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Jesus spent a lot of time and energy trying to get his followers to see the deeper reality beneath life’s surface. He did this by telling stories in which the obvious conclusion got turned on its head: The first becomes last, and the last is welcomed as first.
The hated foreigner turns out to be the true neighbor. The high and mighty are refused entrance to the feast, but the poor and the outcast are welcomed gladly. The grain of wheat must die before it can bear fruit.
In Jesus’ view, in order to make any real spiritual progress you need to embrace the strange logic of paradox. You need to be willing and able to accept mystery without trying to force a black-and-white answer to emerge. You need to remain open to the possibility of new wisdom… .
In the world of the Spirit, paradox is the passageway to growth. Paradox is not so much something you’re taught as something you’re introduced to… . If our children don’t pick up a sense of the paradoxical, all they’ll know is what’s on the surface of life. They’ll miss the depth and the peace that Jesus gives and, at best, experience only the elusive ease that the world promises.
Perhaps one of the most powerful and obvious opportunities to initiate your children into the world of paradox is Lent, which is a time designed for sitting with paradox. In Lent we practice fasting, a chance to experience the emptiness that can show us how filled we are. We give up certain habits and practices—thereby curtailing our freedom—so that we can experience the freedom of seeing new truths about our lives. We celebrate and reenact terrible events during the days of Holy Week, events that we label the Good News. Here are some ways to involve your children during Lent and give them an appetite for mystery and paradox:
Practice the traditions of fasting, prayer, and giving to the poor. These are Christian traditions but are also important components of other world religions. You can encourage your children to give up a favorite snack or TV show and pay attention to their feelings in its absence. They may discover anxiousness, hunger, or self-centeredness. Or they may experience new energy and curiosity about other projects and adventures. Coming to such an awareness is a valuable spiritual experience.
Encourage your children to pray for someone who has hurt them. This is a way to introduce your children to the concept of Christian forgiveness. Don’t demand or expect that your children will like the offender. But Jesus tells us to do good to those who hurt us.
Select a worthy charity or mission opportunity that you will donate to as a family during Lent. Some families put a small collection bowl on the kitchen table, and at dinnertime family members can contribute to the cause. Holding a family discussion on where to give the money will open your children’s eyes to the needs of others in the world and their responsibility to act in charity and justice for the good of others.
Have your children commit a secret act of kindness for someone who irritates them. This deed shouldn’t be done with manipulation or with expectation of reward or recognition. Another practice that I try to remember and that I’ve shared with my daughters is to bow inwardly upon meeting other people. You don’t have to do anything overt; just simply make an interior bow of respect. This is particularly helpful when going into a difficult situation or meeting someone for the first time; it takes the concentration off of fear and replaces it with recognition that every person is a child of God.
Encourage your children to read spiritual biographies. Populate your children’s imagination with stories that run contrary to the normal success story. Introduce your children via books and videos to people who made a choice to live their life with faith.
Participate with your children in your local church’s Lenten services. For instance, Ash Wednesday reminds us of the paradox that we are mere dust but are also “a little lower than the angels.” We are dust, yet God’s Son became flesh and died for us. Confronting our limits and our mortality, as Ash Wednesday invites us to do, introduces us to the deep mystery that awaits within us: “Who am I? Who made me? What is my destiny?”
Invite your children to examine their consciences. It’s important to have a balanced sense of our own sinfulness as well as the all-encompassing mercy of God. Many Catholic parishes hold Lenten reconciliation services that help address two modern villains: the sense that I can never be worthy and the contrary sense that I am quite fine on my own, thank you very much. The first approach tells us that we must struggle and struggle before we can ever hope to earn God’s love. The other approach tells us that we don’t really need God’s love. Both are wrong. An honest sense of contrition is the prelude to mercy. It turns out that we do need God’s love and that God’s love is always available if we will just stop playing God ourselves. Rituals such as lighting a candle, reading appropriate passages from Scripture, and saying the Our Father together can signify remorse as well as the light of God’s love, present to us always.
Make Holy Week special. Take steps to indicate that this is not life as usual but a special time set apart. Do that through what you eat, what you do in the evenings, what you talk about, what you do upon waking and going to sleep. For example, you might set aside an evening to read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion and death. Encourage your local church to try to involve younger people in any Holy Week ceremonies and prepare your children for such participation by explaining what the symbols and readings mean to you.
If you know of Easter and Holy Week traditions from your ethnic heritage, introduce them to your children. Many families decorate eggs, symbols of the Resurrection, or put together Easter baskets that will be blessed at church. Many churches have services that are filled with meaningful symbols—like light shining forth in the darkness that cannot overcome it—and those rituals speak volumes directly to your child’s heart.
The story of Jesus’ suffering and death are at the heart of Christian faith. They are at the heart of our very existence and meaning. It’s easy to be too busy or distracted to attend to these rites and lessons. But we deprive our children of life and meaning when we do.
Tom McGrath is a frequent writer and speaker on family life and spirituality. This article is adapted from his book, Raising Faith-filled Kids: Ordinary Opportunities to Nurture Spirituality at Home (Loyola Press, 2000). Used with permission of Loyola Press. All rights reserved. To order copies of this book, call 1-800-621-1008 or visit www.loyolapress.org.
I really appreciate the lessons from this book but am a bit confused at what age to engage the children in these activities as my children are 6,4 and 3 years.
I want to make them spirit filled children.