I ask you, dear reader, to bear with me as I move in and through my cynical season. It comes upon me a few times a year. My wife, please pray for her, is a saint for putting up with my comments, despair, and sarcasm.
How, you might ask, does this season or mood come about and how does it manifest itself. It often rears its ugly head when two or more seemingly unrelated events collide in my always-thinking mind causing an explosion of cynical thoughts. It manifests itself through endless diatribes at home and blog posts such as this one.
For instance, the first event, last week a couple of parents commented on how they thought that learning the "
Act of Contrition" was much more difficult than learning the "Act of Sorrow". I require the
PSR students to learn the Act of Contrition while the school learns the Act of Sorrow. I do this because it is a beautiful prayer and it is not difficult to learn. In fact, I would argue that the Our Father is more difficult to learn than the Act of Contrition. After all the Our Father has those big scary words like - art, hallowed, thy, trespasses, and temptation.
The second event took place this morning as our oldest, six-years-old, was singing a song about the Blessed Virgin that he found on the
EWTN kids site. He was singing along with this song and he had only heard it for the first time two days ago.
The third seemingly unrelated event popped up when I was discussing the use of Latin in the Mass with a friend. We talked about how at first we felt uncomfortable with the use of Latin because we didn't know the words, pronunciations, etc. However, after assisting at Mass a few times, we picked it right up and now love it and want more.
If you are scratching your head and wondering how in the world any of these could be related, thank God for your wonderful, loving temperament. If you see where I am going with this, pray for me and I'll pray for you.
When these three events crashed in the ever-moving machine of my cranium the explosion was unbelievable and went something like this....
Why is it that my kids and most kids can memorize a song, dance, bad word, or electronic game with the greatest ease yet we think that the Act of Contrition is too difficult for them to learn? Why is that folks in the pews grumble and complain about the use of something "new" like Latin because they don't know what is going on but have no problem with other "new" things like reading the Gospel after the homily (another event)? Why are we amazed that our children can absorb so much like little sponges but often refuse to allow them to absorb life-giving-water, Christ? Why are we impressed by talented and learned men but refuse to become that ourselves? Why do we lower the bar for ourselves and our children? Why do we expect others to do everything for us? Why do we expect others to learn our language and refuse to learn another language ourselves? and on, and on, and on......
So, as you can see, it is that time of year for me. Please, however, do not feel sorry for me, I do enjoy most every moment of it!
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