Rust Stains

Last week our hot water suddenly ran rusty for a day or so.I noticed it when I was filling the washing machine for a soak load of Sophia's clothes. Unfortunately, the clothes were in and the washer full before I noticed the strange dark color of the water. Needless to say, I didn't soak them and in fact ran the wash through again immediately after in cold water. And then I was in a hurry when I emptied the washer into the drier and didn't notice that some of the clothes still had rust marks. In fact, I only noticed this evening when I finally got around to folding the clothes to put them away. And just about every cute outfit now has dark waves of rusty rings.

The only advice I've been able to find for removing rust involves soaking the stain in lemon juice and setting the garment to dry in the sun. But I've got an entire load of baby outfits that are stained. I'm talking just about every outfit I own for her, including most of the long-sleeved ones which were still in the bottom of the laundry bag. Treating each stain will take a huge bag of lemons and a lot of time. Anyone know a different method or have suggestions for a shortcut?

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Sophia at Four Months

We had Sophie's 4 month checkup this morning. She weighed in at 13 lbs, 8 oz. and is now 24 inches long. Perfectly healthy and happy. Well, not so happy about getting shots.

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Book Review: A Cry of Stone

It seems I'm going to read Michael O'Brien's Children of the Last Days series completely out of order. But that also seems to be fine as so far each of the books has stood on its own. A Cry of Stone only seems to connect incidentally as far as characters go, though thematically it's of a piece with the rest of the series.

So far this is my favorite novel in the series. Actually, it may well be the best book I've read all year. Though it's almost 900 pages, I couldn't put it down and read it straight through in about three days. It's a rich story and a compelling character. Makes me wonder why Father Elijah is O'Brien's best-known work. I think this one is far deeper. Though it's been a while since I read Father Elijah... I'm going to have to go back and re-read it to really understand how it fits in with the rest of the series.

Anyway, back to A Cry of Stone....The novel's heroine, Rose Wabos is a Native American from northern Ontario, an artist, a visionary, a mystic, a cripple. She struggles both with extreme poverty and with the loss of everyone she loves as well as with a crooked spine. But Rose is a master of offering up her sufferings for others and though she never becomes a mother, she has many spiritual children.

Rose also struggles to develop her own artistic style and language in a world which is determined to pigeonhole her as a native artist but which rejects her Christian faith. The novel is colored by Rose's rich interior life. Although it is primarily a realist narrative, it full of the symbolic language that she develops in her paintings and at times it becomes much more impressionist and symbolist. it is a fascinating critique of the modern art world and yet offers hope that Christian artist's may still make a difference even if they are not recognized by the establishment.

The heart of the novel, however, is an extended meditation on poverty of spirit. Rose's physical poverty is almost incidental in comparison to her growing spiritual poverty. Although she never completely loses faith, she does walk a very dark path. Denied entrance into religious life, stripped of all consolations of friends and family and fame, as well as of spiritual consolations, still she clings all the harder to Christ, who she calls "The Beating Heart."

I feel like any words I can offer are inadequate, so I'll just say: read the book.


My comments on other books in the series:

Strangers and Sojourners

Plague Journal

Evidently I didn't write any comments after reading Father Elijah. Odd.

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A Mother's Prayers

I recently found this prayer tucked away in the back of my Liturgy of the Hours volume. I must have printed it off from some website, but I have no memory of doing so and thus don't recall where I found it. But I've started praying it every morning at the end of my morning devotions.

O God the Father of mankind, who hast given me these my children, and committed them to my charge to bring them up for Thee, and to prepare them for eternal life: help me with Thy heavenly grace, that I may be able to fulfill this most sacred duty and stewardship.

Teach me both, what to give and what to withhold; when to reprove and when to forbear; make me to be gentle, yet firm; considerate and watchful; and deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence, and the excess of severity; and grant that, both by word and by example, I may be careful to lead them in the ways of wisdom and true piety.

Pour Thy grace into their hearts, and strengthen and multiply in them the gifts of Thy Holy Spirit, that they may daily grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; and so, faithfully serving Thee here, may come to rejoice in Thy presence hereafter.

Amen.

I also pray this prayer to St. Joseph, whose origins I'm also a little foggy on.

O dear and good St. Joseph who so lovingly cared for your little family at Nazareth, pray for all working men and their families. [and especially for Dom and our family, or daddy and our family, if I'm saying it with Bella] Help us all to enjoy a happy Christian family life. Be a father to us all and watch over us even as you cherished the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Holy Child. Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and soul.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with you.

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Ave Maria Salad and the Religious Life of a Toddler

The Hail Mary is definitely Bella's favorite prayer. She says it all the time: when she's flipping through a book, when she's playing with dolly and making dolly 'say grace,' when she hears an ambulance, when she sees a statue of Mary, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Of course her version is just a jumble of various words. Tonight listening to it, I called it an Ave Maria salad: just toss and serve.

* * *

When Bella hears chant playing, she says, "Music. Music in church." Not sure how she made that connection since to the best of my knowledge she's never heard chant at Mass. Also the Pope John Paul II cd came up in the iTunes shuffle today and I told Bella, "That's Pope John Paul praying." She repeated it back to me adding, "That's John Paul praying at Mass." I definitely didn't tell her that. How she's able to make these connections mystifies me.

* * *

I've taught her to say, "Pray for us," as she looks at and names the various images of saints on her holy cards. One day while she was playing with my necklaces, she held my miraculous medal and said, "That's Holy Mary," as I'd told her, then spontaneously added, "Holy Mary, pray for us." Then looking at my cross, she said, "Jesus on the cross. Jesus, pray for us." Not thinking that was entirely appropriate, I taught her to say, "Jesus, I trust in you." Now she sweetly says, "Jesus, I trust in you," not only when looking at my cross but spontaneously throughout the day. It is so sweet, makes my heart melt.

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Reading Notes on The Religious Potential of the Child Ch 7

Prayer

Not yet participating fully at Mass, prayer is the principal way [children] nourish their baptismal life and prepare, at the same time, for active involvement in the Mass, the highest and most complete form of prayer.

First, Cavaletti says, we should become aware of how children pray, be careful not to "impose our own prayer guidelines on children" lest we extinguish "spontaneous expression of their relationship with God and give rise to the idea that when we pray we say certain fixed things."

This makes sense to me. In children's literature many child-protagonists' failed relationships with God are the result of an idea of fixed prayers that are empty of meaning for a child. Also reminds me of C.S. Lewis' account of his failures and frustrations with prayer when he was a child.

For the most part, children's prayer is expressed with few words, in short and essential phrases.

The adult should learn how to wait, convinced that silence is also prayer, and that it is in silence that the spoken expression germinates. The adult should learn to be respectful of the child's rhythm, which is much slower than our own.

True in all dealings with children. Their conversation proceeds at a much slower pace. I've noticed this when talking with Bella, especially when she's recounting things that have happened in the past. She needs a certain amount of time to pause and think but she's not necessarily done speaking, just gathering her thoughts, reflecting and dwelling in her memories.

The prayer of children up to the age of seven or eight is almost exclusively prayer of thanksgiving and praise. The adult who tries to lead the child to prayers of petition falsifies and distorts the child's religious expression. The child feels no need to ask because he knows himself to be in the peaceful possession of certain goods.

I suppose we've kind of followed this rule. While our bedtime prayers do include petitionary prayer, that is led by Dom or myself. We don't expect Bella to participate in that. She does spontaneously join in the very simple, "God bless," sorts of petitions: God bless mommy, daddy, granddad, Father Murphy, etc.


Magical Prayer

If children's prayer is--as it is--essentially thanksgiving and praise, it cannot be magical in nature. I realize I am making an affirmation in contrast to what has been stated by eminent scholars in the field; however, the fact is that in more than twenty-five years of observation I have not seen magical prayer in children, that is a prayer that tends to bend the divine will to one's own advantage.

...magic would appear to be a deviated manifestation, an indicator of an encounter with God that is not satisfying, or, better an indication that the person of God has not been presented in a way that satisfies the child.

This seems to be in response to a concern that I've not previously been aware of, not knowing the claims of the eminent scholars. I guess I've heard of magical prayer, but not in connection with children. Though I can think of many examples in literature: Huck Finn rejects both God and prayer precisely because the image of God he has been taught is so unsatisfactory. His idea of prayer is definitely magical and he has been alienated by the failure of petitionary prayer to yield immediate results. But it does seem a fairly obvious that such thinking is the result of an poor understanding of God, one which is profoundly unsatisfactory to a child.

How to Help Children's Prayer

what the adult can do is to establish the premises that will help prayer to arise. Such premises should be as indirect in character as possible, so as to allow the greatest space for the child's personal response.

Sort of like Charlotte Mason's masterful inactivity. Also reminds me of making introductions at a party of two people you hope will hit it off. You do just enough to get the ball rolling and then step out of the way.

Prayer, before it is the response of the person, is first the listening to God, thus we believe the "kerygma" [proclamation] is the departure point for an initiation to prayer.

[it] is the means with which the catechist is enabled to give the child's prayer the necessary nourishment: knowledge of God's word and His great deeds with regard to man, leaving the child to find his own response.

True for everyone, not just children. In everything God initiates and we respond.

The tasks of the catechist and parent are distinct and complementary: Without the help of parents, prayer risks being removed from the child's personal everyday life, by concentrating too exclusively on certain areas even if they are the great gestures of God in the history of mankind; without the catechist there is the danger that prayer will become impoverished within confines that are too limited and too personalized.

I can see the first part, the necessity of the parent. Catechesis outside the home is not enough, the parent must be the primary educator, especially in matters of living the faith, modeling that life of faith for the child. The second, the necessity of the catechist doesn't seem as obvious to me since I'm coming at this with the assumption that I, the parent, will also be the catechist.

We think formulae may be a useful means in the education to prayer' nevertheless, it is not without dangers. In our estimation, formulae should not be given until we are sure the child has that interior agility we mentioned, through which prayer is a genuine and spontaneous expression. An untimely use of fomulae can stifle the child's personal expression and send his spirit into the worst of sleeps.

Does she mean the child should never be exposed to formulae in any setting, or merely that they are not the proper subject of the catechesis at this stage? In the home formulaic prayers, such as the rosary, may well be a part of family devotions which unite the domestic church as a body and I cannot see that it is at all desirable that a family exclude the younger members from its corporate prayer life. In fact I think it is a positive good that the youngest children play as active a part as they are able in the prayer life of the family, that they be contributing members of the prayer community to the extent that they are able. And because of the way that young children naturally learn, if a family is in the habit of praying together, they will know many of the prayers by heart simply by nature of their repetition. It's hard to tell from what Cavaletti says here what she would think of that.

We give these very short passages so that the child can listen to them, begin to make them his own, and transcribe them if he wishes to and knows how to write. We do not spoil it be making the children memorize; this will happen naturally through the spontaneous repetition of a passage that is particularly striking.

Are the children assumed to be blank slates coming in to the catechesis? Are they not hearing and learning any prayers at home? How can one prevent young children from absorbing many of the common "formula" prayers unless they don't exist in his world outside of the catechesis experience? Bella already knows most of the Hail Mary, just from listening to us pray it. Or am I just over-reading this and should not assume that her failure to address the role of family formation doesn't imply an absence of the same?

It is our custom to present prayer formulae in connection with a point of kerygma as one form among many possible responses to what God has given us to know.

There should be a wide selection of formulae for their use; the opportunity to choose helps the child's inner adhesion to what is being said.

I suppose this clarifies somewhat. It isn't so much no formulae being taught at all as them being presented in a limited way and the child deciding on his own when to make use of them.


The Language of Prayer

"providing children with single words with which he may build his own prayer."

"every human activity...has in some way its own vocabulary, which does not enclose the individual action in a separate compartment but helps to express its unity."

she proposes prophetic names in Isaiah, also "Son of God", "The Almighty," "The Holy One," etc.

"a similar work of "nomenclature" may be done with children under three years of age, that is, during the period when the child builds his own vocabulary and is avid to learn new words."

Not clear how this latter would be done.


The Environment

prayer space with images, preferably three-dimensional, changed in relation to themes and liturgical year

prayer cloth of liturgical color, should be changed by children in solemn way

children care for space bring flowers, light candles, etc

The prayer are is not a substitute for chapel or church, but it is a very important place for the education to prayer because it is here-- more than in a chapel or church--that the child is completely comfortable and his expression will be easier and more spontaneous.

I'm a little dubious about that "more comfortable." I suspect some children would be quite at ease in a church and not at all hindered in spontaneous expression, especially if allowed to linger at some time outside of Mass when they will not disturb other worshipers. Of course, I can see that such times might not be readily available to children and so it is desirable to have space set aside where they may pray without interruption.

The whole prayer space thing is alien to my experience and I feel a little suspicious of it. On the one hand, I can understand the idea of a space set apart, a space that encourages prayer and reflection. On the other hand, it also seems kind of artificial and maybe a little cheesy.


Fixed Hours of Prayer

we think that a constant religious recall during the child's day (for example, before eating, before going to bed) may be a useful support in case prayer should be forgotten or overlooked. Nonetheless, we should not give the child the impression that one is to pray only at certain times.

Celebrations

two kinds of celebration one that closely follows Liturgy, another extemporaneous.

in liturgucal

we should be as faithful as possible to the liturgical structure, in such a way that these clebrations are not only an occasion for the children to pray, but also an occasion for their initiation into the living participation in the Liturgy.

The children have in this way points of reference that will help them orient themselves when they come to participate in the liturgy with the adult community.

extemporaneous:

in the cases where there is no structure, we need not create it. We should try to make the celebration adhere as closely as possible to what we want to celebrate, and try to make it an authentic expression of the feeling of that moment.

not be restricted to younger children but lived by both old and younger children together

catechist launches idea and offers hints "leaving the children the task of seeking out the form that corresponds to their feelings."


Silence

"an essential element in the education to prayer is silence."

not only during time when one is praying

a real education to silence, which is not just the more or less imposed cessation of noise but the silence that becomes something the child searches for and loves, the silence in which the child feels totally at home.

it is an interior silence, one that responds to the child's unspoken request to help to be recollected. therefore it should not be asked of the children when we sense they are not disposed toward it; silence is not an aid for the teacher to bring the class to order; it is a help to the meditiative spirit of the child.

Here she briefly returns to the problem of controls from ch 4:

There is no possibility [or desirability] for an academic kind of control... prayer can offer us a way of examining our work, in the sense that if the children's prayer is impoverished and empty it means the proclamation was not well given on our part. perhaps the content was poor and did not relate to the exigencies of the children's age; maybe it was not proclaimed with a sufficiently religious spirit. Therefore the problem of controls, if we may speak of them at all, concerns our way of doing catechesis, and what should be refined is not the children's prayer but our own work.

A final thought: The catechesis as it has been developed assumes a tightly controlled environment, the Atrium into which the catechist judiciously introduces the elements one at a time in a predetermined sequence. What Cavaletti describes in the book seems to me an environment essentially foreign to the domestic church. In the home such circumspection I think is neither achievable nor desirable. It seems to me thus far that there are many elements which might be adaptable from the CGS method but that some for of adaptation is definitely necessary in order to use CGS in an environment other than the atrium. Sounds like a lot of work.

Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Read the rest of the entry...

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That was odd

Well, after I administered the Tylenol, Bella's fever went down fairly quickly and she really perked up. She spent some time eating frozen grapes on the couch and drinking ice water while watching Madagascar and I was preparing to settle in to sick-nurse mode for the long haul. But before the movie was over she was up and running around, following me to the kitchen and asking for crackers and cinnamon toast. I kept waiting all night for the fever and crankiness to return as the tylenol wore off, but they never did. Today she seems her usual self.

