We were ten minutes early for Mass this morning. I said hello to the priest on our way in, and he said, "Happy Mother's Day, Jamie! What a beautiful family you have." Things have been going much better for us at Mass since I wrote this post; in fact, when Danielle posted recently about kids' behavior in church I just skimmed through the comments thinking, "Wow, I'm glad to be in an easier stage."
[cue rueful laughter]
The deacon preached this morning. He's a stiff and formal guy, usually, but he invited all the kids to come and sit on the steps so he could talk directly to them. My three big guys sat front and center, with Joe, who is almost four, right next to the deacon.
Joe is the most sociable of my four children and he was pleased to see that this homily was going to be a conversation and not a monologue. "Do you know my name?" he asked the deacon. "No, I don't know your name," said the deacon. He plunged into the story of St. Isidore.
Now Joe is not a kid who likes to have the subject changed on him, and so he redirected the conversation. "My name is Joe Gladly," he explained. The deacon nodded. "Gladly," he said into the microphone. "St. Isidore lived near Madrid..." "And when I grow up," Joe interrupted, "I want to be a policeman."
Joe's mouth and the deacon's mouth were roughly equidistant from the deacon's body mike, which meant that snippets of Joe's comments were amplified and projected through the PA system. Little titters began sweeping through the congregation.
The rule in our house is that everybody dresses up for Mass, but we're not rigid about it. Joe was playing outside in a King Kong T-shirt and sweats, and we decided that just for today we'd scoop him up and put him in the van instead of going in to change him into church clothes. He stood up proudly next to the deacon and held his T-shirt by the shoulders. "Do you know who King Kong is?" "Yes," the deacon replied shortly into his microphone, "I know who King Kong is." Big laugh from the congregation. Big problem -- Joe loves to make people laugh. The deacon was plowing ahead with his story of the saintly farmer, while Joe sang beside him, "He's a big gorilla and he lives in the jungle in the jungle in the jungle." "In the jungle," echoed the deacon.
Mercifully, Joe was quiet for a minute while the deacon asked the kids to list the sacraments. But not for long. "And how can we talk to God?" was the next question. "By praying!" answered a meek and quiet girl nearby. Joe leaped to his feet. "Hey!" he burst out. "I know about that!" "Tell us about praying," the deacon encouraged him.
"Preying is when one dinosaur eats another dinosaur!" he exclaimed into the microphone.
...And it went downhill from there. The nadir was Joe dancing and singing, "Stinkhead, stinkhead" -- I am writhing at the memory. I was leaning into the aisle, pressing one finger to my lips and beckoning to him with my other hand. He wasn't looking.
The deacon asked the kids to stand and extend their hands in blessing to their mothers. "Even though some mothers might be embarrassed," he said, his smile no longer merely stiff but approaching rictus territory. At this I felt myself shriveling like a slug under a cascade of salt, too mortified to pay attention to the prayer. "Amen," ended the deacon. "A-stink," a familiar voice added.
During the early part of this I wasn't too worried. If you invite kid participation in your homily, you may get more than you bargained for. Soon, though, I began praying for divine intervention. Recently I read about a pastor who prayed for angels to quiet noisy children during Mass. It never failed, he said. I have to say it was not an effective strategy for me today, but maybe I shouldn't have been praying for an angel with a heavenly burlap sack and some celestial baling twine. I asked God, too, that someday I might hear Joe tell this story from the altar as a priest -- "You know, the first time I was part of a homily I was only three years old...." From where I'm sitting, though, that sounds like a pretty ambitious prayer.
It's been a long time since the best prayer I could think of in Mass was that I might grow in humility, but that's where I found myself today. There's a reason humility and humiliate have the same root, I reminded myself. I can't really think of today's preaching as a homily now -- in my head I keep calling it a humily instead.
But maybe one small good thing can come from it. My friend whose mother died last November has been on my mind today -- I am hoping this Mother's Day has been peaceful for her. I have resolved that every time I am tempted to wince at the memory of Joe chanting "stinkhead!" I will pray for her instead, remembering that it is a gift to be here with my children even when I wish momentarily to be far away instead. Will you say a quick prayer for her too?
Here's a picture of my boys and me from my niece's baptism last month. Happy Mother's Day, everybody.
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