Teeming with life

When visitors to our parish stop to say hello to me after Mass, the one comment most frequent is how many young families we have.  That may be an edited version of commenting how many children were at Mass, and how noticeable they were; but either way I joyfully acknowledge it.  Yes, it can be a little rowdy in the pews; isn’t that a marvelous part of worshipping God?

Last week at the end of my Masses, I reinforced the announcement about the upcoming (next week!) Fall Festival.  Invite people, I urged, who do not usually come here because they are not Catholic or not local, if you think they might enjoy a family-friendly afternoon.  It dawned on me to make the point not only because families with children have too few options attuned to their needs and that welcome them, but also because so many people, like those Sunday visitors from other dioceses in other parts of the country, no longer have any opportunity to be around families with children.

A few months ago, Timothy Carney, a local writer, gave me a copy of his most recent book.  I have known him since he was a solo young professional in the city (when I was in Chinatown); after that he was a parishioner here for a year or two when his family was getting started.  He then moved over by Saint Andrews for a longer time, and finally now is in Falls Church, Virginia (so his new pastor tells me).  His book starts with a description of our parish’s Friday Night on the Field, what I call munchkinball.  He makes it his lead example of what there is not nearly enough of, that is, time for kids to be kids together, and adults to let them do that while enjoying one another’s company.  

Among other things, this decisively sets apart from all that surrounds us in this, our little garden patch of heaven under the maples.  In our metropolis, children are scheduled, supervised, channeled, and contained, isolated and exempted from the general flow of society.  Their carefully chosen companions tend to be exactly their age and socio-economic group, and their activities directed and evaluated.  Parents provide transportation.  

The name of Tim’s book is Family Unfriendly, and he diagnoses this as one of the symptoms of what is terribly unhealthy about our culture.   I admit I have not finished the book, but neither have I read only the parts that mention our parish.  He has a genuine insight, and I commend it to your attention.  

For years I have heard some of the negative experiences of our parish parents who find dirty looks or open criticism when in public places with their children, more than two at a time. But my own experience makes me suspect there are also other people, possibly many of them, who have a different attitude and a different reaction to seeing families and children.  

With no children of my own, I have nonetheless become accustomed to the environment here at the parish where kids are woven into the fabric of every gathering.  Sure, we have a school where kids take classes, and we have sports leagues where kids play in organized and supervised teams.  But that’s not the ONLY place the kids are; no, they are everywhere, and very often doing entirely their own thing, but also sometimes interacting freely and appropriately with people of other ages from other families whom they may or may not know terribly well.  Many if not most of them freely interact with me, always forthrightly, almost always politely, and in a manner that is best described as ‘childlike’.  (There’s an endorsement of being ‘childlike’ somewhere from somebody important, but I cannot lay hand to it just now).  This is one thing I enjoy most, and that I miss most on the rare occasions I take a vacation that lasts into a second week.  

What about the other people like me, who do not have their own children or whose children are not nearby, but would find it invigorating and encouraging to be in an environment where kids are being kids in a happy and healthy way, and their parents are letting them enjoy it?  It is so beautiful, so human, and so normal, it is hard to fathom how and why we have let it become so rare.

It is a matter of pride and delight for me when those visitors comment on the youthful rambunctiousness of our Sunday Masses.  I hope you, too, find our family-friendly parish and her young, energetic members a source of pride and delight, which you invite people you care about to share and enjoy.

Monsignor Smith