I've heard of 24-hour bugs but I guess this was a 3 hour flu. All I can say is kids are amazingly resilient.

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Isabella and the Liturgy of the Hours

Recently when I pray Morning Prayer, I've started calling out one or two of the antiphons to Isabella, having her repeat it to me, and then I repeat it after each verse of the psalm and she echoes it back. She loves doing this, always smiles as she says the words of the prayer. And I love hearing her pray with me.

My favorite was the first time I did it. It was during the Easter season, I believe. She was being very chatty as I was trying to pray and so I started reading aloud very slowly so as to engage her. I said, "The cross of the Lord is the Tree of Life." and she echoed back, "Cross is Tree of 'ife!" and repeated it again and again with very little prompting from me.

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Sick Bella (Updated)

My girl who never gets sick is running a 102 fever. We came home from the bank this morning and rather than running about on the porch with her usual abandon while I sat and read, she stood near my chair and whined-- not fussing for anything, just whimpering.

We came inside and she curled up on the couch next to me as I nursed Sophie, which she never does. I read her a Pooh story and she cuddled close, whining occasionally. When I put Sophie down, she climbed onto my lap and fell asleep. I thought she maybe felt a little warm and she was definitely acting off, so I stuck a thermometer under her arm. Sure enough.

I've dosed her with tylenol and now she's having some ice water and frozen grapes. I'm not used to dealing with sick kids. Feel rather helpless.

Update:

I love tylenol, it's a wonder drug. Fever is gone and perky girl is playing happily again.

Of course, now sinks are running brown water.

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Finding Faith on the Web

A great article from Jen is up at Inside Catholic: Google and Ye Shall Find: The Internet and the New Evangelization:

Having a background in Web site development and marketing, and having observed Internet culture for years, I believe a strong case can be made that the particular type of communication that the Internet facilitates will lead lost souls to discover truth more readily than any medium that has come before it.

Read it here.

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God Bless Chickens...

...God bless turkeys, God bless sheeps....

This morning I met up with my sister-in-law and another mom in her homeschooling group to go strawberry picking with all the kids. As it turned out the farm in our town closes the strawberry patches on Monday and Tuesday to let them recover from the weekend so we didn't actually pick strawberries. The kids ran around in the field, playing games and picking up sticks and leaves and dandelions and clover and then we looked at the animals: emus and sheep, chickens, turkeys and peacocks. We bought strawberries at the farm store because I couldn't go home without them, Isabella had been told we were getting strawberries and would have been heartbroken (and screamed all the way home).

So tonight during bedtime prayers she began her usual litany, remembering all the highlights of the day. I've been working on channeling them into prayers so she usually adds, "God bless," to the beginning of each item on the list: God bless cousins (whom she lists by name), God bless chickens, turkeys, sheeps, bench, raisins, cup, water, flowers, strawbries, and then on into the further past, remembering seagulls and swans at the park a few weeks ago, the playground, the swimming pool, and back to her cousins again.... She'd go on all night if we let her.

How precious these little lists are! How she hoards her memories and pulls them out throughout the day like gleaming treasures to be admired. Waiting as she recites each item for me to repeat it back to her. Or, if I'm too slow on the uptake, repeating it herself again and again until I acknowledge her memory as a true one. Truly God has blessed my little girl, giving her such a beautiful world to revel in.

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Surviving the Chaos, Joyfully

Sophie, my baby who slept through the night in her second week home from the hospital, has been having trouble sleeping recently. I've been tired and cranky having a nursing baby in my bed all night. And yesterday was one of those days. I'd had only one or two baby-free hours of sleep. I woke with an itching between the fingers on my left hand that told me I'd failed to get all the mango juice off and was now going to be suffering from a rash for the next week or so. Isabella had wet through her diaper and her pjs were soaked and so were her sheets and blankets. Sophie's diaper had overflowed on her outfit and she had to be changed. Both girls were crying as I staggered into the kitchen to start breakfast. I broke a glass opening the dishwasher. I had no clean clothes as I'd failed to put a load in the washing machine the night before. I kept muttering under my breath: "I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Or, I reminded myself, I could pray. And so I did. "God," I muttered as I looked at myself in the mirror, the wailing from two children muted by the closed door, "God, I'm going to need a big heaping helping of patience today. Please help me get through this."

I scarfed down my bowl of oatmeal, grabbed screaming Sophia and headed to the living room to nurse her. Got to start today off with a prayer, I said as I grabbed my Liturgy of the Hours.

And you know what, we got through it. It started to rain as we headed out the door to the pharmacy to pick up more night-time diapers and toothpaste. But we didn't melt. And eventually there was that blissful afternoon nap when I snuggled with Sophie in my bed while Isabella slept soundly in the other room.

And I was also glad to have read Katherine's beautiful reflection about sacrifice and the vocation of motherhood, because it helped me to get through the day and reminded me to pray and to offer up my frustrations as a part of my vocation: My Gift is Chaos

So I cannot offer missed meals or refused drinks or hours on my knees before the tabernacle. But I can offer the spills of Apple Juice or Chocolate Milk and the night wakings when I cannot walk straight due to sleepiness or the squeegie diapers that explode on my skirt or even just one of those days when Cecilia needs extra attention and Felicity is teething and I am just one chaotic tornado whirling from one room to another trying to keep both girls happy and make sure both know how much they are loved. It is those moments of unplanned, unchosen chaos that I am called to offer with love and joy. Joyful chaos is my sacrifice. Joyful chaos is my gift.

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Classical Learning and Higher Education

The New Learning that Failed: On the value of classical learning

To add to the files of items diagnosing the ills of the modern academy. An interesting article that examines what exactly has been lost in universities since the classical idea of education has been jettisoned.

A couple of excerpts:

In acknowledgment of such frequent controversies and loud revisionism, the compromise is that “Western civilization” continues to metamorphose into something known as “World Civilizations”: India, China, Africa, and the New World merit roughly the same attention in the university core curriculum as the West, inasmuch as they are merely “different,” hardly less influential in the formation of Western and now global civilization. The end result is that today’s students cannot distinguish the role of Plato, Aristotle, or Cicero in the later development of political thought from the general irrelevance of Native American councils or indigenous African tribal meetings. Indeed, to do so would require both reading The Republic and having the courage to suggest informal tribal decision-making is not constitutional government.

Somewhere in all this two truths of the ancient world that had once served as the bedrock of the university were lost. The West, alone of world cultures, was self-critical and introspective, curious about other civilizations, ready to turn its own empirical standards on itself, always attempting to match its idealism with actual fact—Socrates teaching about the vanities of the wealthy, Antigone the bias of the male chauvinist, Aristophanes the contradiction of democratic egalitarianism, or Tacitus and Sallust the use of Western military power for nefarious purposes. Indeed, professors and students are now denouncing perceived Western pathologies only through a tradition of Western empiricism and free expression of thought, unavailable elsewhere.

Read the whole article here.

h/t Melissa Wiley

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The Religious Potential of the Child Reading Notes Ch 6

The Historical Events in the Life of Jesus Christ

In introducing children to the Bible, Cavaletti feels it is best to begin with the life of Christ, not with retracing the development of the covenant between God and man through its successive stages.

In our estimation, children should be initiated into their present religious reality, and fundamental to it is the presence of a mediator through whom we go to the Father. Moreover, in order to approach the Old Testament it is necessary to be able to move easily within time, and to be able to imagine customs and habits different from our own. What impression would a child receive, for example, from the account of the sacrifice of Isaac, without knowing or being able to understand that there were cultures in which the offering of a son in sacrifice was an act deemed pleasing to their deity? We maintain that the children's initiation into the Old Testament should not begin before the age of eight.

While I think it generally does make sense to begin with Christ, I'm not sure I entirely agree with holding off on the OT until age 8. I think younger children can begin to grasp God's love for mankind in the Old Testament and that God acts through history. God as creator, God as lawgiver, God who rescues his people when they are in distress.

Cavaletti advocates "concentrating solely on the passages the theological meaning of which the child can penetrate.... we cannot separate theology from history in the Bible, for if we did we would be unfaithful to the message."

She says that to give a child narrative passages when he cannot understand the theology is to risk making them into fairy tales. But I'm not clear why it is a bad thing for the Bible to be a book of stories for a child, even if he doesn't fully understand that it is history, that these stories are real in a way that fairy tales are not. Then again, doesn't the Montessori method in general avoid fairy tales and stories of that sort? I'm not sure I understand it and without understanding the rationale, it seems rather silly.

In our view it is a mistake to give children texts that are predominantly, if not exclusively, narrative in nature. As a matter of fact we think that the more articulated and detailed the narration, the greater the risk that it will obstruct the children from reaching its depth.

I suppose she has more experience with how children relate to the materials presented. Perhaps this is wisdom gained from observation. If so, there are no anecdotes to support these claims.

I suppose I could see keeping Bible stories out of the catechesis program if they don't seem to add much to a child's growing relationship with God; but it there real harm done if they enjoy the Bible stories as narrative now outside of the catechesis and later have them integrated into it? Surely one can't and shouldn't keep children from hearing the Bible stories, especially in a homeschooling context or a family context in which the whole family gathers to listen to readings. I'm thinking especially of traditions like the Jesse Tree in Advent which involve the whole family. It seems silly and impractical to segregate younger children from older in this matter. The Bible is the word of God and while we may choose which parts to focus more closely on with children at different stages, I don't think we should prevent them from listening to whatever parts are presented to the community at large.

I do not think it right that the child first know certain facts, and only at a later time enter into their theological significance. I believe that an event learned only as a story (or legend) will stay a story even when the child is grown, and it will be extremely difficult to recover its theological content later on.

This seems to fly in the face of the entire history of catechesis and certainly is contradicted by my own experience and the experiences of most adults I know. Children have always learned their Bible stories from an early age and somehow managed to learn to plumb their theological depths appropriately as they grow in understanding. Certainly, if the stories are never re-introduced later when the children gain in their ability to understand their theological significance, they will remain only fables. I certainly have seen much evidence of that happening. But in those cases I would think the blame lies not in the stories being introduced too early but in insufficient time being given to unpacking their meaning at the appropriate time.

She suggest using children's drawings as a guide to judge their readiness: "If the child, in relation to a specific biblical passage, only knows how to draw descriptive rather than interpretive illustrations, then it is better to avoid that text; it is obvious his understanding has stayed on a level of superficiality." Again, I can see this as a guide to developing an age-appropriate formal catechetical program; but it seems impractical in terms of an actually lived faith in the domestic church and homeschool.

The Prophecies

Thus for children under six CGS limits Old Testament to "a selection of a few, short prophetic passages during the season of Advent."

Prophetic language is composed of images and consequently corresponds very well to the capacities of even young children.

She cites Isaiah, "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light" as it connects to the image of Christ the Light. Also the text from Isaiah that announces the light bearer as a child with wonderful names: "Wonder Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

What seems important to us is that the texts be few in number, brief in length and formulated in images.

Our aim is to offer images and expression that are striking to and readily grasped by the children.

She adds that the various names of the Messiah furnish the child with a language of prayer.


The Incarnation

In the New Testament focus on parables, and events of birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ; but greatly restrict discussion of miracles:

It seems to us that the particular power Jesus manifested in working miracles should not be separated from the consideration of that power He continues to exercise through the Church. But to achieve this unity with the children has proved difficult up to the present. On the other hand, the miracles considered on their own can tempt the children, in our view, into the world of magic that many assert to be indivisible from the religiousness of the young child; however it is a quality we
have never seen in children, except for that magic which has been induced by the adult.

This part, frankly, mystifies me. I don't understand the caution. Again, I have a vague notion that Montessori frowns on fairy stories and tales with magic in them. I don't have a problem with either and I don't see why it should be problematic. Though it seems like she might address this matter further in later chapters.

The events of Christ's infancy appear rather difficult due to the misuse that is generally made of them by often telling them (with many diminutives!) as if they were beautiful fables.

She's lost me again. I'm more of the Lewis Tolkien school of Jesus' life being the "true myth". Is that really beyond children's grasp?

The Lucan texts we have been speaking about also emphasize a great contrast; many expressions have an awesome grandeur, others refer to a very simple reality... These contrasts are not without significance; they bring us face to face with the wonderful reality of the Child: son of woman, like each one of us, and Son of God!

The catechist should have this contrast in mind when speaking with the children, so as to lead them to ask themselves, full of wonder: But who can this Child be? In this way we will accustom the children to the fact that the biblical text contains something to be discovered, which is to be read in depth, which is not readily exhaustible. In this way we will educate the children to humility in facing the Word of God.

I rather like this idea. Though am not exactly clear how it plays out in practice.

Meditation and Prayer on the Mystery of the Incarnation

As with parables, episodes presented one at a time, narrated in catechist's own words, then gospel read solemnly and that followed by a reflection. "we should feel ourselves personally involved in the listening and the response to the text."

sample reflection included:

"The words the angel proclaimed to the Mother of God are addressed to us as well, to me too. How shall we respond? Mary expressed her joy saying: 'My soul magnifies the Lord!' Her joy is mine too.... And how shall I express it?... The Magi came to the crib after a long journey. They knelt down before Him, they worshiped Him and brought Him gifts. But now we too are around the crib. I am here too. What shall we do? What shall we say?"

Introduce samples of prayer: the angel's greeting (beginning of the Hail Mary), Magnificat, Gloria of angels, Nunc Dimittis of Simeon.

I like this idea. Praying with scripture. This is of course the basis for the Liturgy of the Hours. I am accustomed to praying the Magnificat at Evening Prayer and Nunc Dimittis at Night Prayer. I'm already in the habit of reciting a short antiphon occasionally and having Bella repeat it as I say my prayers. She enjoys it and it seems quite a natural way for her to pray.

Such examples should be offered to the children with great discretion so as not to stifle their own personal prayer. If we wish to give the Magnificat, for instance, we restrict ourselves to suggesting only the first verse

I agree that children should learn to pray in their own words, in set prayers, and in the words of scripture. I can see why suggesting short verses is most appropriate for young people. Not so sure about the idea of stifling their prayer with words of scripture.

We give a text like this as one example among many of the ways one may respond to God, as a stimulus to personal prayer, so that each person finds in his own heart his response to the Lord Who speaks to His creatures.

This is of course the basic idea of Lectio Divina: the scripture is the starting point of the conversation, a stimulus to prayer. I think this is well put.

The material for the infancy narratives is different from that for parables:

The figures are three-dimensional, and the historical character of these events permits and requires research into details to make the scene more living. The difference between parable and historical events should be clear even from the material itself.

Interesting. It wasn't clear from earlier chapters that parable materials were two-dimensional.

Material reconstructions help children who can't read to recall biblical content. Much like stained glass and other figurative narratives in older churches. But interactive as children are hands-on learners.

Cites child who prays before crib: "I say to him: Allelulia to the mighty God."

Expressions like these are a warning for us not to use baby talk with children, not to minimize what they know how to receive in all its greatness. We have observed how easily we speak in diminutives, whereas the child speaks of "the mighty God."

Definitely agree with this. Adults too often underestimate what very young children are capable of.

The drawings of the children unite the child Jesus and the Good Shepherd... another demonstration that the children do not stop at the fact itself, but rather through it they contemplate the mystery of Christ's person.

Biblical Geography

In our view it is important that the historical events also have materials relative to their geographical reconstruction in order to let the children know how to situate them in a point in space. This material helps them to concretize the events.

