children | OC Catholic

EPISODE #47
TRENDING WITH CHRIS & TIMMERIE: PORN PLEASE?

75% of those who say religion is not important view porn as morally acceptable. What’s changed? A new Gallup poll reveals that the majority of Americans think porn is acceptable. On Trending this week, you’ll hear Chris Mueller and Timmerie Millington speak about how to overcome a pornography addiction, how parents can help one teacher’s plea for better discipline of children, and how Hungary’s Family Policy drastically boosted marriages and lowered abortion and divorce rates in just seven years.

Originally broadcast on 6/17/18

PAVING THE WAY TO GOD

Parents may not realize it, but experts say children have “a way of being in the presence of God that is both unique to the child and to the adult who stops long enough to notice.”

Sofia Cavalletti, a Roman Catholic and a renowned Hebrew scholar, made that observation.

In working with elementary-age children, Cavalletti saw that they were intrigued by gospel stories and responded with deep joy. With that realization, Cavalletti abandoned her previous work and co-founded Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with her friend Gianna Gobbi, a teacher who had trained under Maria Montessori.

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd was established in 1954. Embracing Montessori principles, it teaches religion in an atrium (a place of life and preparation that is sometimes referred to as a worship-education center). The instructors are known not as teachers, but catechists (guides in religious instruction).

Today, 10 years after arriving locally, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is operating in nine parishes in the Diocese of Orange. The diocesan director of the Office of Faith Formation, Katie Dawson, hopes that it expands significantly.

“Catechesis is the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Dawson says. “It’s a very appropriate, developmentally sensitive approach to the story of God the Creator and His solution to sin and death, which is Jesus. Children meet the love of the Father through the good shepherd.”

Cavalletti became intrigued by the question of how children most effectively learn the great story of God, Dawson explains. “Over the years, she told hundreds of children hundreds of stories. She identified the kinds of Bible stories that are appropriate for kids in different age groups.” 

Then she and her partner Gobbi began training catechists to tell stories using storyboards and other accessories. All the items in the church sacristy are available in hands-on, childproof duplicates so that children can learn their names and their part in the Mass.

Sister Monica, the catechist for students at Christ Cathedral Academy in Garden Grove, says she has prepared an environment called the atrium, which aids in the development of religious life. “My job is to work with the children once a week when they come to the atrium. They learn how to behave in church, focus on the liturgy, and they know all the items used in the Mass.

“They learn about the sacraments and how the liturgical calendar follows Jesus’s life,” she adds. “The two focuses are liturgy and scripture and they are close to one another.”

Most important, Sister Monica says, the children develop a close relationship with God and learn how to pray. 

“They love to attend Mass,” she notes. “For them, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a renewal of their spiritual life and relationship with Jesus.” 

For more information on Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, please call the Diocese of Orange Office of Parish Faith Formation at 714-282-3060.

FAMILY PRAYER NIGHTS

If your children were anything like my three kids, you rarely saw the serene inside of an art gallery or a quiet a museum – at least until they were past their clumsy pre-teen years.

Still, there are many good reasons for Catholic parents to expose their children to the fine arts. According to CatholicMom.com, studies have shown the intellectual benefits of stimulating a child’s brain through the fine arts, whereas constant exposure to the simplistic and base entertainments may inhibit their growth. 

Of course, a love of the arts – sacred music, writing, sculpture, painting, and architecture – is a lifelong gift we can give our children, and one that will improve the quality of their lives. 

So how can parents wrest smartphones and game controls from their kids long enough to expose them to sacred art?

The answer to that question varies with each family, but the Catholic Mom website provides some suggestions. In a recent blog, it recommends beginning with pictures that reflect what you love about your faith and sharing them with your children at bedtime each night. Discussions about the art can include topics such as how the artist used color, lighting, and movement to depict energy and emotions, as well as prompting kids to tell the story the picture portrays.

Beginning with pictures of Bible stories, children can get hooked on learning about the artist, the period the art was made, and where the art is now displayed, Catholic Mom says. For parents who want a deeper dive into religious art, the site recommends subscribing to “The Magnificat,” a monthly publication that provides a spiritual guide to help develop prayer and spiritual life and often contains full-color works of art accented with thoughtful critiques based on Church history and faith.

