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From the
Introduction:
"Did you always do these things?"
people ask when they meet a
family that celebrates the feasts of the Church year at home. The
answer of our family is, "No, we are one of the families that ‘picked them up.' " |
We had the Faith. We lived the
Christian year (at least, we half-lived it: if you go to church, you
can't help at least half-living it). We knew much of the doctrine,
and we had problems on which to apply it, but there seemed to be
a connection missing between the doctrine and the application — as though much of the time we were powerless to see how it applied.
To see that the Church lived the year made the difference. To
see ourselves as part of the Church, and therefore with a year to live,
was the clue. It began, for
us, with an Advent wreath and reading the fine print in the missal;
after that, we read everything we could get our hands on that
would help us.
One by one, the seasons of the Christian year began
to shape our prayer and our activity, and shed light on how we
were to use the doctrine. We were a long time reaching the point
where we fell naturally into the practices we now use to celebrate
feasts and keep vigils.
We planned things that never quite came off. We planned
things that fell through. Sometimes the family didn't respond, or
the order of the day was disturbed by some unexpected event and
we celebrated not a thing, except perhaps by way of a passing
thought that today was to have been so different — if only it had
turned out right. But looking back, some of the most valuable lessons
are learned with the failures, because this is a way of life we
hope will perfect us in doing God's will, not in having our own.
Some might protest that this is not really praying with the
Church, this making of wreaths, baking of cakes, crowning of
kings, dressing of dolls, cutting, pasting, sewing, planting; that this
is not prayer of any depth and certainly not the liturgy of the
Church.
No, but for people who are learning what the liturgy is,
and how to follow the prayer of the Church, who are making their
first attempts really to pray it, this is the way to learn. We learn to
swim in the shallow water before we are able to swim in the deep.
These delightful things to see and touch and smell and taste and hear and make and do are by far the best tools there are to teach of
the beauty and power of God, and the richness of life in Christ.
We provide the natural settings, teach the words, give the ideas,
draw the analogies, read the stories, sing the songs, tell the tales,
warm all this with our love — and God makes the increase.
We
are not trying to do His part of the job, only our own — which is
to prepare the hearts and minds of our families so that they will respond
to Him. If they love the approaches to the knowledge of His love and grace, they will be more easily led to the fountains of love and grace. |