I was talking about this idea the other day with Dom. I think I would have benefited from some map work. It wasn't until shockingly late that I made connections between biblical narratives and geography and history in my other classes. Religion and the Bible were always pigeonholed for me and did not connect to what I thought of as "real history". This in relation to Indiana Jones. I don't think when I first saw the movie I really had any idea what the Ark was supposed to be, how it connected to the Bible, where everything was supposed to take place. The idea of putting Biblical events on a map was really quite foreign to me. Of course a major advantage to homeschooling is being able to dismantle the artificial separation between different areas of knowledge.

materials: globe of world, dry land is white only color is red of Israel.
plastic relief model of Palestine
relief model of city of Jerusalem

re events of the passion restricted to indicating location of Cenacle, house of Caiaphas, Antonia Tower, Temple, Garden of Olives, Calvary, tomb of resurrection.

texts with details of the passion should not be given to children:

At times these passages go into details that arouse horror, such as we could not bear in relation to anyone dear to us; why then should we dwell on them with respect to Jesus? We risk inciting sentiments that should not be aroused. We concentrate on the Last Supper, the death and resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I suppose age-appropriate is the factor. I suppose the assumption must be that children will naturally hear the accounts of the passion at Mass, but we don't invite them to meditate on them outside of that?

The Death and Resurrection

is when the Good Shepherd parable is rooted in history.

the proclamation of the death of Christ should never be disjoined from the announcement of His resurrection... we do not even pause temporarily on the death alone, considering it perhaps it a well-known fact that the death was followed by the resurrection

Absolutely.

Death is a common event; many men have had the courage to face death for love of their brothers. What is absolutely new is that in Jesus, death is followed by renewed and eternal life

it seems appropriate to avoid long accounts of the passion in order to balance the length of the passion narration with the account of the resurrection.

form should follow meaning, to emphasize resurrection one must in a way de-emphasize the passion. I can see this with children. Too long a meditation on the passion might swallow the resurrection and lessen its impact.

The parables leas especially to meditation and through it to prayer; the infancy narrative lead more directly to personal and spontaneous prayer; the paschal events adapt themselves especially to be lived by the children in more structured celebrations.... frequently retrace the great services of Holy Week and Easter triduum... become a direct initiation into the Liturgy of the Church.

Pentecost

Our catechesis is Christocentric, as we have said, but it is obviously Christological-Trinitarian. The person of the Father is illuminated particularly through the Mass: it is the Father who sends us the gift of Christ's presence, and it is to the Father that we make our offering as the expression of our gratitude. We also speak of the Father especially in relation to the Annunciation...

The Holy Spirit's work appears obvious to them, and they know how to recognize it spontaneously in the most important moments... it is through the spirit that Jesus was born and raised from the dead-- and also through the liturgies of Eucharist and Baptism. Therefore the children know the Holy Spirit's work both in the person of Jesus Christ Himself and in His continuing work within the Church.

What has been particularly enlightening for the children in relation to the holy Spirit is to see His action in the Eucharistic presence. When we hit on this point there was what Montessori would have called an "explosion": Starting with this essential aspect, the children then knew how to see with ease the Spirit's many other manifestations.

Finally:

The presentation of sacred scripture--parables of historical narratives-- should never be disunited from prayer, in a structured or unstructured form. The proclamation is complete when it has been received, and, in one form or another, when it has been given a response.

This would seem to require a great deal of deliberation on the part of the catechist. The point isn't to impart information but to proclaim the person of Christ, to initiate the child into prayer. This is so much more demanding than most classroom-based catechesis, which means well but misses this most important dimension. If the proclamation fails to result in prayer, then what really has been communicated? Not the presence of the living God who is Truth, merely dry, lifeless facts that have no connection to the inner life of the child and that fail to connect the child to God.

Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

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Catholic, Reluctantly

Catholic, Reluctantly by Christian M. Frank is the first in the new John Paul 2 High series edited by Regina Doman and published by Sophia Institute Press.

Imagio Catholic Fiction seeks to counter the despair, cynicism, and amorality of today's youth fiction with stories for young readers that feed faith and build virtue.

Our books are not disguised sermons but compelling stories told in a contemporary voice: entertaining young readers while at the same time presenting to them a moral universe in which God is real and active, and in which religion, family, and friendship are goods to be reverenced.

Slightly reminiscent of Madeleine L'Engle's Austen series; but with a focus on school rather than family. The novel follows two students, George and Allie who have just started at JP2 high. It is a tiny school-- only 7 students!-- founded by a group of Catholic parents after one of the parents was fired from the local Catholic high school for teaching Humanae Vitae.

As advertised, the novel does not read like a sermon. It had characters I could identify with, real people not plaster saints. For example, when a practical joke sends a group of the students to evangelize the local public school, they are all uncomfortable at being put on the spot and the only guy to pass out the leaflets was using them to chat up cute girls. I'm shy and hate being put on the spot and would definitely not do well in a similar situation. It was reassuring that the students were likewise ill at ease. I couldn't have related to the happy missionary type.

Both George and Allie struggle with their parents' decisions to pull them out of their former schools (George from a local Catholic high school, Allie from a public school.) as well as with fitting in at their new school and trying to come to terms with their Catholic identity. Also each of them faces a series of moral dilemmas, the major conflict centering around the wrestling team at the local public high school that George and fellow JP2er, Brian, join.

Allie has been pulled from public school because she was the victim of a violent attack. She doesn't know much of anything about her faith, though she is nominally Catholic. Allie's boyfriend is the wrestling team captain and of course in the course of the book she faces a choice between her new friends at JP2 High and her boyfriend and old circle of friends at the public school.

I liked that the Catholic kids at JP2 are self-aware about their faith but also about how they must seem to the outsider, Allie. "we must seem really weird to you," Celia, the principal's daughter says on the first day of classes. And later, when Allie asks, "Can't you guys look at anything without thinking of Mary, or Jesus, or something?" Celia and George pretend to be zombies, joking, "We... can't....help it," and, "we're...Catholic."

The novel is very up to date, with the characters text messaging back and forth (which might make it soon dated as technology advances). At times it rides the line, seeming a little too earnest to be relevant. But every time it started to seem like too much, it pulled back just enough.

One touch I really liked, that actually won me over, was a poem by David Craig that is introduced on the first day of class that personifies Truth as a sort of jokester:

If it's there, it will stick a foot out
as you pass; he will hold his side laughing
as you fall...
It will be more than you expected.

But then, of course, you must decide
what you're going to do with him.
He might start to follow you around --

You can just picture him
down on the corner with the boys
trying to fit in-- your friends will hate him

No sir,
you won't be able to take him anywhere.

The poem starts to haunt Allie; "The Truth Guy" becomes her developing conscience. It's really the theme of the novel, I suppose. Truth is that uncomfortable tag-along that you don't want to introduce to your friends, that eventually makes you decide between him and your friends. Anyhow, I like the image and I liked the way the novel picked it up and ran with it, making the truth almost a character.



A while back Dom received a review copy of a book from a Catholic author and passed it on to me to read and review because it wasn't really his sort of book. Well, I didn't really like it. It felt forced, the kind of overtly Catholic book in which the author's message gets in the way of the storytelling. The character spent too much time thinking about being Catholic, thinking about moral issues, in a way that didn't seem at all necessary to the story and felt forced onto him from without rather than arising in an organic way. The novel also had some structural issues and I just didn't click with the characters or the plot. I couldn't find a nice way of saying any of this and I didn't want to trash the book after the author had given it to me for free, so I dropped it and said nothing. Today, I might be better able to articulate the issues without sounding negative, but at the time I really couldn't.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that the issues that book had, the kinds of issues that generally make me leery of overtly Catholic fiction, don't exist in Catholic, Reluctantly. Or at least the Catholic stuff doesn't get in the way of my enjoying the story.

One thing that actually helps Catholic, Reluctantly in that regard is, in fact, the genre. As a school story, it necessarily has a certain sort of structure and that framework guides the story and gives a reason for the overt Catholicity in the problems the characters face. Because the novel is set in a small, parent-run Catholic school, the conflicts are natural to that setting and don't feel forced upon the characters. The Catholic school setting determines the plot, I suppose the school itself is a sort of character, and thus the Catholic teens seem entirely natural as they wrestle with moral issues and with their Catholic identity for they are doing what all teens do, trying to assert or perhaps to discover their identities and the forum in which they do so shapes the process.

If you don't like the genre, this won't be a book for you. But I think it's pretty good at not being preachy or sentimental. My one caveat would be that it might be a little dark for some younger readers as it deals with issues of bullying and pornography.

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Farmer's Market Saturday

Isabella's first gingerbread man. He didn't put up much of a fight.

Saturday morning we went to the farmer's market for the first time this season. We didn't buy much because I went grocery shopping yesterday and forgot that I should hold off on purchasing produce.

But we got a carton of lovely ripe strawberries which Bella immediately dove into. And a loaf of ciabatta for dinner. We also tried out a new Indian restaurant that had a stand with a small selection of dishes. The chicken tikka masala was the best I've had, it came with a samosa, some naan and a chickpea dish which were also excellent. Add a side of Thai fresh rolls with greens, mango and avocado, and it was a lovely picnic lunch.

Then after we got home I sampled a log of the new cardamom orange flavor goat cheese from our favorite cheese vendor. As the maker had promised, it made a lovely accompaniment to the zucchini lemon muffins I made yesterday. (I wish I could recall who posted the recipe for the lemon zucchini muffins, they are delicious and I'd love to write a thank you note. I'd thought it was Karen Edmisten, but when I went to her blog I couldn't find the post so if must have been someone else.)

I sure will miss this market when we move.


see the rest of Dom's pictures here

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"What Makes a Catholic Writer?" and Other Scattered Thoughts

Or maybe the question is: What Is Catholic Imagination?

I've been reading mainly Catholic writers recently: Rumer Godden, Michael O'Brien, Jon Hassler, Dean Koontz, Regina Doman. Not that I planned it that way, it just sort of happened. And you know it's kind of nice to read books about Catholic characters. (Not that all the characters in all the books are Catholic, mind you. Many of the books aren't identifiably Catholic except that the author happens to be, others have something Catholic about them, but it's harder to define.) But even more to the point, I suppose, it's nice to read books with a Catholic world view. It's sort of restful. Reassuring. Or something. I'm not exactly sure what word I'm looking for; but there's something there, a sense of proportion, a depth, a sense of order in the chaos of the modern world.

Anyway, I've been wondering if there's a distinction to make between "Catholic fiction" and fiction by Catholic writers. Plenty of Catholic writers write about characters who aren't specifically Catholic and with nothing overtly religious in their stories. Others write overtly spiritual works but still without Catholic characters (think Flannery O'Connor). And still others write Catholic characters thinking Catholic thoughts and stories with Catholic themes. So which of the above do we mean when talking about Catholic fiction?

Awhile back when I started writing this post there was something in the air and many people were writing about Catholic art, Catholic fiction and related topics. There's some idea dancing in my peripheral vision that I can't quite get down. I'm not even sure exactly what I'm trying to say. But somewhere in here is a point.

Some good thoughts to get started in this blog entry at Inside Catholic which quotes from a Robert F. Gotcher piece in Homelitic and Pastoral Review.

Also see this post, which actually inspired the former: What Happened to Popular Catholic Fiction?, which has a lively discussion in the comments section.

I'd particularly like to highlight Regina Doman's comment (I hope no one minds if I quote at length):

For years I've heard the question "why bother with Catholic fiction?" for many of the reasons enumerated above, including the arguments, "Why copy the Protestants?" "Why not just get our kids to read the classics?" and let's not forget "But isn't every really good book 'Catholic' in some sense anyhow?"

For myself, I am a Catholic who is a writer and who also writes for Catholics. For those who think that every "good" writer would just write for universally "good" books, I would say that I have found for myself, that is too vague. To quote or paraphrase William Carlos Williams, "I write for myself, and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time."

In my case, I have found my "friends" are serious Catholics. And yes, I deliberately write for them, the kind of stories that I know that they will particularly enjoy. This means, btw, that I can't preach, because the choir finds preaching boring. I write stories that speak from my experience to their experience: the way I phrase it is "I write books about people like us."

I hear people sniff at this concept all the time, but this isn't an extraordinary concept. Almost every serious writer understands the concept of genre. Dorothy Sayer and Chesterton wrote mysteries, darn good mysteries. Hansen and O'Connor wrote/write adult literary fiction. Occasionally great works transcend the categories, as does Harry Potter, (and Tolkien, who created his own genre) but the fact is, by the time they are adults, most people choose a reading genre and stick with it. So I tell writers not to ignore the concept of genre. A book that could be read and enjoyed "by anyone" is a book that is likely not going to get read by anyone. Categories are a writer's friend: use them! Pick the genre you like best and master it.

So for the past few three years I have been working with Sophia Press on what I have termed "Catholic genre fiction": books written by Catholics for a specifically Catholic readership. This is, by definition, lowbrow fiction, and as Amy has noted (I love when Amy writes on this topic, because she's so knowledgeable, btw), there used to be lots of it in the past. Some of it is somewhat timeless (Mr. Blue being one example) but most of it does fall by the wayside. That's okay. A serious writer doesn't produce a classic by aiming to, but by aiming to please the readers before him in the here and now. And that fiction from the 50's did please its readership then. It succeeded.

There are many other good comments too, but this one seemed most pertinent to whatever I'm trying to get at.


And then beginning to traipse a little further afield, but still related: Mrs Darwin muses on books for children:

I've been looking over the Mass books that Darwin has been researching, and I'm appalled by the amateur and/or saccharine quality of what's considered acceptable children's illustrations. The garish, childish pictures in the modern books are certainly different from the anemic blond pansy Christ depicted in children's devotional works of decades past, but it's hard to argue that they're an improvement. There's always a place for the amateur looking to improve his craft, but the job of teaching a child to appreciate the beauty of the Mass ought not to be compromised by the aggressive childishness in teaching aids.

On a positive note, I've been delighted by the illustrations in Inos Biffi's Illustrated Catechism, which seem to take seriously a child's ability to appreciate what is beautiful. Also, Caryl Houselander's illustrations in My Path to Heaven are intricate, detailed line drawings that inspire admiration as well as meditation. And the gentle style of Ben Hatke's artwork in Regina Doman's Angel in the Waters are elegant in their simplicity.

Certainly, there's no shortage of ugly artwork in secular books. But Christians seem particularly disposed to excuse mediocrity on the grounds of devotional sincerity.

And though this is not really about fiction, it's sort of related: Jimmy Akin asks "Why Is Christian Art So Lame These Days?"

And finally, Barbara Nocolosi discusses "our Christian shame which is the whole universe of Christian schlock which has substituted in our generation for the Cathedrals and gorgeous choral music and astounding works of literary and visual art that our ancestors in faith used to bring into the world":

Rosin is wondering what the sub-popular culture of "Christian" novels and comedians and, I would add, movies, adds to the faith of Christians, or the good of the larger world.

...It's for us Christians to ask ourselves why we have created a parallel universe. What turned us from being yeast in the lump, into being hoarders of the gifts we were given, fearful and disdainful of the world outside that we were supposed to love and renew?

All of which adds up to... what? It's late, I've lost my train of thought. I'll try to collect it tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the interest of moving forward and not stagnating, I'll go ahead and post these half-baked thoughts.

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Don't Let Them Loose on the Playground

Dom and I are still eating dinner, Bella has decided she's done and is running around and occasionally eating a bite from my plate. Sophia is in the baby rocker on the floor next to my chair.

I look down and see Bella holding her dolly by both arms, dangling the doll right by Sophia's feet. Sophia, as usual, is kicking strongly with both feet. And thus is pummeling poor dolly's head. I laughingly describe the scene to Dom on the other side of the table.

"Bullies!" he exclaims.

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Holy Sippy Cup, Bat Girl!

Every night we begin our family prayer time with each of us blessing everyone else with holy water. Isabella frequently gets excited and wants to touch everyone's forehead multiple times. Tonight as we were saying prayers I looked up to see her sprinkling water from her sippy cup into her hand and reaching out towards Dom's forehead.