“As your family learns to appreciate sacred art in all its complexity, beauty, and truth, children will also nurture a deeper appreciation and passion for the Catholic faith itself,” Catholic Mom says. “Eyes and hearts open to Catholicism’s deeper mysteries and a whole new world will be revealed in glorious ways.” 

In an article adapted from the book, “77 Ways to Pray with Your Kids,” the Peanut Butter & Grace website confirms that the Church has long used sacred art to proclaim the Gospel and to help people to pray. The site recommends using sacred art as a way of practicing Meditative Prayer, using tools like icons, a tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Icons use highly symbolic “language” to engage the viewer in prayer, the site notes. In fact, the artist (or iconographer) is said to “write” the icon, and the viewer is called to “read” the language of the icon with her heart. Icons usually depict some holy person – Jesus, Mary, or the saints – gazing directly at the viewer. It is through those gazing eyes that the viewer is intended to pass through the painting itself into a mystical encounter with God.

When it comes to older kids, they may want to spend time meditating on how God might be speaking to them through a chosen sacred artwork. Which figure do they most identify with? Why? How would they participate in the scene? 

Asking the Holy Spirit’s guidance is a good way to begin when learning any new skill, including an appreciation for sacred art. People of all ages want to talk about the feelings the art sparks in them, or why the artist used a specific medium or tone to tell the story. If they were the artist, how would they depict the subject differently, and why? 

POPE VISITS SICK CHILDREN ON EVE OF EPIPHANY

FIUMICINO, Italy (CNS) — On the eve of Epiphany, when most Italian children wake up to find gifts and candy, Pope Francis visited a pediatric hospital outside Rome.

The pope arrived at the Palidoro Bambino Gesu Hospital at about 3 p.m. Jan. 5 and visited the various wards where about 120 children are receiving treatment, according to the Vatican press office.

The pope greeted the children and “exchanged some words of comfort with the parents who are caring for their children in their tiring and painful trials,” the statement said.

Visiting the hospital, Pope Francis was “continuing the experience of the Mercy Fridays,” visits he made to hospitals, orphanages and other care facilities during the 2015-16 Year of Mercy.

CULTURE CLASH

Opening our children’s eyes to the love of God and the mysteries of our Catholic faith keeps us parents plenty busy. We shuttle the family to Sunday Mass, send our kids to parochial schools and say our prayers before bed. Considering all of that, it seems sometimes that if we must add one more thing to our plates, our well-planned lives will fly into a tailspin.

Still, Catholic parents who want to teach their children about the world God has made for us will want to make sure their kids are inspired to later visit colorful art galleries, ponder the gilded contents of museums, listen to a sublime symphony or attend a graceful ballet performance.

Culture may be man-made, while religion is wholly associated with our Creator. Yet the world’s great religions include rituals and sermons, sacrifices and festivals, and other aspects of human culture in their practice. Often included are dancing, playing music and singing. 

Because God made us in His image and He loves beauty in all its forms, doesn’t it make sense that He wants to share it all with us?

“Philosophy includes four transcendentals: Truth, goodness, beauty and love,” says Katie Dawson, director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Orange. “These four things deeply resonate in the human heart. When we look at things that we are attracted to, they are always some expression of one or a combination of these.

“Anything beautiful feeds our soul and helps us connect with the divine in some manner,” she continues. “However we can help our kids discover these four things to enrich their lives, the richer their life experience will be.”

As we try to provide our children with various experiences, it makes sense to scan cultural opportunities in our communities and put them on our busy calendars. Central Orange County’s Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, for instance, has traveling exhibitions from all over the world as well as a vast number of art and artifacts from Orange County’s history. The Norton Simon Museum in nearby Pasadena is on a small scale, perfect for little visitors. The Pacific Symphony, South Coast Repertory Theater and Segerstrom Center all provide performances appropriate for kids, including jazz musicians, dramatic and humorous plays, and visiting acrobats and ballet companies.

