Inferno…

As I struggle with getting our lives back into the routine after several months of chaos due to circumstances beyond our control, I opened my Catechumen’s Lectionary to prepare for next Sunday, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The first reading was from Proverbs 31… Ouch.  I bear so little resemblance to the Proverbs 31 woman right now that if entry to heaven were based on it I would experience every level of Dante’s hell so quickly that only a swift red blur and I would slide up against the back wall of the last level with a resounding THUNK.  I think God set me up again.  I’ve been getting ‘messages’ lately about the need for order, etc… Ok, ‘messages’ might be a bit strong… how bout ‘heavenly hints’. I kept saying, “but I HAVE a routine, I HAVE a schedule that works… it just isn’t working RIGHT NOW!” I think He’s been saying it is time for a NEW ONE… and I’ve been resisting. (WHY do I do that? What is it about me that it is necessary for Him to SHOW me how badly something is broken before I’m willing to change?) I know women joke about the Proverbs 31 woman, but I firmly believe God put her there to inspire us, as what we CAN attain, not to rub our faces in the impossible.  I know that is what HE wants for me.  I know that is what CAN be.  It is what I WANT for myself…

The second reading was 1 Thess 5:1-6.  A reminder that the Lord’s coming will be as a thief in the night.  I need to be ready… physically, mentally, emotionally… but not only for the return of the Lord.  I need to be ready in all those ways for ANY thing He sends to me each day.  I can’t do that if I’m living a chaotic life, regardless of how hard I’m trying to dig myself out of that chaos.   I must be ready in order to be of use to the Lord.

The gospel was in Matt 25:14-30.  The parable of the talents.  I have been given much, four talents in particular, and I need to be working with those talents and preparing them for the return of the Lord.  I am doing that… but I would be able to do so much MORE with those ‘talents’ if my life were more ordered.

For SOME reason God has allowed this testing to come.  He has allowed our schedule, our routine, to be blown apart and seems to desire that it not remake itself in the same fashion.  Oh Lord, as I read through A Mother’s Rule of Life and work through the MOTH scheduling, help me to form the routine, the schedule that YOU desire for our family.  Guide my hand, give me wisdom, and love my family through me.  As we continue to seek You first each day, show us how You desire our steps to be directed that our ways might be pleasing to You and glorify you in all we do and say.

 

RCIA and Homeschooling Collide…

We have RCIA on Sundays now that it is fall and the regular catechism classes have resumed.  Classes are more frequent than they were in the summer, which I very much enjoy.  My eldest daughter and I go to RCIA together, as she is mature enough to be able to benefit from the adult class and, if she weren’t so reserved, contribute appropriately.  Every week I go to class with great anticipation.  I really enjoy the discussion and fellowship, but so far not much has really been new.  It has mostly been a review of what I have already learned… which is fine, I still look forward to it and wish we could be meeting more frequently and covering more material. Yesterday’s class on the history of the church proved very similar, but it was interesting for other reasons.  For one thing, Father Joe led which is unusual and a treat, but also because I thought this class had even more likelihood of having some new tidbit which I hadn’t known before.  As Father led us through about ten of the most important events in the history of the church, I began to realize that we had covered all this in our schoolwork!  I use a Classical Christian curriculum which is produced by a protestant company (not that I cared one way or another when I purchased it), and have used it since well before I felt the call into the Catholic Church.  In fact, as we studied through it I remarked several times on how odd it was how much we were learning about the Catholic Church and how if I didn’t know better I would think it was a Catholic curriculum.  Either way I loved it and still plan to use it as it is for the most part very pro-Catholic.  But I digress, point being just how wonderful it was to sit and enjoy hearing about it all from Father Joe’s perspective and to know that Pumpkin had background knowledge and understanding of what he was talking about.  It was so rewarding to know that we are doing well in educating the children.  So often we work and work but have no idea really how well we are doing until something happens like this, something that we can write in our ‘success story file’ to encourage us when all the homeschool days seem dark and we feel like rats on a wheel.

I know the week will go quickly and while I want to make the most of the time I have and not wish it away, I can’t help but look forward to next weeks class… as usual.