People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.
He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
— Mark 10:13-16
One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was an earnest, idealistic piece on the importance of bringing our children to Mass. Several years and four kids later, those sentiments are as obsolete as that first blog. My own words pop into my head and my stomach churns — bloated from years of weekly humble pie.
Our trip to Mass today is no different than any other Sunday. We rush into the car, stopping halfway out the drive to rush back inside in search of someone’s lost shoe. Despite our best efforts, on on-time buffer window shrinks, and we silently and anxiously pray that we’ll make it into the pews before the procession beings.
What is the point? I ask myself. The question has become almost a ritual. What is the point of subjecting ourselves to this weekly hour of humiliation in which we will be lucky to pray a passing song lyric through the din of mediating sibling disputes in hushed whispers as my husband and I take turns escorting out the naughtiest child outside? The church may as well have revolving doors for all the time we’ve spent inside it. I hadn’t heard a homily in years.
What is the point?
As I lean my head against the cool glass of the car window, steeling myself for the hour of misery that surely awaits, no exterior sign prepares me for the particulars of what’s to come.
As we pull up to the Cathedral, shivers of dread run up my spine despite the glaring heat from the summer sun. We hike up the grand concrete staircase that beckons all to enter in and yank on the brass door handles, to no avail. The doors are locked.
Mentally chastising myself for forgetting that Mass is being held in the adjacent gym during Cathedral renovations, I relinquish the final glimmers of false hope of being on time. Still huffing from the trek up the stairs, we begin our descent down the other side. Sweat trickles down my back, soaking into the thin but tightly-wrapped soft pink fabric of the baby wrap in which my newborn is nestled snuggly, blissfully ignorant of her role as my personal heat-generator.
The gym doors swing open with a bang and my heart drops as I realize that not only have we missed the procession, but the gym has been set up for Mass facing the side we just entered. We slink past the hundreds of chairs, heads hung low, trying to avoid the gaze of their occupants, slowly realizing that all the chairs have been filled.
Mass continues on behind us. Not that we can hear it over the creaking of the ancient wooden bleachers beneath our feet, which have been built in such a way that one must climb to the very last row — the one nearest the ceiling — to enter them. The second we take our seats in the nosebleeds, our oldest announces that she needs to go to the potty. My husbands creaks his way right back down the stairs with our oldest and toddler in tow, leaving me with our newborn and usually mild-mannered son to manage.
Today, he shows no signs of manners, mild or otherwise.
When he finally notices that Dad is off to do far more interesting things than stare at the roof of the world’s tallest gym, he immediately recognizes the unfairness of the moment and demands to be given his rights to go along. He lunges to make his escape, and I tighten my grip on his arm as I watch my husband disappear through the gym doors, oblivious to the struggle we’re having in the rafters.
Incensed by the grave injustice he endures at my hands, my 4-year-old deploys his most effective weapon, shrieking at the top of his lungs, “You’re saying a BAD WORD to me!”
Clearly, something has been lost in translation. The only “bad” word I have used is “no” (in this conversation anyway), and yet his repeated refrain reverberates from the rafters for the whole assembly to hear that I have been swearing at my child during Mass.
Did I mention that we are the only family that has been exiled to sky-high bleacher seating, so it is abundantly clear just which mother is allegedly spouting profanity at her young son?
This might be my deadliest dose of humble pie to date.
Eventually my husband returns, oblivious to the mascara that streaks down my face, hidden beneath my veil, pulled close to mask my shame.
Mass goes on, and I go through the motions numb and unaware, save the ebb and flow of behavioral disasters breaking over me, heedless of the way their constant breaking has worn me away over the years.
When it is time for communion, my merry band of littles ones stomp down the stairs creating a cacophony that is impossibly thunderous for such tiny feet.
What is the point? I sigh, despondent. Someone somewhere must have mistaken my inward groanings for a prayer, because as we round the corner to come up the center aisle, I catch sight of my little girl’s hand enclosed in my own, and the haze of my despair lifts, giving way to the brightness of a new truth dawning inside me.
This is the point. Here in this stuffy gym, our Lord and Savior waits to greet us at the end of this aisle. And as we walk hand in hand towards our Lord, I see that this moment is an image of our lives together.
It is my divinely-appointed vocation to lead these souls to Jesus. That is why we suffer the torment of bringing the wiggly and whiny to church every week — so that they can come to know and love their Maker.
And on the really good days, I see the fruits of our labor blossoming through spontaneous prayer, sketches of Sacred Heart, playing Mass together, concern for the poor, a tiny act of virtue in love for a sibling.
But in this moment I see something new: it goes both ways.
Not only do I lead my little girl up the aisle; she is bringing me to Jesus.
She brings me to Jesus in a hundred different ways every day. She brings me to Jesus in sheer gratitude for her existence, when I pray for her, when her little faith shines forth in thousands of brilliant questions all my high school students in eight years never thought to ask.
Even more than that, she brings me to Jesus when she brings me to my knees. It’s the tough moments, all these little humiliations, the times in my motherhood when I suffer the refining fire of my own insufficiency. Whatever leads me deeper into the mystery of the limitless love of the Father covering all my faults and failings leads me into the freedom of my dependence on Him.
I can surrender to these humiliations happily, reveling in the reminder that I am never truly in control.
Maybe someday I’ll even surrender my desire for that control.
For now, we walk, hand in hand, urging each other along as divinely-appointed companions on this long, slow road to Jesus.
My husband snapped this candid shot of my and my littles on that creaky staircase in the stuffy gym on that stifling summer day, basking in the glow of relief after surviving yet another Mass with our zoo in tow.