Revelations

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters CP

Sunday February 28th. 2016

These are the humble confessions of a mass – goer: “Recently, a young woman came to Mass pushing a large double pram. In it were three children, all very young. As the Mass proceeded, I peeked over and examined the family, and was impressed. The three children were exceptionally well behaved. They sat there quietly and seemed to understand the sacredness of the occasion. Then, I noticed that one little girl wasn’t wearing shoes. It was the middle of October! My eyebrows went up, and I began to judge the woman. Bad mother; no shoes on the kids.
As I continued to pay more attention to this mother’s negligence than to the Mass, I remembered being in a shop once with my child, Tommy. He was about ten months old and had a very bad cold. His nose was running. I didn’t have any tissues. A lady in the shop gave me the dirtiest look, and I felt like I could read her thoughts: How could I let the mucus drip down my child’s face like that?? Bad mother; not wiping that kid’s messy nose.
It’s so easy to judge. But when we are judging, we are forgetting how hard life is, sometimes, and how none of us can have it together every second of every day. Around communion time, I saw the mother putting pink tennis shoes on the little girl. I realized the child had wanted them off, and now this attentive mother was putting them back on. So I learned my lesson that week: Don’t judge.
The next week I saw the woman again. This time, the three little children were clad in bright pink bunny pajamas complete with feet. Instead of looking down on the whole group, I smiled and admitted to myself that this woman had courage. She didn’t care what the precious churchgoing folk thought about her and her kids; she just wanted to get to Mass. In my head, I became a champion for this lady, deciding that I really liked her. Even if kids had messy hair, not one of those children made a sound. She was, I now judged, a great mother. And then I saw her. The older lady in the seat in front of us! She was well-dressed, with her makeup carefully applied, and she would not stop staring at the lady with the kids. Staring and shaking her head and sneering in judgment. So, of course, I began to judge her! Had this lady forgotten how hard it is to raise kids, let alone three of them under the age of six? Had she even been a mother in the dark ages of her past?
I started shaking my head too, because it was driving me crazy. She wouldn’t stop staring at, and judging, that young family. And I couldn’t stop staring at, and judging, her. And then it hit me: being judgmental is an awful cycle. For all I knew, someone in another pew could have been watching me watching her, the older woman, as she stared at the younger one. I had to soften my heart and see that neither of us was focusing on what mattered.
I thank God for his revelations. They get me through the day!