Bowers’ visiting exhibits can include the mummified kings of Egypt, temple murals from Buddhist China, or church relics from Europe. “These outings are great gifts we can share with children,” Dawson says. “The challenge is interrupting the hustle-bustle of our lives to expose to them firsthand, rather than in textbooks.”

Planning to attend an opera, stage play, classical music performance or ballet requires lots of warning, but experiential learning sticks with a child even more than straight-A studies. “All these opportunities are meant to help them broaden their understanding of our world and where we come from,” she notes. “Diverse cultures express themselves in numerous ways.”

At the same time, parents shouldn’t get too ambitious about exposing young children to the arts. “It’s important to pay attention to what the child responds to, and not overload them with experiences that are too sophisticated for their development stage,” Dawson warns. “Three-year-olds should not be attending the opera.”

With small children, cultural touchstones in the home resonate best. “We have picture books iconic in family life, like ‘Goodnight Moon’ and ‘I Love You Forever,’ that are appropriate at even the earliest ages,” she notes. “That’s when kids have their first encounter with art.”

As children get older, she says, parents can guide a museum visit by preparing their kids for what they will see. If a Van Gough self-portrait is on display, they can ask their children to look for the painting of the red-haired man, she suggests.

Short trips can later be longer so that kids have a good time with art, Dawson says. “It’s a taste of a beautiful experience at a level they can appreciate – a lot shorter than an adult’s – but they are spending time with art. Then, you go get ice cream.” 

GETTING READY FOR THE SACRAMENTS

Catholics believe that the seven sacraments are the heart of our faith. We are initiated into the Church as infants in the sacrament of baptism. Then when we reach the age of reason, around age 7, the Church extends an invitation for us to receive the Body of Christ in the sacrament of Eucharist. At the same time we are reconciled with the Church community through penance in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Parents often forget the many questions we had as children during this challenging period – about the sacraments and the preparations we needed to make, about what it was like to confess our sins for the first time and about receiving the Eucharist in our first Holy Communion.

Parish schools work hard to include parents in sacramental preparation. As children get ready to receive penance and first Holy Communion, parents are encouraged to join them in studying texts and materials and discuss what the sacraments mean.

Preparing for penance

Going to confession is similar to apologizing to Mom and Dad. To prepare, children must think about the ways they have displeased God. It sounds simple, but the process is difficult, especially for kids. Some questions that might help them prepare include:

Have I denied my faith?
Have I used God’s name in vain?
Have I broken a promise?
Have I honored every Sunday by celebrating the Mass?
Have I shown respect to parents, teachers and family members?
Was I impatient, angry, envious, proud, jealous, revengeful, or lazy?
Have I forgiven others?
Have I been chaste in thought and word?
Have I spoken ill of any other person?
Have I always told the truth?

Getting ready to receive the Eucharist

Catholic Parent magazine says parents can help their kids understand and prepare for First Communion by relating the experience to their lives.

Since one of children’s main interests in life is food, food is a natural starter for conversations about the Eucharist. “The Eucharist is a meal. On the table of the altar, Jesus feeds us with His Body and Blood, under the appearances of bread and wine.”

Friends are a high priority for kids. Their friendships can be a way to discuss the Eucharist. “We like to be around friends, and our love for them grows. Jesus called us friends, and in the Eucharist He made it possible for us to be with Him.”

The concept of gift-giving can help children understand the sacrificial element of the Eucharist. “We give gifts as a sign of our giving ourselves to people we love.”

We celebrate events like birthdays – and the Eucharist is a celebration of the most important event ever. “The Eucharist is a celebration. We gather with friends to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus.”

Reassure kids by preparing together

Preparation for the sacraments is a challenge. Still, parents can help their kids be excited and confident when they first receive the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. Their reassurance helps kids understand how the sacraments are central to our faith. Their help preparing for confession will ease kids’ anxiety, and their emphasis on the miraculous meaning of the Eucharist will help kids welcome and appreciate their first Holy Communion.

ROOTS OF RELIGION

“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.”

—George Bernard Shaw

In the book of Genesis, God planted a garden – not a city, desert or wilderness – to provide a place of beauty and tranquility for the first human beings to live. Ever since, the garden has provided us with endless lessons about God, faith and character.

