Bulletin for Aug. 20

Dear friends in Christ,

Welcome back! With the new school year underway ( CtR School began this Thursday, Aug. 17 with 440+ kids enrolled in grades Pre-K through 8) and with the local Cy-Fair schools preparing to open next week, I welcome all who are with us this weekend for the first time or perhaps the first time in several months. The start of a new academic year always brings a spike in our attendance at Mass as people make their way back to church after various summer trips and vacations. I pray that this coming school year will be a blessing to our children in the community. May they be filled with gifts of wisdom and understanding. May it also be a time of joy and peace for the many teachers and administrators from our parish who do such good work in our local schools. God bless you all!

Since we are thinking about school at this time don’t forget to register your children for Religious Education classes for this year. R.E. classes begin the week of Sept. 17, but the time to register is now. This is the final full week of our current registration period – it ends Thursday, Aug. 31. If you have not already done so, please take time this week to register your children. We will close registration at the end of the month so that we can balance the class loads, order books and supplies, and properly form our teachers and catechists. We will re-open registration later in September after classes have started, but now is the time to register. It only takes a few minutes and can be done online at our parish website or in person at the R.E. Office.

Given that we expect upwards of 2,500 children in R.E. we are in need of class teachers and catechists as well as volunteers in a variety of roles. Please consider volunteering your time and talent to pass on the faith to the next generation. We will provide training and support throughout the year. Don’t worry that you are not “holy enough” or “smart enough” about the faith. If you have a willing heart and an open mind, we can help you do great things for our children. Talk to any of the members of our R.E. Department for how you can be part of this dynamic ministry at CtR.

Last year I posted a blog entry from Deirdre Mundy on the  aleteia.org website about what it means to be a catechist. I heard from several people how touching it was, and it spurred not a few of them to sign up to be a catechist here at CtR. Allow me to share it with you again. Mundy is a volunteer catechist in her parish, and I thought her reflection was a wonderful summary of what it means to serve the parish community as a catechist. It’s titled “Why I Am the Worst Catechist at my Parish, and I’m Still Signing Up.” I’ll admit that it is a catchy title, but the content is even more powerful. I’m reprinting it here. Read it yourself and join us in this vital ministry.

This August, I’ll begin my sixth year as a religious education teacher. Ora pro me. So far, I’ve taught second, third, fourth and sixth grades at two different parishes. I spend my summers reading articles about trends in religious education and asking other catechists for advice. Then, the school year begins, and I spend my Wednesday nights never doing quite as well as I’d hoped I would.

I can safely say that I am the worst catechist at my parish. This isn’t false modesty. It’s just that the other catechists are great catechists. They’ve been at it for a long time, they know how to teach and reach kids, and they know their curricula inside and out.

Meanwhile, I’m still struggling to balance book time and talk time, to keep order when the kids are hungry and hyper after a long school day, and to get the most important parts of the faith across without neglecting the nitty gritty, or the Bible. I noticed that many of the lapsed Catholics of my acquaintance accuse us of never reading the Bible in religion classes, so each year we work through a New Testament book, one chapter a week. I alternate Luke and Acts, because a lack of teachers means I often have the same kids two years running.

Often, as a teacher, I am a mess. The kids are too, because with little reinforcement at home they have, over summer, all but forgotten everything beyond Jesus having died and risen, and I don’t know where to start.

So, why am I in the classroom, trying to teach Catechism at a table surrounded by squirmy, exhausted kids who don’t want to be there? Why did God call me to teach religion when there are better teachers out there, people who could really set the kids on fire with love for Jesus and mankind? “Shouldn’t someone else be leading this class,” I think, “and leave me to safer, less important tasks like photocopying activity sheets or making sure that no one floods the bathroom?”

But I tend to wonder the same thing about a lot of other places God calls me. Why am I homeschooling seven kids, running clubs and keeping house when I’m mediocre at much of it? Why am I my husband’s wife, when he surely deserved better? Why did God put me at this soccer game trying to comfort this traumatized woman as she cries on my shoulder about a recent miscarriage, when I stink at social skills and freak out at tears?  It seems like God keeps calling me to things I’m barely capable of, and often not comfortable with. Couldn’t he find someone better?

Actually, I think the answer to that last question might be, “No, he couldn’t.” Not because I’m super-wonderful and practically perfect in every way, but because I’m available and willing. Maybe someone better for the job left the Church when she was 12 and never looked back. Or maybe she keeps saying “no” because “yes” can feel so scary. Maybe God takes who is available and willing. Moses was a murderer with a stutter; Saint Bernadette was the merest creature on earth. Saint Peter wasn’t exactly a calm, cool management type, or a smooth operator, and look where he ended up. On paper, Judas might have had a better CV for the papacy, but he was unwilling to be led away from where he thought he should go.

So, here is what God and the Church are left with: the unworthy yet willing. A lot of us who are called to things we’re not especially good at, but we’re game to give it a try, all for Jesus. Fortunately, where our own talents, skills, and energies fail us, grace can fill the gaps, if we let it.

I know there are people in my parish, and in every parish, who would be better catechists than I am. When the DRE gets up front to make her annual plea, they’re too afraid to answer God’s call, because they know they’re not the perfect person for the job.  But here’s the thing: The perfect person isn’t here. The perfect person will probably never show up. But you are here, and you’re the one God’s calling right now, in all your imperfection. It’s OK to hold your breath, close your eyes, make the leap and offer to help. His grace will make up for your faults.

Peace,
Fr. Sean