My Duck

            A few weeks ago I decided to take a leave-of-absence from my position as Director of Religious Education at the parish I’ve belonged to my entire life.  I was baptized, received first Communion, first Reconciliation, Confirmation, and was married all within the same four walls over a period of 23 years.  And then two years later I became the DRE.  The past 9 years of parish ministry have been ones of growth and learning on a journey that brought me to the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and a vocation to be with children in the Atrium—to take my place as a co-listener to the Word of God and to hear the scripture and Liturgy anew by pondering them with 3 to 12 year-olds.

            Last year I began a graduate program at the Aquinas Institute for a Master’s in Pastoral Studies with a concentration in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  Every semester I go with my other 12 cohort-mates to attend a 4-day intensive in St. Louis.    A month ago, when we were together, I shared my recent struggles to make it all “fit”—my main vocations of wife, mother and catechist, along with my studies and the administrative duties of being DRE.  One of the women, Micki, told me a parable she’d heard about discernment:  A person approaches a wood carver who has spent years and years carving intricate wooden ducks, and asks in awe, “How do you do that?”  To which the wood carver replies, “I take away everything which is not a duck.”

            And so today, as I sit at home on Thanksgiving morning, still in my pajamas at 11am with my family busy around me, I am grateful for the painful and joyous winnowing of trying to discern everything that is not a duck in my own life.

            A day after resigning I went in to be with a group of homeschool level two children who meet every two weeks at our Atrium.  Three of the girls had welcomed a new sister since the last time we met, and as we read together the first reading for Thanksgiving day from Sirach, their reflections were full of the joy, wonder, and awe that new life brings:

And now, bless the God of all

who has done wondrous things on earth;

Centerpieces for last years' Thanksgiving Prayer Service.

who fosters peoples’ growth from their mothers’ womb,

and fashions them according to his will!

May he grant you joy of heart

and may peace abide among you;

may his goodness toward us endure in Israel

to deliver us in our days.

To ponder God, who had fostered the growth of their new baby sister and their growth, and all of us as we’re slowly being drawn toward the light of God like the flowers that follow the sun as it traverses the sky.  And to ruminate on the hallmarks of resting in God—joy and peace.

Each semester in my master's program we read and study a spiritual leader who influenced the theological thought of Sofia Cavalletti, one of the founders of CGS.  This last semester of studies, our spiritual companion has been Abraham Joshua Heschel—a Jewish Rabbi who barely escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s to begin teaching at Hebrew Union College in America.  Though most of his family perished in the Holocaust, Heschel continued to be a voice of hope and faith in both God and humanity.  He spoke out againt the war in Vietnam and joined the Civil Rights movement to march beside Martin Luther King Jr.  He traveled to Rome to advise the bishops at the Second Vatican Council on interreligious relations.

            Just like the youngest child who enters so easily into the essentiality of thankfulness, Heschel called everyone to recognize this defining practice, “the truth of being human is gratitude; its secret is appreciation.”

            This past June my CGS journey took me to Atlanta, Georgia to a training for Level One Formation Leaders.  At the closing gathering we were given time to write about our experiences and insights.  Looking back, I think I wrote about “my duck”:  

Good Shepherd, I come before you with open hands and a full heart and I ask you humbly to give me the courage to be who I am most essentially.  No more, and no less.  Didn’t St. Theresa say, “To be truly who you are would be to set the world on fire”?  But for me it is enough to hold a candle and to enjoy the flame and to share it with a child.  Your light—always your light—to see your little ones already on fire—set ablaze with the holy joy of their belonging to you—their yearning and sure hope of the Parousia.

            In 5 year-old Noah you spoke your words to my grieving heart when looking at the city of Jerusalem and pointing to Caiaphas’ house I said, “it was decided Jesus must die.”  And Noah leaned in close to me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Don’t worry Katy, he rose again.”

            In 8 year-old Ani you proclaimed yourself as the author of us all when I asked after reading the words of the Annunciation “I wonder what this could mean when Mary says, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’” and she looked up from her artwork halfway across the room and mused, “she knew she was made by God—handmade.”

            And in 12 year-old Nicholas you taught me of vocation when after a presentation on the Plan of God he asked to go to the Church, “Of course,” I said, “What would you like to do at the church?”  “Carry the cross,” he responded, “because whenever I carry the cross, something inside of me wants to carry it more.”

            My grandfather died 18 years ago this month and his favorite hymn was, “Only this I ask, but to know the Lord and to bear his cross, so to wear the crown he wore.  For one day within your temple heals everyday alone.  O Lord, lead me to your dwelling.

            Good Shepherd, thank you for this foretaste of Parousia.  To come to know you in your little ones.  To dwell with you as your child among children in the Atrium.