In “Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening,” Pennsylvania author Fran Sorin explains how a garden – whether it’s just a shelf of potted plants, a little patch of dirt, a neighborhood’s community garden, or your own vast and formal oasis – can transport and transform a person if they open themselves up to enjoy it.

So it makes sense for parents to turn to their own back yards and use seeds, flowers and fruit trees as ways to explain to their children the cyclical nature of life, abstract concepts like Christ’s death and resurrection, and the importance of tending our spiritual lives.

“Gardening is an excellent metaphor,” says Katie Dawson, director of Parish Faith Formation for the Diocese of Orange. “Anything that connects dynamic growing things with an explanation of our connection to live and God the creator is a helpful moment. Too often parents don’t recognize the potential of our playfulness and enjoyment of nature as opportunities to connect children’s lessons.”

An everyday thing like a garden taps into the whole human experience, providing children with a ready entryway into learning. “Children connect what they’ve learned to their lived experience, so we want to provide a range of ways they can do that,” Dawson suggests. “Fresh air, the beauty of the garden, the enjoyment of working with your hands to make something grow – these are powerful memory-building experiences. By virtue of providing children with these pleasures we are doing something of substance.”

At Easter, Dawson recalls, she used to help her young children fill little bowls with soil, sprinkle seeds on top, and grow small patches of grass. “It’s very magical for kids to see how fast it can grow,” she says, “and it’s nice for nestling Easter eggs into the grass. The important thing is keeping it light – Easter is a fun time for children of any age.”

An old adage declares that more than a seed is planted in a garden. It’s well known, too, that helping plan, plant and tend a garden can cultivate life skills and character traits such as responsibility, independence, leadership, empathy, teamwork and problem-solving.

The tactile nature of gardening can have a lasting impression on children, Dawson says. “Children are very conscious of their senses. This is a great opportunity for kinesthetic learning; touching is an often-neglected learning mode.”

Participating in planting a seed and watching it grow provides children with a powerful experience. “It’s incarnational,” Dawson explains. “We have faith embodied. It involves touching and feeling. Jesus was incarnated.” She adds that even young children are remarkable spiritual, with keen intuitions about God.

“A lot depends upon the parent and their sensitivity to their child’s learning mode, but they can understand that Jesus conquered death and rose again,” Dawson notes. “If we are with Jesus then we can conquer death also. Kids get that, and grow into a deeper understanding.”

At the very least, gardening teaches children where their food comes from and the amount of energy it requires to grow, transport, store and prepare it. And when they have a relationship to the natural world, they are prepared to make wise decisions about it as they mature.

As author Sorin extols in her gardening book, “Play with dirt. Play with ideas. Play with new projects. Play with possibilities – every single day of your life.”

JOYFUL RECONCILIATION

Receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time can be overwhelming for a 7-year-old child.

There’s entering the confessional for the first time, then remembering the right words to say once inside before making the actual confession.

But the act of confession doesn’t have to be an intimidating or scary experience, says Fr. Gerald M. Horan, vicar for Faith Formation for the Diocese of Orange.

“Some children don’t understand the concept of a ‘penance,’” Horan says. “I usually tell the children that it’s like ‘homework’ from reconciliation; it’s something special we do to make God happy and to show him that we really meant it when we said we were sorry.”

Some children get nervous and worried, but they need to know that the priest/confessor is there to help them and to speak God’s words to them, Horan says.

“He’s on their side,” he adds. “But some children have not had many conversations alone with adults, so they get nervous or anxious or even cry. They need to know that confession/reconciliation is a reason for happiness and joy, not worry or fear.”

Traditionally children are ready for the sacrament of reconciliation when they have reached “the age of reason,” Horan explains. While there have been a lot of opinions about what that age really is, a child’s first confession is usually celebrated a few months before one’s first communion, typically in the spring of second or third grade, when a child reaches the age of 7 or 8.

“Many churches are leaning toward the older age because the children are slightly more mature and it allows us a longer time for preparation,” he says.