"The water in your sippy cup is not holy water," I told her.

I know there's a book called Please Don't Drink the Holy Water, I guess this is related.

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Catholic Teen Fiction: Do Catholic Kids Need Catholic Heroes?

I've been sitting on my review of Catholic, Reluctantly for a while now. Actually since before Sophia was born.

I've been pondering and mulling things over and can't decide how to start, what is my entry point. Because really I've got several different topics that I want to write on that are all twisted up together and I can't seem to untangle them into separate blog posts and yet they seem too massive to just lump together.

There's the review of the book itself and then there's this whole other discussion of what Regina Doman, the series editor, and the folks at Sophia Institute Press dub "Catholic genre fiction" and then a broader question about Catholic fiction, Catholic authors that I can't even begin to pin down.

But it's been haunting me at one in the morning and I'm losing sleep. So maybe I'll just jump in with this caveat that it's probably going to be a series of posts as I try to get my handle on a topic that I'm not even exactly sure how to define. (Sort of in the spirit of Jen's Half-Baked Thought Thursday.) Ugh, I really hate this sort of thinking out loud, I like to have my ideas all neatly sorted before I begin to write, but in this case I'm hoping that the act of writing will help me sort out what I think.

Catholic Fiction for Teens

So to begin with the question of Catholic genre fiction, here's the text of a promotional email Dom received from Sophia (roughly edited by me to remove a bunch of extra spacing and skipped a bit of text but no words added I apologize if it affects the meaning in any way):

The Lord of the Rings
Redwall Abbey
Little House on the Prairie
The Chronicles of Narnia.
My twelve kids have read all these books, and they're eager for more . . . which is good because these books teach virtue while they entertain. . . but for Catholic kids, they're not enough. Catholic kids also need to read novels with Catholics as heroes. Stories where the Faith is central and active, not buried in symbolism that only great efforts can penetrate.

Tales as gripping as those of Tolkien, as charming as those of Laura Ingalls Wilder . . . stories whose heroes are not moles or wizards, but Catholics just like them, ---struggling with issues that concern us all: not only goodness and honor and courage (which are themes in all good books) but God and suffering, prayer and forgiveness, the evil that lurks in our own hearts, and how to live as Christians in a world that mocks Christ.

For years I've wanted to give my kids novels like that, but I can't find any.

Protestant publishers put hundreds of them out each year, and some are o.k. --- but they're not Catholic; neither in their theology (which can be anti-Catholic) nor in the ways their characters act, think, and pray.

A Catholic equivalent to those books? There is none. So we parents here at Sophia Institute Press have just launched Imagio Catholic Fiction, a new imprint to provide the kind of overtly Catholic fiction that once was common, but is no more.

[snip]

Students at John Paul 2 High School talk and act like real teens today --- and like real Catholics.

They struggle with the doubts, insecurities, relationship crises, and mood swings that afflict teens in Sweet Valley High stories and on prime-time dramas . . .

. . . but unlike those secular tales, marred as they are by nihilism and moral relativism, books in the John Paul 2 High series are Catholic to the core.

Kids in them face problems common to teens today, but (without becoming saccharine or wimpy)
they work through those problems as Catholics should, relying on prayer, forgiveness, and self-denial . . . even when cool kids mock them for it.

Which makes John Paul 2 High not just a Catholic alternative to modern teen books, but a Catholic antidote to them.

So the basic premise behind the idea of the new John Paul 2 High series of books is that Catholic kids need Catholic heroes. It's a sort of Catholic Sweet Valley High, teen boys and girls attending a very small startup private high school dealing with real world problems.

I'm really of two minds about this premise and I can't decide if I love it or hate it or something in between. And that makes it really hard to review the book.

C.S. Lewis says if you don't even like a genre, you have no business reviewing books in that genre. So I think I need to sort through what I think about the idea of Catholic genre fiction before I try to sort through what I think about the novel.


Is it the Marketing or the Material Being Marketed?

Now I want to separate out my feelings about the promotional material from my feelings about the matter it's promoting. The whole LOTR, Redwall, Little House, Narnia isn't enough thing kind of got my back up. Those are my treasured childhood (except for Redwall) they're poking at.

And yet in recent years as Dom and I have struggled to find books for his very bookish and rather pious (perhaps even a little scrupulous) nephew, who after reading LOTR declared there were no good books left; and as I've begun the long process of building a library for our family, acquiring new books, sorting through old books and deciding what to keep and what to toss; and as I've been growing into a new maturity in my faith and looking at the world now more and more through the eyes of a mother, well, now I'm getting to the point where I can see their point.


Catholic Heroes for Kids: A couple of cases in point from my recent reading.

What a surprise, a joyful eye-opening experience to read Hilda Van Stockum's Canadian Summer, just your average family holiday adventure story, except the family is Catholic. It wasn't really even an important part of the story, just a part of the fabric of the story much as the Canadian setting. But in one amusing episode the family goes to mass, there's also a brief incidental discussion of Blessed Kateri. Not much but it did strike me how novel it was. When I was a child I don't think I read anything like it, stories about children who were Catholic like myself.

Likewise with Calico Bush, the heroine is a French Catholic girl who becomes an indentured servant to a Protestant family in America after her relatives die. It has some of the pioneering spirit of the Little House books and yet there's also a Catholic note that Laura Ingalls Wilder never strikes. In my favorite scene from the novel Marguerite goes out into the woods on Christmas Eve and is feeling quite blue because to the Protestant family Christmas is just another day. She meets an Indian in the woods who greets her in her own tongue, with "Noel". She impulsively gives him a present and finds her spirits lifted at the encounter.

When I read each of these books (written in 1948 and 1931 respectively), I had a feeling of wistfulness, wishing I'd read them when I was a child. And I was glad I'd discovered them to hand on to my own daughters so that in addition to Sara Crewe and Laura Ingalls and all the rest of my dear childhood companions, they might also know some Catholic children.


Not Enough?

So while I might not go so far as to say my dear treasured friends were not enough, I am glad to find new friends to add to the company. And I do think there is a solid point to be made about the "nihilism and moral relativism" of so much of what one finds on the shelf in the "young adult" section of the local big box bookstore. I've certainly spilled plenty of ink on the topic about the problem of the "problem novel".

But on the other hand, I'm wary of using Protestant fiction as a model. I think too often that model sacrifices art for ideology. The first goal should be simply good storytelling. Having an ulterior motive often warps and twists the art and creates something lesser, shriveled, unworthy. And should we strive to create a Catholic ghetto in which we have a Catholic version of everything in the popular culture?

I'm on the fence. I am alternately attracted and repelled, skeptical and yet also somewhat excited.


I've got more thoughts, more questions. But I think this is a good place to stop for tonight. More tomorrow with links to other discussions about Catholic fiction and Catholic art. And eventually I'm going to get around to actually discussing the novel, Catholic Reluctantly.

Please, please, please, dear readers, jump in with your thoughts on the matter in the comment box. I'd love to have a good discussion on the topic to help me clarify my half-baked thoughts and I know you've got something to say.

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Book Review: Mr. McFadden's Hallowe'En

Mr. McFadden's Hallowe'En by Rumer Godden.

A commenter recently asked if I'd read any of Godden's children's books (Sorry, I can't remember who asked or what post the comment was on.) I hadn't but I realized I did have two of her children's books on my to be read shelf and decided this was a prompting to suggest what I should read next.

Mr. McFadden's Hallowe'en is a traditional story about a bunch of misfits-- two children named Selina and Tim and a pony named Haggis as well as the Mr. McFadden of the title-- who live in a little village on the Scottish Border.

Selina is a dreamy girl who just can't seem to get along with the other children. She befriends the younger Tim who lives with his aunt who neglects him and beats him. Her pony Haggis leads her to Mr. McFadden's farm and prompts an unusual friendship among the group. Mr. McFadden is a solitary, crotchety old man who seems to never have been loved by anyone until Selina and Tim show up. Selina is shocked that Mr. McFadden has never experienced a Hallowe'en and is determined he shall do so now.

There's also an inheritance and a land dispute and a warm happy ending. Great details about Scottish Hallowe'en customs including carving turnips. A charming story for young readers and old if not exactly unpredictable.

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Poor Phia!

I just noticed that the back of Sophia's pudgy little calf is gouged and scraped and scratched. I can only guess that she's been cutting herself with her toenails. I suppose I need to do better with trimming them, though they didn't seem especially long.

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Generous and Thoughtful, That's Bella

Dom posted about Bella giving away part of her cupcake at a party we attended on Saturday. It reminds me that I haven't told about Bella and the bread.

Most Saturdays Dom, our resident baker, makes a loaf of honey whole wheat bread, my favorite. Bella calls it "Daddy bread" and eats slice after slice. It's hard to get her to eat anything else once a loaf is out of the oven.

But as much as Bella loves her bread, the first thing she does when Dom cuts her a slice is to bring a part of it to me.

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Picture Book review: I Believe: The Nicene Creed

Illustrated by Pauline Baynes, who so beautifully illustrated the original Chronicles of Narnia (which I still have in the hardcover volumes from my childhood.)

This is an absolutely breathtaking book done in a medieval illuminated style. The endpapers are a stylized depiction of heaven earth and hell: a band of blue with angels and stars over a band of green with plants and animals and a woman and a man with a book which in turn is over a band of red with flames and demons. The title page has a lovely medallion of the nativity surrounded by vines and flowers and birds with a figure kneeling in adoration on a vine with a serpent's head. Young children will love finding all the various birds and animals and people that fly and crawl and swim across the pages.

The images are also rich with theological significance, calling on all the history of Christian iconography and teaching the faith through images. For example, the verse "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God" shows a depiction of the Trinity: God the Father, two hands in a sunburst pouring out light on the Son upon whom also descends the Spirit in the form of a dove, all surrounded by coiling vines and a serpent and various birds and beasts and fish.

"Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man": The picture has a large nativity with adoring shepherds but also has an annunciation with a kneeling Mary with a prayer book, an emphatic angel and a descending dove. And a dog, cat, mouse, peacock, snail, sheep, ox and ass.

A short catalog of other images:

The crucifixion also has medallions of the passion: the judgment of Pilate, the scourging, the burial in the tomb, as well as the cock and the crown of thorns.

A glorious resurrection sequence; traditional images of the four evangelists along with Moses and a prophet.

The Last Judgment with an angel who hold a balance and a sword, more demons and a lovely Tree of Life.

An image of the Eucharist in a medieval oratory (ad orientem), paired with the Last Supper.

Images of baptism of an infant paired with the baptism of Christ and a group kneeling to receive the Eucharist.

The resurrection of the dead and a soul approaching the gate of heaven which opens to his touch.



Although the book was published in 2003, the text is an older language (is this what is still used in Britain?), not the text of the creed that an American child will be familiar with from Sunday mass. However, I find it a much more beautiful language and far more appropriate with the gorgeous illustrations. Definitely a must-add to any library, even if you don't have children.

I was lucky enough to find a library-bound edition in pristine condition on Amazon, a library in Oregon must have been clearing books out of it's collection that were too religious or unfortunately never read. Too sad to see a library getting rid of such a beautiful book (to be replaced with dreck no doubt); but our gain.

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It's the Stick's Fault

This afternoon I took Bella out to play while Sophia was having her nap. I sat in a chair on the porch while Bella wandered around, up and down the porch steps, playing in the pots full of dirt, pushing her wagon around, and waving sticks in the air. At one point she had a long stick, almost as tall as she is, and was waving it uncomfortably close to me. Just as I admonished her to watch out, she whacked my arm. I took the stick from her and tossed it off the porch and into the grass. She flung herself down on the porch and screamed.

"Well," I said, "I told you to be careful and you hit mama. That hurt me. If you can't be careful, the stick has to go. You still have the short stick." But she eventually went down and retrieved the longest of the three pieces that her stick had broken into when it landed.

And some time later she was right back on the porch, waving it about again. And just as I was warning her, the stick flew up and hit her on the forehead. She got a stunned look on her face. Then she marched over to the porch steps and threw the stick down onto the sidewalk, as if to say: Take that! Because, of course, it was the stick's fault.

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The Religious Potential of the Child Reading Notes Ch 5

Chapter Five: Christ the Light and Baptism

Cavaletti begins by saying that for every subject a "linking point" is necessary, "an especially striking element that emphasizes the vital nucleus of the theme."

The subject presented is contained in the linking point as a tree is contained in the seed, in a way that is capable of opening to us an ever greater and deeper knowledge....It is not necessarily the most important liturgical or theological element; in Baptism, for instance, the linking point is the light.

Light has an immediate effect on the sense and it is psychologically gratifying and reassuring; thus the child associates the image of Christ the Light with the Good Shepherd and consequently the effect of the former image is reinforced.

Of course, to an adult the more obvious sign of baptism would be water, but I can see why light is perhaps a more fruitful entry point for young children. Of course they will notice the water and learn about it, but in some ways the light is more theologically rich on the level at which they are able to access.

We live theology in the Liturgy, and the baptismal signs let us participate in the death and resurrection of Christ by making us "see" this reality through the darkness-light contrast. The baptismal material the children work with consists of the liturgical signs of the sacrament, which are highlighted one at a time; in fact, the material contains nothing apart from these signs.

One of the things I like so far about CGS is the incarnational aspect of the materials. As Cavaletti suggests here, there is no need to invent materials in order to present baptism, the sacrament itself is rich enough.

Children already know the prophecy of Messiah-Light in Isaiah and Easter Liturgy of Light. So baptismal presentations build on that knowledge, begin with sign of paschal candle.

I absolutely love the Liturgy of the Light at Easter and I noticed at Sophia's baptism that the moment I started to tear up was not when father poured the water over her head so much as when my nephew went to light her candle from the Paschal candle on the altar. That image of the small candle that represents my daughter being lit directly from the Christ candle is somehow more tangible than the water. And I have two candles and two white garments in a box for Isabella and Sophia. When we get to the point of presenting this to them in a formal way, I will bring them out and the girls will be able to handle not generic candles and garments but the very ones that were given to them at their baptisms.

In the first presentation on baptism, Cavaletti says, the children are also shown the baptismal gown:

On our baptismal day our gown covered us completely to show, even on the outside, that inside we are totally different.... "Because the light is inside and outside us."

The second presentation focuses on the book of God's word and on the water. The third presentation is dedicated to the imposition of hands and the sign of the cross.

If we synthesize the doctrinal points the children perceive through the baptismal signs it will be seen that they contain the fundamental doctrine of Baptism.

(participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, becoming children of God, the Trinity, Christocentric, gift of God or grace, the Church is the sheepfold.)

All this would be terribly laborious for the child if the liturgical elements of the sacrament did not offer us a concrete theology.

repeated emphasis "not to overwhelm the immediate efficacy of the language of signs with our own words."

Discussion of how children make connections on their own, create synthesis of the various elements. Makes me think of another discussion (in Charlotte Mason maybe? I can't recall for certain just now and can't be bothered to hunt it down) about education being the act of making connections. I do like the way the CGS presents the elements separately and allows the child to make the connections himself. If the catechist connects the dots for him, the child is denied the opportunity to make the knowledge his own. And yet I know in my own eagerness, my excitement about how beautiful those connections are, I will be very prone to try to point them out rather than stepping back and allowing that process of discovery to unfold. Less is more. Or as CM says, masterful inactivity.

Perhaps that's one reason Narnia has been such a powerful influence on my own spiritual life, I made the connections between the books and the spiritual life on my own, they were not traced for me. I still can feel that rush of excitement as I realized Who Aslan was, that joyous recognition. Especially that moment on the shore when he appears as a lamb and offers fish to the sailors in VDT. Realizing the parallel of Christ and Peter, oh I can't put it into words but it is a little taste of heaven, my heart speeds up even as I type this. I must keep that in mind as I present things to Bella and Sophie, I want them to have that epiphany of recognition and do not want to steal it with a flood of didactic lectures.



Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

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Random Links

Some recent articles I've been thinking about but haven't had time to blog.

When did the Bible become 'hate speech'?

Four years ago, I wrote an article entitled "Thinly Disguised Totalitarianism" for the religious journal First Things, surveying the erosion of Canadian religious liberty under various regulatory bodies, professional associations and human rights tribunals. I wrote then that "there are no restrictions on freedom of worship in Canada today." That's no longer true.

This article seems particularly eerie just after I finished Michael O'Brien's Plague Journal.



Tsunami and Theodicy:

I do not believe we Christians are obliged — or even allowed — to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. For while Christ takes the suffering of his creatures up into his own, it is not because he or they had need of suffering, but because he would not abandon his creatures to the grave. And while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and that creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity.

As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes — and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Unreality Shows:

Pregnancy is caused by sexual intercourse.

I thought most people knew that. But apparently in Holly wood, sex has nothing to do with pregnancy.

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An Angel on the Trail

Two stories linked recently by Julie D., Strangers Who Pray and Prayers in the Parking Lot reminded me of my own experience of praying with a stranger. I was hiking in Glacier National Park with my dad and sibling and they were all moving much faster than I was. In fact, I started to experience some altitude sickness. I had to sit down on the side of the trail because I was almost blacking out.

Frustrated and scared because I couldn't catch up and had been left behind, I started stopping strangers coming down the trail, asking if they'd seen my family. I kept thinking they might notice my absence and return for me, but at the same time feared they would not. (They didn't.)

Finally, a man coming down the trail noticed my distress. He gave me a sip of his water (our water was being carried by my brothers and sister and I had none with me.) and then he opened up a small Bible and prayed with me. I don't recall what the passage was, I didn't recall ever having heard it before and I never could find it again. But it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. It was beautiful and I was filled with a supernatural peace. Once I was calm, he stood and took his leave. Eventually my family returned with stories about the summit. The peaceful feeling remained with me through that night, though not completely, I was also pretty angry that my family had never turned back and at their blindness to my distress.

To this day I am convinced that stranger was an angel. Not that he wasn't also a man, he probably had a wife and kids waiting for him at a campsite below; but that he was God's messenger to me at that moment in time.

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"Jesus, Put Your Shirt On"

So says Bella, looking at a photo of a crucifix on the computer slide show.

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A disturbing game

Bella throws her dolly to the ground. And then picks it up and first makes a little whimpering crying noise and then soothing sounds: "It's ok. Don't cry." and sometimes, "Did you scrape?"

I know it's just another imitation mothering game like when she wipes up the dolly's face saying, "Milk on face. That's better." Or when she diapers the dolly, wraps the dolly in a blanket, or nurses the dolly. But seeing the dolly flung to the ground makes me cringe. Especially thinking of the possibility of Sophia being treated in a similar fashion.

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Little Miss Helpful

This morning I was folding laundry on our bed, Sophia in the bassinet next to me. I looked over when I saw movement and Sophia was chewing on a rattle that hadn't been there a minute before. Then Bella came back into the room and tossed a stuffed giraffe over the side of the bassinet as well. I praised her for being so kind to her sister and turned back to matching socks and folding shirts.

A little later I saw Bella doing something at my nightstand out of the corner of my eye. She knows she's not supposed to dig in the drawer, but sometimes she can't resist. I started to admonish her and then realized that she wasn't taking something out, she was putting something away, the eyeglasses cleaning kit that I'd left on the dining room table. She loves to watch me clean my glasses and she knows the little kit goes in the nightstand. I apologized for my misconception and thanked her for putting it away.

Of course later when Sophie was on a blanket in the living room, staring up at the ceiling fan, I caught Bella being "helpful" putting a blanket on her head. Oops. Gotta work on that one.

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"The Paraclete does not need our museums."

In her essay, "Faith Behind Glass", Maureen Mullarkey reflects on the way a museum exhibit, even a carefully crafted one, reduces sacred images and objects to mere cultural artifacts and denies the existence of the sacred.

I spent the spring semester of my Sophomore year in Europe. I lived in a small town outside of Rome and traveled to a dozen countries. I visited churches and museums. I recall being made slightly uneasy about the experience of viewing sacred art in museums; but never clearly thought through why that was so. I'm sure I did notice that sacred art seemed somehow diminished, in its impact and in its ability to inspire me to prayer when in a museum as opposed to in its proper place in a church. But the experience did not lead me to further musing about the role of the museum nor to question whether sacred art should be in a museum in the first place. I liked this piece because it gave voice to a feeling and coherence to my half-formed thoughts.

Here are a few highlights:

Art museums remain didactic extensions of the Enlightenment—and the locus of a free-range aestheticism. Careful explanations are not enough to breathe life into the cultural expressions of a belief system. Christian art, a handmaiden to liturgical action, loses its transformative power when it is removed from the acts of worship—prayer or ritual performance—it was made to complement. The leveling process of aesthetic appreciation is inevitable by default.

Nothing proclaims the illusoriness of the sacral dimension better than a series of sacred objects—the entrails of Christendom—laid out under glass for forensic inspection. And the liberating, transhistorical nature of the liturgy is stuck in time, pinned to the long-ago by the assumption that the Middle Ages were the Christian era par excellence. The complex, lapidary character of the Roman and Byzantine rites loses its communicative power to a static installation that leads, ultimately, to an act of art appreciation.

Framed pages from a medieval antiphonal, however lovely, are inert compared with the sharp, plangent treble of a sanctuary bell. It is from that sound, not graphic notation, that Catholics and Orthodox gain heart for the silent road beyond all hosannas. Wall labels, docent tours, PowerPoint presentations, interactive software (a high-tech disguise for stasis), and family fun—the arsenal of museum pedagogy—might satisfy the choir on a field trip. But none of it quickens the soul to realities a secular world disdains. A museum setting is not the place to grasp Yeats’ disarming question “How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?”

We so take museums for granted that we never hesitate in our assumption that they are an unqualified good and that their proliferation signals cultural vitality. We do not stop to consider the possibility that the Museum of Biblical Art collaborates with late modernity’s view of Christianity as a spent tradition, one that requires injections of museum prestige to sustain an apostolic ministry begun by Galilean fishermen. Museumization allows Christianity to linger as a mere historical phenomenon: no longer a creative cultural force but compliant with the conceits of a post-Christian culture.

Read the full essay at First Things, here.

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Strangers and Sojourners

Plague Journal got under my skin, especially the first part. It's prophecies are too much like reading the news and it triggered all those dark thoughts that hound parents in the small hours of the morning. By contrast, its precursor, Strangers and Sojourners was a much more calming novel. Perhaps part of that is that I already knew how it would end and thus there wasn't that dreadful anticipation. But I also think the book itself has a different mood. In fact, last night as I finished the penultimate section just before going to sleep, I was filled with a great sense of peace and tranquility, an almost supernatural sense of well-being that came not from an absence of trouble but from an absence of worry and a lack of fear. The primary mood of the book is one of acceptance and trust in a Divine order. No, more than that, in a divine Lover who will heal all ills and make all things new.

Strangers and Sojourners is a multi-generational epic and flits in and out of many characters' points of view. But the backbone of the novel and the primary lens through which we view the action is Anne Delaney, wife of Stephen, mother of Ashley, Emily and Bryan, grandmother of Nathaniel and many other grandchildren who only figure in the story as a collective presence. The novel follows Anne's journey from her native England to the wilds of British Columbia where she meets and marries the Irishman, Stephen, also an exile. But the real journey is the pilgrimage of her soul. Anne's unlikely marriage is the crucible in which the rational atheist Anne discovers not an irrational faith but a faith which requires her to take a leap of faith beyond the merely reasonable.

I loved the character of Anne, a writer, a rebel, a strong woman who faces emptiness and despair and breaks and breaks and breaks until she has no choice but to depend on the divine surgeon to fill the void. I loved her ability to face her own brokenness and the emptiness and the silence and to move forward into the darkness with hope.

I loved this novel. I want to turn back and read it all over again just to catch everything I missed as I flew through to the end. Even more, I'm dying to get my hands on the next book in the series. I may have to even break down and buy it and I very rarely buy new books.

My comments on other books in the series:

Plague Journal

A Cry of Stone



and another thought on Strangers and Sojourners

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Two Catholic Alphabet Books

An Alphabet of Catholic Saints written and illustrated by Brenda and George Nippert. I like it, though there are things I think could be better. The pictures are a little cartoony for me. I'd prefer something a little more classic. But they aren't bad either and do include some traditional elements. The saints all have halos. Each saint is pictured with his or her initial letter as well as some of the customary iconography: St. George has his dragon and his shield with the red cross, St Helen has the cross, St Lucy a lamp, etc. The saints frequently stand or sit on or in their letters, St. Martin de Porres has a laundry line strung from his M.

There's a nice mix of saints. Some of the ones I'd consider standard, St. Joseph, St Ignatius, St Anne-- old friends, that most children will have met before. There were a couple I'd never heard of, like St. Sharbel and St Joseph Yuen, a chance to make new acquaintances.

Each saint has short rhyming quatrain:

St Therese loved God in every way,
she was His little flower.
Her little way led many souls
to trust in God's great power.

Beneath that, in a smaller font, are a couple more sentences with more details about the saint's life:

Saint Therese of Lisieux became a nun at fifteen by special permission of the Pope. She became very close to Jesus through prayer and her "Little Way" of trusting and loving God.

Some of the rhymes were a little forced and a bit treacly: "St Helen was a queen of old / who found the cross so true. / It leads to everlasting life, / even for me and you!" That "so true" feels awkward to me and the "even" is a bit odd.

I liked that the book included a fair number of martyrs and didn't hedge about their martyrdom and yet at the same time don't give unnecessary details that would be too much for young children:

Ursula and her companions vowed to love only God, and were killed when they refused to break God's law.

Bella likes the book. It isn't one of her favorites; but she does let me read it to her. And today I watched her pick it up and flip through it, naming several of the saints as she did so, including St Sharbel, one of the saints I didn't know previously.

An Alphabet of Catholic Saints is a nice addition to our library. A good introduction to the saints as heroes and role models and familiar friends. I'd like to add that this is perhaps the only alphabet book I've seen where X didn't feel like a stretch. Thanks, St Francis Xavier!




A is for Altar, B is for Bible, art and text by Judith Lang Main, is from Cathechesis of the Good Shepherd Publications and really feels like it's meant to be used in conjunction with the catechesis program. I'm not so sure it's very effective as a stand-alone book.

Each letter is accompanied by a brief verse from scripture or a line from the liturgy. So A is "I will go to the altar of God, / to God my exceeding joy." (Psalm 43:4a) W is for water and wine: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ." (Roman rite, preparation of the gifts).

The pictures are pastels and the images are images from the materials the child would find in the atrium during the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This choice felt odd to me. I'd much have preferred a nice icon of the Good Shepherd such as we included in Isabella's prayer book to accompany Psalm 23 to the image of the model shepherd and the sheep in the toy sheepfold. Again, I prefer more traditional artwork and I think it is selling children short to give them childish images. We have such a rich artistic heritage and I think children are drawn to beautiful pictures. Isabella loves flipping through two fine art calendars of images of the Blessed Virgin that I've saved for her. I can see the logic in the choice the artist made, giving the child an image that is familiar from atrium work; but it isn't the choice I'd have made. And I really don't much care for the crucifix image, which looks like a straw man.

I assume that all the terms were chosen because they would be familiar to children who have spent time in a CGS program. Some of the choices feel a little stretched: "D is for delight" (accompanying a picture of the three wise men: 'When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy'), "X is at the end of crucifix", "Z is for zzzzz" (I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.")

There's a sort of glossary at the end of the book with an explanation of each term: "At Mass we gather around a table called the altar", "The Bible is a sacred book that tells us about God. It is the word of God." I thought this would much better have been incorporated into the main book, much like the non-rhyming text in the Alphabet of Catholic Saints. I found myself flipping back and forth so that I could read the definition as I read through the book.

I do like the page layout. Each letter is centered on the page, brightly colored (red, blue, gold, green, blue, orange, purple), and the letter is again highlighted in the same color in the representative word below.

I'm still on the fence about this book. I like the introduction to some of the terms and I appreciate the inclusion of scripture. I don't think this book really stands alone outside of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd setting, and that seems a real shame.

Also, the concern I've had elsewhere with CGS materials, the worry that they tend to de-emphasize the Real Presence in the Eucharist, resurfaces here: "The chalice is the cup that contains the wine at Mass." and "At Mass the priest pours a few drops of water into the wine. They mingle together." While the book isn't wrong, it doesn't introduce the deeper reality. There isn't anything wrong with what is says, but I don't understand why it shies away either.

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Generation Gap?

We went to a party today for Dom's youngest half-sister who just graduated from high school. At one point I found myself engaged in conversation with a little old lady who was very much admiring Sophia. Everyone seems to comment on how alert and attentive my baby girls are, must be the big brown eyes.

Anyway, this lady thought Sophia was eyeing her glass of tea and said something to that effect. Then she went on to babble about how Sophia must be hungry and wanting a "baba". She thought Sophie perked up at the word and exclaimed about how she recognized it: What a clever baby!

I just smiled and nodded. Didn't have the heart to break it to her that Sophia has absolutely no clue when it comes to bottles as she's exclusively breastfed. And I was a bit afraid it might be too much of a shock to the system. I do notice, though, that the assumption of people of a certain age is that babies are bottle fed. I suppose i know on some level that the exclusive breastfeeding I do isn't the norm, I'm in a distinct minority. And yet it still is a bit of a shock when I encounter these kinds of attitudes.

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Daddy's Work

Today we went to visit Dom at work for the very first time. What an adventure.

His office is moving soon and they are getting all new furniture, so the old stuff is going to be sold off. Dom's boss said that he could take his chair home, which is great because our desk chair has a broken arm and Bella keeps hitting herself on it. So we brought the minivan down to cart the chair home. And an extra bookcase as well. Not that we own any books or anything. :)

So it's about an hour long drive. I had the fortunate presence of mind to grab the first set of The Lord of the Rings cds that my sister gave me as an engagement present lo so many summers ago that I still have yet to listen to. I guessed correctly that Bella wouldn't mind listening to a story as she's so far exhibited an amazing attention span for storybooks. I was so engrossed in Bilbo's birthday party and the start and stop traffic that I totally missed the exit. By something like 8 exits. Oops. But Gandalf's fireworks were spectacular.

But we finally turned around and found our way to the building. We got a quick tour and all the women oohed and awed over Bella and Sophie. (Dom's male coworkers made polite noises, but did not go gaga. Not surprising, men are like that. ) Dom's office is a funny little room, the building used to be a part of the seminary and his office was once a dorm room and still has a little sink and a clothes closet.

We hung out and Bella drew for a bit while I nursed Sophie and then we went to lunch at fabulous Boca Burrito. Yum, yum, yum. Best burritos I've had in a long time. I got a chili verde with black beans and guacamole. And we got a chicken tamale to feed to Bella and nibble on ourselves. Also very yum. Then back to the office, another snack for Sophie while Dom loaded the furniture and back on the road.

The girls snoozed while I listened to Gandalf and Frodo discuss the ring. Bella woke up as we pulled into the driveway and so that was the end of any hopes for a good nap. I tried to put her down but it wouldn't take. Oh well. It was a fun excursion, Bella was thrilled to finally see daddy's work, and definitely worth a little poor sleep. (Though I may not think it quite so worth it in the morning.)

