Our pastor is in his mid-seventies, but loves us so much he has pushed off retirement to continue to shepherd us. He has studied in Rome and was a professor at the seminary for a number of years. He had a brother with downs syndrome, grew up on a farm yet loved city life in Rome, and is just a “salt of the earth” kind of guy. Our associate pastor just finished up his first year with us, which also happens to be his first year as a priest. He is young, humble, athletic, kind, funny, and has a beautiful reverence at Mass and for the Eucharist. He lost his father when he was seven, but has been given the graces to be a magnificent spiritual father to us.
What I love the most about this pairing is the good cop/good cop roles they play when preaching. The associate comes in hot! His preaching often leaves us challenged with a deeper understanding of the context and subtext of the readings, doctrine of the Church, or some aspect of the Mass. He is not afraid to preach the hard things, challenge us to truly evaluate our hearts, or blow our minds. Our pastor, on the other hand, can most often be heard preaching about God’s love for us, right now, right as we are. He will preach that while we ought to want to be in deeper communion with God, we don’t have to do anything first to prove ourselves. He loves us now. As we are. Enough to die on a cross for us. They do switch roles sometimes, too, which only deepens our understanding!
One homily from Fr. Ken about 2-3 years ago was directed to parents about telling their children that they love them. Us parents can often get swept up into the daily sacrifices of cooking, cleaning, driving, laundering etc. that we assume our children know we love them through our acts of service. He emphasized how important it is that regardless of all the things we do for them, that we hug them and tell them we love them often.
About a month after this homily my second child told me in a fit of tears before bed that she felt like something was wrong with her because she couldn’t do anything right. Bedtime was particularly challenging… admittedly, not our best performance. Of course, we told her nothing was wrong with her. She is created by God and God doesn’t make mistakes. Her mom and dad do make mistakes and we were sorry for yelling and loved her very much. Did she know that we loved her very much? She said she did not. Seeing her hands in her face and the shame radiating off her had me in tears moments after turning out the lights. The next day I vowed to follow Fr. Ken’s advice.
I am pleased to say that all of our children can now recite our call and response.
“Hey Katie! Guess what?”
“What?”
“I love you!”
“Uggghh. I know! You tell me like 100 times a day and you don’t need to keep telling me that, Mom!”
HA! Little does she know I DO need to keep telling her that, and I will!
We have also adopted verbalizing that we love them so much we want to squish them until their eyes pop out. It’s just for a quick second and then their eyes get sucked back into their head. They now come running, or rolling their eyes trying to suppress a smile to get their mandatory daily (or multiple time daily) squish from Mom.
Before Katie gets out of the car for school in the morning she extends her hand to the driver’s seat and I give her a kiss on the back of her hand and tell her I love her.
Each night as Dad tucks them in, he reminds our girls that they are beautifully and wonderfully made, and that Mom and Dad are proud of them. He gives them a kiss, hug and squeeze before turning out the lights.
Where we failed that night as parents during the bedtime routine was trying to talk our daughter into following directions. “By following directions, you are doing your part as a member of this family. We need you to FOCUS and BRUSH. YOUR. TEETH. NOW.” We were trying to explain the “doctrine of the household”, but both good cops were sharing the same message. We were missing the balance in preaching that our pastors have shown to us. We missed this balance for so long that one side was totally forgotten.
I hope this snippet into our family life encourages you to find ways to tell your children, your parents, your siblings, your dear friends how much you love them in as many ways as possible! Not just through the “doctrine of the household” or hoping misbehaviors will turn around by telling your kids you love them. I hope this helps you see where the scales might be tipping in your good cop/good cop relationship with your whole family, and provides you the courage to make a change where change is needed.
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10