Most parishes require a two-year preparatory or catechetical period, and in many cases, the actual sacramental preparation is done by the parents in a home or family situation. In those cases, parents are provided with materials and lesson plans which cover hurt and sin, and forgiveness and love, Horan says. Children are also registered in faith formation classes at their parish. In the classes students learn about God, His creation, His love for all, Jesus and a basic understanding of the Bible, Church and sacraments, Horan says.

Parents should teach children a few basic prayers, particularly the “Our Father” and the “Act of Contrition,” which are part of the rite. They also may want to consider role-playing the experience to help children feel comfortable with the format and words of the sacrament.

“[It’s] important to teach children how to approach the sacrament and what to say,” Horan says. “Many children come to confession but don’t know the format of the ritual. They will be less afraid if we help them to be ready and they know what to say.”

The key to helping children understand the significance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is to let them know that God’s love is bigger than their sins, Horan says.

“They should be filled with an immense joy that God can forgive them, set the clock back to zero and give them a fresh start,” he says. “That’s different than the way that the world solves problems and conflict. Rather than fight or reject or abandon our relations, God wants to reconcile and try again. That’s why he gives forgiveness and offers us the grace which helps us to make better choices the next time we might face a challenging situation or sinful temptation.”

HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TOLERANCE

One of the main concerns parents have for their children is that they learn the lessons and skills they will need to succeed in the world they will inherit. An important part of that formula for success now is learning to interact well with others in a culturally diverse society, learning tolerance and appreciation for persons who observe customs and beliefs that may be very different from those they are comfortable and grew up with.

The website KidsHealth.org offers a broad range of tips for parents to successfully teach their children tolerance. Many of these can be distilled down to setting a good example and be good role models for the behavior they would like to see in their children by treating others well themselves. And that includes the kids, too. A child who receives unfailing warmth and love from his or her parents is likely to bring that sense first and foremost into their relationships with others.

Two of the tips, though, seem to clearly address the special challenges and responsibilities that teaching tolerance presents to Catholic and all Christian parents. These suggestions are “Learn together about holiday and religious celebrations that are not part of your own tradition,” and “Honor your family’s traditions and teach them to your kids—and to someone outside the family who wants to learn about the diversity you have to offer.”

Greg Walgenbach, Director of the Justice, Life and Peace Ministry for the Diocese of Orange says that merely teaching tolerance is a “pretty low goal.” For Catholics, he believes that the challenge is teaching avoidance of conflict. That is, holding on to our convictions as Catholics and living peaceably with those who live by religious convictions that are apparently at odds with our own. “Are we those defending the bullied, or are we the bullies? We should preach the Gospel in a way that is loving and inviting,” he says.

All seem to agree that teaching the value of every human life is fundamental to teaching tolerance and Walgenbach feels that children may have an advantage over their parents and teachers in this respect. “Kids have an intuitive understanding of the value of human life,” he says. “Kids are often the first to ask ‘Why is that person on the street?’ or ‘Why is that person homeless?’”

Of course, sometimes there is no substitute for just bringing the kids together. A 2011 story in the British newspaper The Guardian related the story of a government initiative that brought together fifth-graders from a school with a largely Muslim student body in the town of Luton with kids from a nearby Catholic school for a face-to-face meeting.

The story quotes one of the Muslim boys as saying that, despite initial nervousness because he had “never really met any Christians,” he was surprised to learn how similar the Christian kids were to him. He thought they’d be totally different, but they liked the same food and football teams that he did. A girl from the Catholic school welcomed the opportunity to actually ask a Muslim how they practiced their faith compared to the way she did hers. She was quoted as saying that there were some Muslims in her neighborhood, but they “were not very sociable.”

Walgenbach says it finally comes down to honoring a Creator who loves all of His people. “God created us and Jesus died and rose again to save all of us, those who are just like us and those who are different from us.”

TWO CHILDREN GET THE ‘RIDE OF THEIR LIVES’ IN THE POPE MOBILE

A family vacationing in Rome who had planned to make just a quick stop at the Vatican were surprised when the Pope invited two of the family’s children for a 10-minute ride on the Pope Mobile.

From within the massive crowd, the children called his name, he turned around and before they knew it they were riding with the Pope himself.

The family, from Spain, said it was a moving experience.

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