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MemoraBella

I announce to Bella that she's going to visit her cousins and she squeals with delight. I'd never actually heard anyone squeal in delight before Bella, only read the phrase in books.

* * *

I've got two simple rules that Bella is learning about shoes: no shoes on the bed, no shoes on the couch. Whenever I see her sitting on the couch wearing shoes, I simply state the rule and she removes them. When she wants to get up on the bed, I ask her to remove her shoes first. But I was a little surprised today when she was sitting on her little step stool and I heard her saying, "Take shoes off. No shoes on the stool." That's a new one on me.

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Mithridates, he died old

It's an odd thought to entertain, not just dark, or even macabre, but downright sinister, "moping melancholy mad". Why do I do it then, imagining the death of those nearest and dearest? Is is a sort of inoculation against the possibility of future pain, a la A. E. Houseman?

This afternoon while the girls were both napping, I got to thinking on Bella. And for some reason I thought about stories I've read of parents who've lost children as young as she is, or even younger. And how they sometimes say their child lived a whole life in that short span. How they seem to know their souls so well that adding more time would not have helped them probe deeper into that mystery. I guess I've read more than a few stories of parents who've lost children recently. And today I understand something I didn't when I read those sorts of stories before I became a mother. I understand how motherhood rips you open, exposing your heart. They get inside of you and change you, these little people.

I see Bella now in my minds eye, I hear her cheery voice, her whiny voice, her "uv oo, mama" voice, and her "do it self" voice. And I think that if the worst were to happen, if she were to be taken from me, I wouldn't be left with a feeling of not having known her or of a life tragically cut short. (Though oh I can't imagine life without her. Not really. She is my life, my joy.) Because she has been, because she has lived, were she to go there would be a Bella-shaped emptiness in my life and for all her small stature that would be a gigantic gulf.

And yet I also know that she isn't mine. She's a gift, lent to me for a time, or rather entrusted to me to care for, a soul to tend and shepherd so that one day she may return again to the greater
Shepherd.

So I sit in my bed, watching Sophie in her swing, and shed a few tears as I entertain the thought, which should be so unthinkable, of losing my sweet Isabella. I try to imagine what it would be like to have her gone and I count up all the treasure of the two years and nine months that she has been in my life, from that first magical moment when I started to imagine that I might indeed be pregnant. And as I tally the riches that she has brought to me, I thank God, the giver of life who entrusted me with this great treasure. I hope that if I were to lose her, I would not cease thanking him for that which I have had. For as I think these dark thoughts they bring me to this light place, this gratitude.

You never know as a parent how much time you will have. Every day might be the last. For you or for them. I only had my little Francis two short months. I never felt a kick. I never got to see or feel or hear that little life that I so briefly sheltered. And yet I know my tiny baby is an immortal soul, safe now in the hands of our heavenly Father. And one lesson I learned from that tiny sojourner, who was with me such a brief while, is this hoarding up of every day because I never know how long I will have to enjoy these two beautiful girls of mine.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

Not that I agree with Houseman that the world has much more good than ill. But I also don't shy away from acknowledging that there is bad in the world and we are all subject to the ills that come from living in a fallen world. And especially death, that comes for us all. And I think pondering the shadows can sometimes help me appreciate the light. And perhaps I do hope, a sort of foolish superstition, that by allowing myself to ponder the inevitability of death I might somehow prevent its sting from being quite so sharp when it does come. As if by grieving today I might cheat death of its full power to wound.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

My intimate knowledge of "Terence This Is Stupid Stuff" is courtesy of my best friend Stephanie who taught me to love Houseman in those golden years when we were young and quoted poetry to each other all the day long.

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Strangers and Sojourners, a thought

One advantage of starting with the second book in a series is that it often gives you a different perspective. You come at the first book with a greater awareness of the bigger picture, an understanding of the author's larger scheme. This can, of course, be a disadvantage too as it removes some of the element of surprise.

I'm finding as I read Strangers and Sojourners after Plague Journal I have a greater appreciation for some of the smaller things I might otherwise have paid less attention to on a first reading. The novel is not only the history of a family, but also the geneology of a set of ideas, which then become a way of structuring society. (Or, as Nathaniel Delaney calls it, a plague.) S&S looks to the past, seeking roots, causes while PJ looks to the future, seeking to show effects.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book. Will post a review when I'm done. Am finding it hard to put down, though.

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"Personality, Place, and Catholic Education"

Responding to Pope Benedict's address to Catholic educators during his U.S. visit, "Personality, Place, and Catholic Education" by R.R. Reno offers some good meat to chew on. I saved it a while back, intending to blog it with commentary. I'm still chewing, so I don't have much commentary yet. Just filing it away under Catholic higher education with a million other things that need to simmer (to muddle my cooking metaphors).

Here's a good bit to think about:

Newman’s realistic sense of the limits of mental training and the importance of personality has helped me see the true nature of the problem Catholic educators face in living up to Benedict’s rightful call for an evangelical core to a genuinely Catholic university. In the past, the genius loci of American Catholic colleges and universities came from the distinctive charisms of the religious orders that ran them. Their drastic decline is the simple, devastating fact that explains nearly all the aimlessness and uncertainty in contemporary Catholic higher education. Half-hearted half measures have produced, at best, half successes. The retreat of Catholic identity into campus ministry, social-justice programs, and courses on ethics has kept the flame alive but at the cost of giving up on the classroom and the professoriate. Many institutions are seeing the secularizing results, which is why the question of Catholic identity has become so important in the last decade.

There is no blueprint, no ten-point action plan for renewal. Benedict’s call for Catholic colleges and universities to evangelize can only be realized by building and sustaining living Catholic intellectual cultures. A genius loci, a real institutional personality, cannot be made by formula any more than a child can be raised by checking off boxes in a how-to manual. Instead, the future will be made at each college and university by way of thousands of decisions: whom do we recruit as students, to whom do we offer scholarships, whom do we hire, whom do we tenure, who gets the endowed chair, who is made dean or president. People matter, and, as Newman points out, when it comes to influencing the will, people matter most.

Read the whole essay here at First Things.

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The Religious Potential of the Child Reading Notes Ch 4

Chapter Four: Christ the Good Shepherd and the Eucharist


Cavaletti begins by stressing the unique position of the Eucharist. A point that cannot be stressed enough as the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.

There does not exist a Bible that we read and the Liturgy that we live; there is a Bible that we live with the whole of our life and especially so in the Liturgy.

Therefore, the child who comes to know the Good Shepherd should be initiated into the greatest action in which we meet Him: the Mass. The Italian Episcopal document on catechesis states: "Catechesis constantly proposes Jesus as the living center of its very message and manifests Jesus present and acting in the most holy Eucharist".

The approach to the presentation on the Mass, Cavaletti says, took 20 years to discover and yet it is so simple:

The Mass is the place and time in which we encounter our Good Shepherd in a most particular way; He calls His sheep to come around His altar to feed them with Himself in a special way.

Building on the children's prior understanding of Jesus as the Good Shepherd from the parable gives them an easy entry point into the mass.

Thus the focus is first on the Eucharistic part of the mass, the Liturgy of the Word actually comes later. Cavaletti recounts how at first they invited children to create their own missals, beginning with the Liturgy of the Word, and no child ever finished this work. However, once they had the children begin with the Eucharistic prayer a great change occurred:

We saw with wonder that, by starting our presentation with the most essential moment, the children not only would copy the whole missal including the Liturgy of the Word, but it often happened that they would spontaneously write their missal as many as three times. Once more we realized that our failure did not depend on the child's incapacity nor on the difficulty of the work; it was due to the fact that we had not found the path that led through to the nucleus.

The Sacrament of the Gift

The Mass is a very rich reality; the adult's problem is to find the aspect that corresponds to the child's capacity and fulfills his needs....


...The aspect of the Mass that has been demonstrated to respond to the young child's capacities is that of the "sacrament of the gift."

Children are introduced to the idea of gift by the use of two gestures: "the imposition of hands accompanying the prayer of invocation to the Father to send the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine" and "the gesture of offering concluding the Eucharistic prayer when the priest raises the consecrated bread and wine together to offer them to the Father with the prayer 'Through Him, with Him, in Him.'"

Sloppy language or sloppy thinking here? The priest actually raises the Body and Blood at this point, not the bread and wine. Am I nitpicking? This bugs me.

...in speaking of the sacrament of the gift, we do not risk diminishing the reality of the Eucharist, even if we focus on one aspect, that is gratification. It is a dimension that nevertheless can be easily integrated with a commitment to effort and even suffering, when the child's age allows. Indeed, not every age can receive every aspect of the Christian reality and, in our estimation, early childhood is the time of the serene enjoyment of God.

The Child's Response to the Gift

There is a great emphasis, I notice, on this idea of "serene enjoyment" and the deep peace that children find in the parables and the figure of the good shepherd. I wonder if this isn't a part of what it means to become like a little child; to be able to rest peacefully in God's presence in the same way a child rests in her mother's arms as in Psalm 131. I think of how sweet and peaceful Sophia is as she sleeps resting on my lap after nursing.

If we put too great or too early an emphasis on man's response, our attention will be centered on man rather than on God and then strain will prevail in our relationship with God. If we become too preoccupied with what we ourselves must do, then it becomes impossible to stop and enjoy God's initiative, and thus we will ruin the relationship of covenant.

moral education and also a certain kind of preparation for struggle and sacrifice are necessary.But there is a time for everything and early childhood is not the time for moral effort....After the age of six other factors come into consideration.

This makes sense for the same reason the Church delays first confession and first communion till after age six or seven. That kind of moral reasoning is a later developmental stage. Useless to talk of sin to a child below the "age of reason", they really aren't capable of that level of moral reasoning.

Cavaletti says that young children's response to the "sacrament of the gift" is offering not sacrifice. "Sacrifice... requires effort and pain; offering flows spontaneously from a joyful heart." I think she's right here. Sacrifice is a part of the moral dimension that young children are not ready for.

A gift is a positive experience at any age, yet there is an age when it can become constitutive of the person. The gift of the mother's presence, based on the most recent psychological research, is essential to and exceedingly gratifying for the child.... It not only offers the physical well-being of warmth and food but it also unites mother and child in a true affective relationship. And the child needs this more than food.... We wonder what influence it could have on a child who is placed in the condition of becoming gradually conscious of a gift such as God's presence, a gift that is unfailing and surpasses the limits proper to every human relationship.

And thus presenting the Mass in terms of the gift is situating the child's experience "on a more solid base than that of maternal love, which is of course human and thus limited." In other words, the teaching on the Mass allows children to remain in God's presence in a peace that surpasses that of a child with his mother because, unlike a human mother, God is infinite.

Introductory Work on the Mass

Here's where I start to get a bit uncomfortable. The models of the altar, the chalice and paten, the vestments. I understand the theory: "the character of this work is sensorial and therefore responds to the child's needs." And yet it feels to me much too close of an imitation. Is it too familiar? These items are sacred, set apart. And even though the child is not using the actual articles, there seems to me a danger of blurring the lines, of them losing that sacred otherness through being handled too familiarly. I'm not sure I can really put my concerns into words that adequately express what is really more of a gut reaction than a reasoned response. Perhaps it might help to see this in action in an actual atrium? And then if I do get past my reservations and decide it is harmless or even a positive idea, the next concern is, of course, how does one translate this to a homeschooling environment? I've seen the mass kits in catalogs... never going to be in my budget.

This is my big quibble with what I know so far about Montessori in general, it's a pedagogy that is rooted in an assumption that education happens in a classroom. Granted the Montessori classroom is vastly different than a traditional classroom, it still is an institution that serves a greater number of children and has a greater level of resources than a family does. It seems to me there is a fundamental blind spot in the method and I don't know how to bridge the gap.

we think it best that the altar table be much smaller than an average child-sized table. The models of the articles and priest's vestments associated with the Mass should also be considerably smaller than their regular dimensions. In this way it is clearer to the children that these are materials for exercises only.

Cavaletti's caveat here addresses the topic obliquely but doesn't really get to the heart of my concerns.

To recapitulate briefly, the work of the Mass pivots on three points: the Eucharistic presence, the offering, and for the older children, the communion, all three are linked to a gesture that renders its presentation more impressive. We apply here, as in all the other major themes, the Montessori principle of "isolating the difficulties." In the area of religion this principle becomes "isolate the points of greatest theological content."

The Problem of Controls

We believe that the greater the theme, the less possible and justified it is to exercise any kind of action of verification.... what we transmit is a seed that does not belong to us and even less may we claim its fruits.... In the presence of the Spirit who blows "wherever he wills and as he wills," the catechist should have an attitude of deep reverence and gratitude for what he has been given to see, yet without expecting to see.

certain controls that are academic in nature give the catechist a sense of security, which is nonetheless empty: The catechist teaches, the child appears to know, and the adult has a quiet conscience. But this may be done on a scholastic, not a catechetical level. When speaking of matters of profound spiritual significance, all controls become illusory; we cannot exercise such control even on ourselves. Who among us knows how conscious he is of God's presence in his own life? Who among us knows to what extent he lets himself become involved in the Eucharistic action?

The catechist who seeks security in academic controls is looking for security in the wrong place.

"Poverty is, I believe, the fundamental virtue of the catechist."


Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

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Lovely Sunday

A very hot day here, got up to the mid nineties at least. We went to look at a house this afternoon and while we were on the way, Dom's brother called to invite us to a poolside gathering. Didn't have to think twice about that.

I spent most of the afternoon inside by the air conditioner with Sophia who was quite fussy and couldn't sleep and wanted to do some marathon nursing, not that I blame her in that heat. But it was a great time for all of us. There were I think six families and probably about 30 kids running around. Bella had a great time even if she didn't get a nap, Dom got to talk to the nephews and even I got in a bit of socializing. Sophia worked on her charming smile and had several of the girls wrapped around her cute little fingers. I thought I'd have to fight them to get her back. (Potential babysitters if we're able to move down that way!)

I got to practice some of my mom skills, helping feed a bunch of kids and helping out with a few minor accidents.

Looks like we're in for a heat wave. Supposed to be in the nineties the next few days. Ugh.

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NFP Funny

I woke up this morning at around six o'clock and popped my thermometer in my mouth to take my temperature. And the promptly fell back to sleep while waiting for the beep. And woke up again at seven after struggling for an hour with the uncomfortable thing stuck under my tongue. Ugh.

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Plague Journal

Plague Journal by Michael O'Brien is the second book in the Children of the Last Days series, but I'm reading out of order so I started with this one and will read the first novel, Strangers and Sojourners next.

I've heard O'Brien's work described as a sort of Left Behind for Catholics. I wouldn't know exactly because I've never read LB. But O'Brien is concerned with a sort of fictionalized end times. More than that really, he's concerned with Apocalypse, revelation of God's plan in human history. And his perspective is very Catholic.

Plague Journal is the story of Nathaniel Delaney, a journalist, editor and owner of a paper called The Echo. He's a self-appointed prophet crying out in the wilderness, warning of the collapse of civilization, the downfall of democracy and the tyranny of the social service state. He's also a divorced father of three whose wife has disappeared with their youngest son. And a lapsed Catholic. As the novel opens, Delaney is falling apart, a crisis of faith after the departure of his wife and the destruction of his newspaper. Soon he is on the run from a government turned tyrannical.

As I was reading I kept thinking of Walker Percy's The Second Coming or maybe Love in the Ruins (I always mix those two books up because I read them at about the same time) and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The narrator has a feel of a Percy character, in fact all the characters do. And the sensibility is so often Percy, but Percy set in the frozen north of Canada.

I suppose I was thinking of Atwood because of the narrative structure, a journal left behind by a person who has been disappeared by the government and pieced together by a later redactor. That and the bleak Canadian setting. I know The Handmaid's Tale is supposed to be set mainly in the Cambridge, Ma area and only briefly flirts with the Canadian border, but I only learned that much later. It still feels Canadian to me because that's how I read it the first time.

