One of His Little Ones

We went to Our Lady of the Angels in Rouse Hill yesterday at 5 pm; the morning was spent with the Poco's van and moving furniture into the house. It was again pretty hot yesterday, and thankfully the church was air-conditioned. I never realized how hard it is to concentrate on the liturgy when it is hot like this until our foray into what felt like one hundred years ago at the Latin Mass last week. There was an older beauty all round there, and the quietness of the mass along with the heat, and the old cathedral had its attraction. I ended outside in the courtyard for a number of reasons, one being the heat.

This week's mass was so different for a number of reasons. Apart from air conditioning, this mass is held in a temporary building, as the new European-style church is built next door. It looks like it will be the best of both old and new--that all-important nod to organic development of beauty, but I bet it will have air conditioning.

We got there early, to the temporary building, and inside there is a strange conglomeration of obviously old and heavily venerated statues, very traditional (and not pastel colors), with the low ceiling and basic windows of pre-fab. Fr. Warren Gregory (Or is it Fr. Gregory Warren? I've always found reversible names suspicious) sat in the back for informal confessions (the confessionals are probably way too hot). Thaddeus and I decided that Fr. War-greg looked like a mixture of Chris Baker and Jeremy Irons. He is a real man and a good priest, it seems, upon first impression. He strikes me as a humble man who loves what he does.

I sat with one child of mine who has a hard time with the idea of confession. First, it was "It's stupid. I hate it." Here we have a choice as parents, as I well remember from being the child questioning what feels like an imposition into my freedom. We can put guilt trips on (sometimes necessary); we can dismiss ("You don't know what you're talking about"); we can listen ("What is it that bothers you?"); we can go alongside ("I understand why you'd feel that way").

I chose the alongside route. I do know that I don't easily understand this child, that often what is on the surface is simply hiding fear that she has a hard time showing. I've prayed about being able to understand this one, and when I do, I always get an image of her as a little, tiny baby. I believe the whole personality is there, even during pregnancy. This one was a quiet, tiny, frail thing (born at six and some pounds). Her pregnancy was quiet, with only little flutterings, like butterfly wings brushing on my insides. I remember in the seconds after her birth, she lay wrapped in my arms, her intense brown eyes with an intense look of connection and almost a knowing of us already, as if she'd been listening intently to us for nine months. She loved sitting in her little seat, just watching golden-haired toddler Ana living life. She slept a lot, and when awake, her little eyes were like open windows to the world around her, a flower open and perhaps, even, a little helpless in the face of the winds around her. She received us all in as a matter of course, not as a choice.

Our family is not easy to be in; we are all rather intense people, lots of cholerics under one roof; this little one has tried, I think, to keep up with this and so has grown a bit of a facade, shell, over the soft little heart.

So, I sat there with her and tried to be alongside, instead of reactive. I saw the facade begin to crack, and a still small head lay on my breast. "I'm just afraid, Mommy. It is a new place, and I'm uncomfortable."

My reply was, I think, God-sent: "God doesn't want you to be afraid, or uncomfortable. The sacraments are like gifts he offers you, like vitamin pills, to help you. He wants you to take those gifts only when you are ready, and feel comfortable."

Never have I understood better the Church's wisdom in asking for very, very minimal obligations, like confession once a year. There would be something wrong with a family that did not allow for the timid, the troubled, to simply be timid and troubled.

Later, I saw her go sit with Fr. Greg-war. She is a brave person, too. For her, this newness in a new country is not exciting like it is for me; she is someone who sees, instinctively, the value of home, of an ordinary life in the same place, with roots.