Strong doctrine in a few lines
By Jennifer Lindberg
Morning prayer time that stretches into the afternoon with small snatches of time in a mom’s life is writing a story of sainthood through interruptions.
The littlest wakes up when I’m half-way through reading about St. Simon and Jude, and I’m partway way through my rosary. The candles are lit as I say, “Christ is the light,” and my globe is set there as part of my Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Training that I have modified for my adult self. I am a visual person; my learning style needs to be focused so I don’t get too distracted from other things around me. Mainly, I am distracted by my children and wandering mind that wants to ponder the items on my to-do list.
But I won’t let my mind wander there yet. I need this quiet time for my heart to silence itself to really rest in the Lord. Even for just a few snatched moments as the sun hits the horizon and begins to splash its light all around.
My children know this ritual well. They are in a little atrium of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd because their mother has taken the long trainings (180 hours for Level I & II) to come down to the level of child and enter into the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 18:3) They know when candles are lit, you proclaim Christ as the light. They know that my little globe sitting on the table helps me find where the Apostles Simon and Jude first walked and then preached or find the motherland of any other saint on the map of this broad world.
The globe is used to foster the historical aspect of the spiritual Gospels. These men and women of the Bible really lived, laced their sandals in the sand and witnessed the miracles of Christ. Christ was a real man, walking a real earth filled – then as now – with people needing healing, wanting the faith preached in truth, and hoping to find love in the right places. In the atrium, we mark Israel with a tiny black dot from a permanent marker on the globe. The globe symbolizes the historical connection, but the tiny dot that you can barely see represents how the great God of the Cosmos came down to a tiny speck of a place and changed the entire world. It represents that we must first be small to grow, just as the parable of the mustard seed. A true Jerusalem mustard seed barely fits on the head of a straight pin. Yet it grows to mammoth proportions tall and stretching into the sky. There are other parables of smallness in my day. The smallness of my children’s hands seeking mine under the cozy blanket as I do my mediations on the Word made Flesh. They snuggle in with me watching the candlelight, seeing the globe, seeing me with the rosary in one hand and theirs in the other. I have to put my book down to hold them. This is ok, right, and just. They will grow soon; their smallness being forgotten as I see in my oldest heading to college. But I know the seeds I planted in him will allow him to remain humble in spirit to inherit the Kingdom of God.
I know that each time a candle is lit, he will think in his mind, “Christ is the light,” and like his little siblings remember his mother sitting in the early daylight trying to pray and opening her arms to snuggle and hold them so they too can rest in my rest. There is something quieting for all of us in this embrace of prayer time ritual.
The day stretches to afternoon, the candles have been snuffed out long ago, but my Bible still lays on the table, open to the Letter of Jude. I had wanted to read it this morning, but one tiny child means the footsteps of others rousing and breakfast must be served. I used to resent the interruptions until Catechesis of the Good Shepherd entered my life. I have learned that these interruptions of motherhood are my way of becoming little. It is my way of trusting that God knew I wanted to sit at his feet for long minutes or even an entire hour, but I could not. It is my path to humility to stop, let them come in, and witness to them my love in the ebbing candlelight.
I come back to my prayer spot after lessons of reading, math, and handwriting and use it as a tool now. I sit down to read as the children pick up the globe and find the spot where Christ first descended to Earth in the Virgin Mary’s womb and where he walked. We talk about Simon and Jude, who they were and how St. Jude’s letter is so small yet, “contains strong doctrine in a few lines,” as Origen a Church Father proclaimed. St. Jude’s letter would fit on one page, it is barely over 1,200 words long.
Littleness contains a strong doctrine if we only look for it. It is a little thing to sit on one’s couch, light a candle and read the Word of God. Yet, it grows tall, firm, and majestic over time.
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