There are also a very strong self-conscious echoes of Tolkien in the narrator's journey as he flees his home with his children, secret police in hot pursuit, just as Frodo and his companions flee Bag End with the forces of Mordor nipping at their heels.

I was a little disconcerted at times to find not just echoes but excepts of much of O'Brien's non-fiction writing embedded in the book. Pieces of Landscape with Dragons also bits from many of his essays that i'd read on his website, especially from "Father at Night", one of my favorite of his pieces. But the patchwork is self-conscious and the pieces form a part of clippings patched into the stream of consciousness of the journal form. It works because of who the narrator is, a writer constantly composing in his head.

The dust jacket quote from Peter Kreeft sums up my reading experience quite nicely:

Why couldn't I put this book down? Its plot is simple, its narrator hectors, and I don't want to believe its prophetic warning. But its characters are unforgettable; its author makes simple goodness winsome, even heroic; and its social indictment is as important as that of Brave New World.

I'd add that I found its nightmare Canadian government all too plausible. It isn't a stretch at all, in fact its mostly here already, according to what I read in the news. If I were to teach my dream class on dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, this would definitely have to go on the list.

My comments on other books in the series:

Strangers and Sojourners

A Cry of Stone

Read the rest of the entry...

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Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy

Yet another Rumer Godden novel. I'm on a serious kick now with several more on their way via Book Mooch.

This novel has something of the same feel as In This House of Brede and I think is my next favorite after Brede. Like Brede, it centers around a religious community and specifically on the a particular sister, flashing back to her life before religious life and following her through her conversion, aspirancy, postulancy, and final vows and exploring the life of the religious community through her eyes. Like Brede, it takes us through the round of seasons and all the rigors of an argarian monastery. But the setting, the protagonist and this community of Bethanie are all very different than those of Brede.

Although the protagonist is once again an Englishwoman, the novel is set in France. Bethanie is not a fictitious community but a historical fact and it was fascinating to learn about the founding of this unusual community of Dominican nuns. It began in France in the eighteen-sixties when a priest of the Order of Preachers, Pere Lataste preached a retreat at a women's prison. He spoke about God's mercy and love and realized that these women had never heard that message. He also realized that among them were women who had a call to the religious life. The sisters of Bethanie take as their model the household of Mary and Martha in Bethany, and they identify that Mary with Mary Magdalene, the penitent sinner from whom seven devils were driven out and who anointed Christ's feet with oil. And so the community is formed of women who are former convicts and those who have entered religious life in a more conventional way. But one of the rules is that they do not speak of the past and so none of the sisters knows which are the former prisoners.

The novel's protagonist is Lise, "a criminal, a murderess, a whore". The novel also follows Father Marc, their new chaplain, who was serving in the Far East but has had to return to France because of illness. The story was fascinating. Like Brede it moves back and forth from the past to the present in a sort of mosaic that the reader has to piece together. Here I also saw the same profound insight into the struggles of the human heart that Brede displayed.

I also loved that the heroine struggles with praying the rosary, which has always been a devotion that I've had a hard time embracing. (The five and ten of the title refer to the mysteries of the rosary.)

Highly recommended.

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The Religious Potential of the Child Reading Notes Ch 3

Chapter 3: Christ the Good Shepherd

Begins with question: Should catechesis be theocentric, Christocentric, or anthropocentric?

I understand the need for primary focus, but am not sure about the exclusivity. Why not introduce both God the Father and Christ? I don't think children will be confused. Bella seems to take in stride praying the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be... each prayer speaks to a different aspect of God: fatherhood, incarnation, trinitarian nature.

It seems to us that the theocentric foundation does not take adequate account of the great event of the Incarnation and the fact that, after it, man's situation with God is truly changed... we have to pass through Christ who constituted Himself as mediator.

Of course, I suppose we're really talking about what is our starting point. What do we present first. In that case, Christ is the way to the Father.

In regards to Christ we also find ourselves faced with a choice: whether to center the proclamation on the history of His life... or to initiate the child more directly into the mystery of the person of Christ and His relationship with us, in the form of the parable.

I'm not sure I like the either/or aspect here. Why not both? I understand the need to focus for a classroom curriculum, I suppose parents could supplement with reading life of Christ at home. But I don't really like leaving that out. (Of course, I'm not actually sure they do leave it out in practice, because in following the liturgical year children must surely encounter the narrative of Christ's life.)

The children's reaction...has demonstrated to us once again that it is only the greatest realities that correspond to the needs of the youngest children; their response has made us experience personally how capable they are of piercing beyond the images into the metaphysical reality.

In other words, don't estimate what children are able to receive. They have a greater capacity than they are often given credit for.

Finally Cavaletti introduces the idea that the central element for young children is the parable allegory of the Good Shepherd, for older children it is the True Vine. (does not give age ranges here)

It has been noted by many catechists that often the children most lacking in human affection are the happiest in the encounter with the Good Shepherd. One could say therefore that the experience of his love need not necessarily be grafted onto an experience of human love, but that it is independent of it, uniting the child in a direct bond with God.

This is a wonderful insight, that the proclamation of God's word is able to reach even the child who seems to have no foundation in human affection. But I think this is also the root of the very large blind spot in the philosophy that focuses solely on the institutional experience and ignores the role of the parent as primary educator of the child and the role that foundational family love will play in the domestic church when there is a loving family.

We wonder if the fact that it is the very fact that the Good Shepherd image does not correspond to any precise figure in the child's life that makes it so rich. Any particular reference can be limiting; if we speak of God as Father, the connection will be made with the human father exclusively, and the paternal image is probably not even the one that relates most fully to the young child's needs. It is not difficult to imagine the damage the child will undergo, in the religious sense, whose father is quite the opposite of the ideal figure. However, since the Good Shepherd is open to an enormously vast affective range, the child will always find a loved person in whom he sees the reflection of the Good Shepherd's love.

On the one hand, I very much see the point here. I have known people who are very much crippled in their ability to relate to God because of damaged paternal relationships. And I can see how that might be even more the case for young children. However, I also find this to be problematic since God has revealed Himself to us as Father. Again, what about children in a happy home with a very positive father figure? This seems to dismiss the father's primary role in the religious education of the child. The father is, after all, head of the domestic church and should be just as involved as the mother in religious education. In fact, I have seen very little written about that relationship.

The child never forgets the parable because the affective integration...is compete; the image of the Shepherd is by now a part of the child's very person. The affective integration is an element that is generally overlooked in catechesis... and that often makes religious education for children from four to seven years of age appear like an "alien body"....Affectivity is more or less ignored to the advantage of the cognitive component, resulting in an arid and sterile knowledge that does not permeate the child's life.

As I read this I couldn't help but think of Jan's comments below on the post about fairy tales in which she describes her son who "doesn't have a head for stories": She says "he has consistently been drawn to books for information about things which interest him (math, various mechanical devices, (real) animals) and not to literature." and "He will read or listen to what he calls 'Mommy books' (Do we HAVE to read a Mommy book today?), but it's usually as a trade-off for a mind-numbing chapter involving steam or internal combustion engines."

What's hardest for me is trying to teach him the faith. How do you teach Catholicism to a child who doesn't have a head for stories? He is fascinated by the patterns and the symmetries of the faith. Concepts such as the dual action of the Mass, the symmetry of the Trinity, vocabulary like 'transubstantiation', he is enthusiastic and eager to learn these things. He loves to pray the rosary, with its patterns and rhythms. We spent ten minutes going over the Paschal Candle this spring, and he would happily draw you a very accurate one and explain all the symbols. We spent two weeks on three Old Testament stories, and my guess is if you questioned him he would get them all mixed up. We've managed to master the high points of the life of Christ (although he probably wouldn't get them in the proper order). But the parables? The stories of the saints? The figures of the Old Testament? He'll do his best if I insist, but his heart isn't in it (and it doesn't stick). In this, more than anything, I feel myself strained to the point of inadequacy. Ah, well. We do the best we can, and leave the rest to God, right?

Jan's experience suggests to me a big gaping hole in Cavaletti's theory of the child. Not sure how to address it, though I am certain of one thing: God created her son and thus must have some plan for how to reach him. I think Cavaletti's basic idea, her starting point, is sound: that the child should lead and will himself somehow show the adult what he needs and it is the adult's role to stand back and watch, to make the introduction and then learn from the child how best to proceed. Sound in theory. Not very helpful in practice.

The child knows how to link [the parable of the Good Shepherd] with the other subjects he gradually comes to know in a spontaneous synthesis that is oftentimes rich in theological content. Frequently the child connects this parable with the death and resurrection and the image of light.

Many examples given here of children integrating the figure of the Good Shepherd with other images from the liturgy and the life of Christ. Interesting. There is a synthesis but it is child-led. Allows the child to discover the connections for himself. I do like that. Education is the process of making connections. If the adult does it for the child, it won't become a part of the child.

From the doctrinal point of view, the parable is a fundamental text that centers on the mystery of the person of Christ and His relationship with us, as relationship at once personal (the Shepherd knows each sheep by name) and communal (the sheepfold). It is the parable of the providential love that reaches the ultimate sacrifice of life, and as such it is a paschal parable. Christian tradition has in fact always given it a special place during the Easter season.

The parable will gradually unfold all its riches to the child and he will integrate his childlike vision with visions that are always wider and more complete, without however having to disown anything he received previously.

I really like this about not having to disown that which he has learned previously. We don't water down the faith or lie to children. Reminds me of when I was teaching religious ed how uncomfortable I was when presented with the question on the death of pets. Someone had told one of the boys his dog would go to heaven. That's problematic for me because a more mature knowledge has to disown that "knowledge". The fact is dogs do not have immortal souls. A tricky point to address with children, yes.


I suppose the general idea of the use of the parable of the Good Shepherd is contained in the parable itself: Christ himself is the shepherd, the shepherd is the gate, the way by which the sheep enter into the sheepfold. Thus the figure of the Shepherd is for the child a gateway, the path by which he enters into the fold of the Church.

But I wonder if, while in general most children respond to the figure of the Good Shepherd, it might be possible that for some children other parables, other images will actually have more resonance?

Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

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Milestones

Last night after he'd read one bedtime story to her, Bella asked Dom to talk with her. And recounted the events of the last couple of days to him. He came out of her room with a sort of wistful look on his face. Nothing like a heart to heart with your daughter!

Sophie has started to laugh now. Real belly laughs. And to grab things. Last night as I was prepping dinner, she was sitting in her bouncy seat and the little cow-head thing started playing Old MacDonald. Thought Bella had pulled it and then heard her moving around in the other room. Knew Dom hadn't done it as he was sitting at the table. I looked up and sure enough Sophie's little hand was clamped on and she had this surprised look on her face as the music kept playing and playing. She's also been grabbing a rattle with some deliberation, has grabbed a blanket and held it up to her face and has caressed my arm, all quite clearly not just random flailing.

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I Should Have Known

Isabella wouldn't let me put the painting things away yesterday. Every time I tried, she'd start to fuss and insist that she was "still painting". So I relented and cleared up after bedtime last night.

This morning even before she'd eaten a bite of breakfast, she noticed that the painting materials had been cleared away and the little table returned to the corner of the dining room. I was summoned from breakfast preparations by a plaintive cry of, "Bell need help!" She was trying to clear all the toys off the table and tug it into the kitchen. So much for out of sight out of mind!

So I changed her out of her pajamas and put on the painting smock, mixed up some paints, laid out a new sheet of paper. And after dipping her brushes a few times she promptly got distracted and went on to ask me to read a book to her while I nursed Sophia.

But I'm positive if I try to clear up the painting supplies again, I will get an earful. What's a mom to do?

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The Religious Potential of the Child Reading Notes Ch 2

I'm going through this much more slowly than I anticipated. i was planning to do two chapters at a time; but that would really be monstrously long. There is so much I want to dwell on as I read. I know these notes are already quite long and maybe won't be of much use to anyone but me. Still, it helps me to transcribe the passage that speak to me as I read and to write some commentary.

Chapter Two: The Child and the Adult

One thing I've really appreciated is how Cavaletti starts from the ground up. She assumes nothing, beginning in the first chapter by questioning whether children are even able to have a religious experience, a relationship with God, or whether it is an unfair imposition by the adult.

Then, having ascertained that children are able to enter into that relationship and in fact seem to crave it, she asks: What is the adult's role?

The adult's task is certainly to initiate the child into certain realities. There are events at the basis of Christianity that the adult should make known; there is an inheritance of truth and values that the adult should transmit with the whole of his lived life, but also through the word. In other words, the adult should proclaim God, who reveals His love through His Christ...


The receivers of the kerygma [proclamation] are the child and the adult; they are simultaneously announcers and listeners.

This certainly matches my experience with Isabella. I find that as I pray with her, tell her about Christ, I am receiving as much as I am transmitting. I listen with her; moreover, she leads me in the act of listening. I learn from her how to truly listen and when I hear the words repeated on her lips I hear them as if for the first time.

Yesterday morning I was saying morning prayer while nursing Sophia and, as often happens, Bella approached me with a book, asking to be read to. I told her I would, as soon as I was finished praying. And then I started reading the prayers to her.

Now, I have discovered that there are two ways of doing this. I can rattle through the prayers as quickly as possible, eyes to the book, hoping to forestall a meltdown. Usually doesn't work. In fact is more likely to cause said meltdown. Or I can slow down, make eye contact with her frequently, prompt her to repeat the antiphon with me.

Yesterday I slowed down. I started repeating the antiphon after every verse. And she would repeat it after me. I cannot express how it moved me to hear her little voice repeating: "The Cross of the Lord is the Tree of Life": "Cross is tree of 'ife".

Recently I've been having a hard time concentrating on prayer, I lose my focus, my mind wanders, the words are meaningless sounds my lips make. But slowing down and directing them at Bella, trying to ensure that she was a participant in my prayer, strangely enough helped me to be more present not only to her but also present to the words themselves and thus more present to God. Instead of being a distraction, Bella helped me to achieve a focus that has been very rare of late.

Not exactly the same as the proclamation of the word that Calvaletti is describing, I know. But the principle is similar. She emphasizes that the adult is the servant of the word and the servant of the child. In allowing Bella to be a part of my prayer I serve her and in being her servant I open myself to her presence and to the moment, living in the now that is rather than living in frustration over things not being the way I want them. I'm still striving to find the proper balance. How much is enough, how much is too much. She tends to lose focus by the end and I'm never sure if I should make her wait until I reach the end of the office or curtail the office to tend to her needs. It's a fine line. I want to serve her and not selfishly put her off to fulfill my needs first but I also want to teach her about sacred time, about putting aside her desires to become a part of the prayer. I don't think there's one answer. Some days the best option may be putting down the prayer book so that I can focus solely on Bella.

Next, Cavaletti considers what "elements of the proclamation" is the child able to receive. The child lives in a religious world all of his own, she asserts and is not necessarily capable of receiving everything.

The adult should place himself in an attitude of observation, waiting for the child to indicate which are the elements of the Christian message he most receives, which aspects of the face of God satisfies the needs of childhood.

Again, she recognizes that the child has needs that we must satisfy and does not assume we can know those needs without a process of discernment. It is a very humble approach. At the same time she does not assume that children need to be fed baby food. She notes that when offered a choice between two figures that express God's love the child chooses the Good Shepherd rather than the guardian angel, the greater, not the lesser: "It is precisely the greatest realities that we neglect to give the child; we hardly touch on them, taking them for granted."

