9/365 CLOTW and Selfish Desires

CLOTW is my abbreviation for Children's Liturgy of the Word. We restarted this program at my parish after a small seasonal program had been disbanded. Sr. Hildegard gathered up a group of parents and other interested child-oriented catechists to take a few Sundays every semester and be in charge of presenting the Word of God to children, ages 4-10. This is done down in the basement of the church, with a rug where the children sit, a candle on a stand, and an ambo/lectern of sorts.

We were kind of a large crowd of catechists and helpers the first year but have dwindled down to a bare-bones operation. It essentially means I will miss at least 1 homily a month, sometimes more. Leading Children's Liturgy still "counts" for Sunday mass--I'm still participating in the liturgy--but I think I'm going to have to start attending the 7:30 a.m. mass if I'm going to not resent this service.

See, I really like our pastor. Really. And not just because he is personable and I served on his first parish council and trust him and all that--not just because he's a good person and a great priest and we're so fortunate he's at our parish and so forth. He could be all that and fall flat at the pulpit, but he's good at that too. I really like listening to good preaching, and he pulls it off more often than not. Almost always, actually, I go home ruminating on what's been said. I love words and people who use them well, whether written or spoken or sung (or in any combination). So it's hard to know that I'm going to walk out with a gaggle of children and head down to the dim basement to try to present the gospel to them in a way that is child-oriented and lovely...because I miss out on the adult version upstairs that I yearn for.

But I'm reminded of something I read by Fr. Dominic Garramone OSB (the Fr. Dominic from the PBS bread baking show--another one of my steps along the way in the summer of '06). He was complaining to his abbot that helping an elderly monk at the liturgy of the hours was seriously detracting from his own prayer life. The elderly man could barely see the pages, was always getting lost in the office books, kept forgetting Dominic's name--in other words, being a big pain in the rear. Dominic insisted that he could "hardly pray" while helping out this monk. The abbot pointed out to him that without his help, that monk could not pray at all. It is unlikely that the children I share the gospel with down in the basement of the church are going to go home and ruminate on my words. It is doubtful that the things I say will be of any great and wonderful importance. But if it allows them to more fully participate in the mass (and if it, frankly, lets their parents have a moment upstairs to more fully participate in the mass), then it is worthwhile. Even if I miss out on the good stuff once in a while.

So I'll suck it up and enjoy it. Because in the end, I always do.