The Greatest Gift

Last updated on: March 18, 2010 at 3:07 am by Katrina

The Greatest Gift 2010-03-18T03:07:00-06:00 Katrina

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Dear readers ~ I wrote the following post for our church’s mothers’ group (St. Anne Society), and thought that I would share it with you all as well…Enjoy!

Like many of the members of the St. Anne’s Society, I spent my childhood moving from one place to another, and I am also a transplant to Texas. Our closest family members (my parents) live over 800 miles away, and we have family living thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean in Germany and (soon!) in Spain. As I was growing up, my immediate family – my parents and my younger sister – was the only segment on both my mother’s and my father’s side that didn’t live in the same town that we had been born in. We were always traveling to see our extended family for holidays, and never spent Christmas morning or Easter in our own home. By the time that I entered high school I had attended eight different schools in three different countries, and these had been a mixture of public, Catholic, and international schools. As a child, this was a great adventure and I have great memories of all of the places that my family visited and explored. I feel richly blessed to have had all of the experiences that I did growing up, and I know that I would not be the same person today if it had not been for all of these experiences.

However, not every child that moves around a lot has the same positive experience as I did. Recent studies indicate that children who move often are more at risk for experiencing depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior than their peers who have not moved. So what did my parents do differently that made my experience so positive? I truly believe that the main factor in my ability to transition from one place to the next was that my parents kept certain things constant, and they especially made a point of keeping our family’s faith life a priority no matter where we lived. I remember living in Istanbul, Turkey, where there is not exactly a high concentration of Catholic Christians, and the Catholic churches were not abundant. My parents drove us for almost an hour to the closest Catholic church every Sunday morning, and I can still remember many things about this particular church: The crowded streets outside, the ceilings inside that seemed to reach to the heavens, the little room under the main church where my sister and I attended religious education. It would have been easier for my parents to stay home and avoid the risk of driving without their weekday driver on the crowded and treacherous streets of Turkey, but they knew the importance of attending Mass as a family, no matter how inconvenient.

As an adult, I remember many of the places that I have visited or lived most poignantly by the churches that I attended while I was there. I spent a summer working long hours at a hospital in Freiburg, Germany, and was very lonely and challenged for much of my time there. I probably would have gotten on the first available flight back home had it not been for the opportunity that I had to attend daily Mass – my lifeline for those two months! – and a compassionate nun who took me under her wing and guided me through the problems that I was facing. My husband and I spent our honeymoon in Vancouver, Canada, and again had the opportunity to attend daily mass at a local church. We befriended an older couple throughout our week in Vancouver, and on our last day they gave us a beautiful “Marriage Prayer” plaque that still hangs on the wall of our bedroom. Some of my most treasured memories from college are the times spent in prayer with my fellow classmates in the university chapel. I attended a secular university with an amazing Catholic community, and a series of felicitous events in the first weeks of my freshman year truly turned my life around and pointed me back in the right direction. I have forgotten much of the material that I learned in my university courses, but I will never forget the booming voice of Fr. Tom during his passionate homilies or the heads of my classmates bowed in fervent prayer in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.

As I think about what qualities I would hope to instill in my children – self-discipline, honesty, respectfulness, kindness, etc. – I realize that all of these flow naturally out of a deep and abiding sense of connection to our faith. Our Lord is “the way, the truth, and the life,” (John 14:6) and if we can help our children to foster a true friendship with Christ, we are giving them a great gift. One of the ways that we can help our children to grow in friendship with Christ is to bring them to Mass, to the feet of Jesus Himself, to pray and to worship and to rest. No matter what challenges life may bring for our children, God will never change His promises nor will he leave them. And no matter where life may take them, they may always claim the Church as their home, their refuge, and their universal family.

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble. ~Psalm 46:1

May God bless all of you and your families!

Children

Motherhood and Parenting

The Catholic Church

Previous Post

March 17, 2010

Quick Thoughts for St. Pats

Next Post

March 19, 2010 What My Boys Are Teaching Me These Days...

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Builders' Favorite Posts Children Education & Homeschool Food and Nutrition Health Home Organization Inside Our Inbox Keeping It Real Liturgical Seasons Marriage Miscellaneous Motherhood and Parenting Nature and the Environment NFP and Fertility Politics and Current Events Pregnancy Recipes Spiritual Life The Catholic Church Thoughts for Thursday Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was King Saul's father?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Rehoboam Methuselah Kish Job