Every time we are unable to transmit theology to children or the uneducated, we should question ourselves, and we will come to realize, as we go closer to the core of things, that our inability depends on our own ignorance. How many times were we aware that we were not succeeding in speaking to the children about the greatest realities (how much difficulty we experienced with the Mass!) because we were unable to proclaim them with the essentiality the children needed. Only little by little, as we managed to go to the heart of things, were we able to communicate them to young children.

the catechist's task is to create specific conditions so that this relationship may be established, but to withdraw as soon as contact occurs.

That sounds like the hardest part, knowing when to step back and let the relationship develop. It seems to me the catechist in this model is like a matchmaker, thr real romance develops after she steps out of the way.

The Text

To achieve this aim the adult should give the child before all else a way to have direct access to the sources, namely, to the scriptural and liturgical texts... I mean passages that are complete in themselves.... if we limit ourselves to giving the child one or two verses of our choice, verses that best express the parable's teaching in our opinion, we intervene unduly between the text and the child, imposing on the child our way of listening to it.

This is contra the sort of practice I think of reading about in older books like Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables in which children were given single Bible verses to memorize, which always seemed to me to be given without any greater context supplied for the poor child laboring to learn them.

(If we give them only one or two verses) We supply the child with a product we have already worked out and, as such, one that is limited, rather than opening up the boundless realm of God's Word before the child. The child cannot meditate on a single verse; at most he can learn it and repeat it through a process of superficial learning that is academic rather than vital in nature.

Again, the focus is on the child forming an independent relationship with the text, and thus with the Word, as much as possible.

The Material

According to Maria Montessori's conception, the material is not understood as an aid to the teacher but as a help for the child....it is a means of rendering the child independent of the adult, in that it enables the child to reflect, on his own, on what has been presented.... The catechetical material is not designed to lead to abstraction but to the vital knowledge of a concrete Person; it does not lead to the consideration of ideas but to prayer; it is not only an aid to learning but a help for one;s religious life as well. material that does not meet these requirements would not be good material.

In this the materials are clearly not toys but more akin to icons. This seems to give due weight to what I have observed in Isabella in that she learns very much through acting out that which she observes.

The material for catechesis is nothing else than the transposition, into a more tangible and didactically graduated form, of what is found in the Bible and the Liturgy.

The catechist's creativity (in making materials) does not consist in a kind of creation out of nothing, but in always probing more deeply into the treasures of God's Word and in presenting them in such a way as to give space to the child's creativity.

The Atrium

The atrium is a place of work, where the work, however becomes conversation with God. It is already in some manner a place of worship, where the child can live worship according to his own rhythm, which is not possible in a church.

It isn't clear how necessary the atrium is to the catechesis. I understand-- and approve of-- the desire to move away from an academic classroom sort of setting. As a homeschooler, the idea of a space set aside just for that purpose seems out of reach. I'm curious about how other homeschooling families handle this aspect. I have seen many people talk about having a corner set aside for a prayer table laid with a cloth of the liturgical color and the materials for the current presentation.

On the other hand the home is the domestic church and so I don't really see the need to carve out a separate space in quite the same way one might from an institutional or school setting.

The seed of God's Word, which the child receives, has need of the "hortus conclusus" (secret garden) of the atrium, and also the supportive oxygen of the adult community. One cannot substitute for the other: One integrates the other in a complementary function that is inseparable and without substitute.

The atrium is not a substitute for including children in the regular worship of the adult community. Children should come to mass and participate. At the same time we realize that merely attending mass is not enough, "without a place where the child can come in touch with the religious reality in a way and at a rhythm suitable to children, there is the danger the child will pass by great things without ever being able to grasp, interiorize, and make these realities his own."

I like this balance between being inclusive and recognizing that children need time and space to take things at their own pace. I like moving away from an academic setting and attitude and recognizing that faith is about experience and relationship. So much to ponder here.


Additional Reading Notes to The Religious Potential of the Child by Sophia Cavaletti:

Introduction and Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

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I'm Not "Professor X", but I Could Be

from Karen E.comes this great essay, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower. It expresses so eloquently so many of the thoughts I had while I was teaching college writing and literature in my long-ago, pre-children days.

There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces—social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students—that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.

I doubt any of my students would believe how I agonized over handing out grades. If I could have taught without grading, I'd have loved it; but the grading was one long nightmare of anxiety. And so much of that is because I know a grade is so much more than just a grade, it becomes so tied up in a student's sense of self-worth.

I gave Ms. L. the F and slept poorly that night. Some of the failing grades I issue gnaw at me more than others. In my ears rang her plaintive words, so emblematic of the tough spot in which we both now found ourselves. Ms. L. had done everything that American culture asked of her. She had gone back to school to better herself, and she expected to be rewarded for it, not slapped down. She had failed not, as some students do, by being absent too often or by blowing off assignments. She simply was not qualified for college. What exactly, I wondered, was I grading? I thought briefly of passing Ms. L., of slipping her the old gentlewoman’s C-minus. But I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students. By passing Ms. L., I would be eroding the standards of the school for which I worked. Besides, I nurse a healthy ration of paranoia. What if she were a plant from The New York Times doing a story on the declining standards of the nation’s colleges? In my mind’s eye, the front page of a newspaper spun madly, as in old movies, coming to rest to reveal a damning headline:

THIS IS A C?

Illiterate Mess Garners ‘Average’ Grade

Adjunct Says Student ‘Needed’ to Pass, ‘Tried Hard’

No, I would adhere to academic standards, and keep myself off the front page.

I didn't have as many "non-traditional" students as Professor X, most of my students were kids straight out of high school. But I did have a few like Ms. L. The first time I taught students older than myself and had to give them poor grades it was so very, very hard. And like Professor X, I soon learned that many, if not most, of my students were simply not equipped to succeed at the college level. Many of them, I wondered how they graduated from high school.

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.

Sending everyone under the sun to college is a noble initiative. Academia is all for it, naturally. Industry is all for it; some companies even help with tuition costs. Government is all for it; the truly needy have lots of opportunities for financial aid. The media applauds it—try to imagine someone speaking out against the idea. To oppose such a scheme of inclusion would be positively churlish. But one piece of the puzzle hasn’t been figured into the equation, to use the sort of phrase I encounter in the papers submitted by my English 101 students. The zeitgeist of academic possibility is a great inverted pyramid, and its rather sharp point is poking, uncomfortably, a spot just about midway between my shoulder blades.

For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.

I don't know what the answer is, primarily because I'm not sure what the real root problem is. I get the sense that schools are failing at all levels, starting at elementary school. Is it a problem of methodology, of educational philosophy, a cultural issue, a family issue, or a little of all of the above? I suspect the latter, which means there are no easy solutions. I'm pretty sure, though, that politicians aren't going to untangle it.

Be sure to read the entire essay here. It's so worth it.

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Rainy Day Art

It's raining, it's pouring, it's time to introduce Bella to the joys of watercolor.

Inspired by the Bookworm, I purchased First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos by Mary Ann Kohl for Bella's birthday, a gift I hope will brighten her whole year. My plan is to try to do one art activity a week.

Of course, it's taken me several weeks just to get around to starting. I finally bought a set of tempera paints and a variety pack of brushes this week and today brought them out for the first time.

I put some water in a mini-muffin tin and put a bit of tempera paint in several of the wells. Then I gave her about half a dozen different sized brushes and a piece of paper. She was enchanted.

The only problem was that her little table is only big enough for one piece of paper with the muffin tin on top, so we shared. I know I should have shown her how to paint and then stepped back, but I adore playing with watercolors. So it devolved into her mostly playing with the water in the muffin tin and occasionally dabbing at the paper and me painting page after page, swirling the colors she dabbed on until everything was dull and gray. But of course that's fine too. One of the activities in the book was simply allowing the child to play with colored water. Whatever process Bella wants to get involved in, as long as she's having fun. Process not product.

One funny thing was that she decided to allot me one brush. It became "mommy brush." All the others if I tried to pick them up, she'd yell at me, "No!" And if I tried to put my brush down, say to eat lunch or play with Sophia, she'd pick it up and hand it to me, saying, "mommy brush."




She kept lifting her brush into the air and laughing. What joy!

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Little Miss Tidy

We went to the park this morning and as soon as we got there, while I was getting Sophia into the stroller, Bella managed to step into the nasty black mud at the edge of the parking lot. It rather smelled as if the local ducks had made messes in it. She freaked out as it oozed into her sandal and wanted me to clean it off. So I pulled off the shoes, put her barefoot into the stroller and we set out for the bathroom where I cleaned the shoes and Bella's feet in the sink.

Yesterday she insisted on getting a towel to wipe off her feet after she'd poured dirt onto them while she was shoveling it from the flowerpot into her little pail. I'm guessing we're not going to be making mud pies any time soon.

Later, on the playground Bella busied herself picking up the empty boxes (from those little gunpowder-filled poppers boys like to throw) someone had left on one of the benches, carrying them to the garbage can one at a time. And when we got home she immediately noticed some spilled food inside the kitchen door.

Now if I can only find a way to harness these proclivities for tidiness....

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"Grim Tales"

When I was younger I was a huge fan of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, I had huge hard-bound collections the complete works of each (I think I even had two different versions of the complete Andersen). I still have them today, complete with the pencil checks in the tables of contents where I marked each story as I read it.

I loved them all, but the Little Mermaid was quite possibly my favorite of Andersen's stories (The Snow Queen a close runner-up). I even went to Copenhagen on a pilgrimage during my semester abroad in college, primarily to see the lovely bronze statue of the little mermaid erected in the harbor there. I loved the story that much. (I also bought a copy of the book in Danish while I was there. Not that I can read Danish, but the pictures are beautiful.)

I also remember going to see Disney's version of The Little Mermaid in the theater. I enjoyed it as a movie, especially the music and the great underwater visuals; but then I ranted and raved for weeks about how they had ruined the story. It had nothing of the beauty, the truth and the transcendence of the original.

And I was thrilled today to see my sentiments echoed, and articulated so much more eloquently than I ever could in this article at First Things titled "Grim Tales", sent to me by reader Sheila, in which Kari Jenson Gold compares the Disney storybook version of The Little Mermaid with the Andersen original:

Needless to say, there is no mention of immortal souls, sea foam, eternity, priests, or even marriage in the Disney book. Instead, Ariel, empowered female, sits crying in her ocean room, when the Sea Witch (now called Ursula) shows up to tempt her. “Sign this contract. It says that I agree to make you a human for three days. . . . If, after three days, Prince Eric does not love you, has not kissed you . . . you belong to me!” Notice how the stakes have been diminished: our girl just needs a kiss. Not only does this new, improved, politically correct version take away most of the motivation for her sacrifice, it also removes the conscious choice and effort required to visit the Sea Witch. Disney turns Ariel into just another desperate girl trying to find affection.

Gold has some wonderful insights into the problem of how both parents and teachers frequently fail to understand the purpose and importance of children's books:

But it is in the schools that perhaps the deepest confusion exists about the purposes of children’s literature. This year my husband and I attended several open houses at top-ranked private schools. At some of these events, tables for each grade were set up with frequently used materials, books read, and work produced. Very few of the classic children’s books were in evidence. Instead, the children were reading books chosen not because they were beautifully written or had stood the test of time, but because of their relationship to “appropriate” subject matter. In the lower grades at least, books were seldom understood as literature; they were merely aids to teaching social studies.

[snip]

Parents regularly express concern about violence and death in books, about anything that could be considered scary, and they do an enormous amount of censoring at home. TV time is limited, junk food is banned. These are careful, concerned parents. But few seem equally concerned about the dangers of trivial stories and bad prose.

Children need to hear beautiful language if they are to speak and write beautifully. They need to hear stories of love and courage and joy and sorrow so their imaginations are fired and their hearts expanded. They need to hear the language of Rudyard Kipling, the whimsy of A. A. Milne, the sorrow of Oscar Wilde, the mystery of Hans Christian Andersen, the wisdom of E. B. White, the terror of the Brothers Grimm, the wildness of Dr. Suess . . . there is no shortage of magnificent children’s literature. Children have little enough time for reading in their busy, scheduled lives. When they read, or when they listen, what we give them should be worthy of their eager, wondering minds and souls.

Read the whole article here.

I think it's a tragedy it is that so much junk passes for children's literature these days while so many treasures are unknown. In our library we have no Disney books, no Barbie books, and no Sesame Street books (well, ok we do have The Monster at the End of This Book starring lovable furry old Grover, a book I enjoyed reading with my parents and which I have fond memories of from my childhood). Instead, I am striving to build a collection of the best books I can find, with beautiful illustrations and inspiring prose. And I like to post reviews of the treasures that I find, hoping to inspire other mothers to seek out beautiful, well-written books, to let them know about the big beautiful world of children's literature that can be hard to find at big box stores--though you can glean some treasures even there if you are willing to hunt.

I look forward to the day when I will pull my Grimm and Andersen volumes from the shelf and share my favorite stories with Isabella and Sophia. Isabella has already been introduced to some of them in picture book form, of course. Here are a few of the books I've found that we love:

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

The Ugly Duckling (Caldecott Honor Book)

The Little Match Girl

Rumpelstiltskin

Rapunzel (Caldecott Medal Book)

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"Christ Against the Multiculturalists"

Address written for entering students of Wabash College, Class of 2012 by Stephen H. Webb, found at the First Things blog.

A couple of excerpts:

Education used to hold students to the highest standards of Western culture, but now it gives students bits and pieces of many cultures. Nonetheless, multiculturalism is not a plot devised by left-leaning liberals to dumb down America, though it often seems like that. Instead, multiculturalism follows inexorably from the rejection of a universal human nature. If there is no single human nature, then there is no single standard for human excellence either. Indeed, there is no single standard for anything, from rationality to morality. When rationality and morality are reduced to social constructions, the best we can do is learn how societies construct things, rather than why certain constructions endure the test of time. Learning becomes a matter of uncovering the social and historical context behind every book and every idea. Rather than ask what a text has to teach us, we now have to dig deep in order to ask what the text is trying to hide. And the answer to that question is presupposed from the start: What is foundational to all social constructions just happens to be what is so self-congratulatory about modern education. All books and ideas are trying to hide their prejudices about race, gender, and class. Learning is about identifying with the experiences of the victims of social injustice—experiences that will be held up for you as absolutely different from your own.

Multiculturalism might seem like a harmless game of cultural tourism mixed with a little detective work, with the crime (sexism and racism) always being the same, but it is actually much more serious than that. Liberal professors assume that you, the student, come to their classes believing in universal truths, and they think that it is their job to get you to leave such baggage behind. Since professors these days do not believe in human nature, they think that the most important thing they can do is to teach you that all values are relative. And they do this by trying to convince you that you do not understand other cultures because you are trapped in your own.

To return to the central truth of Christianity, Christians believe that God experienced the totality of the human condition by becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. That is, God did not need to become incarnate in each one of us in order to understand every one of us. Each one of us can experience a personal relationship with Jesus because Jesus was completely one of us. If cultural relativism is true, then Christianity is doomed, because God became incarnate in a very specific person at a particular time and place. From the perspective of multiculturalism, God could not have understood what it means to be human by becoming a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth. It follows that if God did understand man by becoming a man, then multiculturalism is a lie.

Applying this truth to the world of higher education, we can say that every human life is, in principle, sufficient for the discovery of every truth. You don’t need new experiences to become educated; you just need deeper ways of understanding your own experience. As a human being in the midst of passing into adulthood, nothing human is alien to you. You need to learn how to think more carefully, imagine more fully, and judge more humanely, but you do not need to learn that your beliefs are wrong because they are limited by your experiences and that the only way to broaden those beliefs is to immerse yourself in radically new experiences. What is true in any book you read or any idea you consider is true because it is true for everyone, and its truth is available to you because you already have the rudiments of what it means to be human.

Read the rest here

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