Uncannily, as I'd not checked the order of the Mass for this week, I took my boys to Mass this morning and the Responsorial Psalm was, you've guessed it, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want'.
I took the boys into liturgy class, and the lady who runs it had ingeniously brought some toy sheep, a 'grass' blanket and a tiny fence. The theme was, of course, why we say, 'The Lord is my Shepherd'. My 21 month old was most taken with the sheep. He has a real thing for the creatures and will even shout excitedly 'Sheep, sheep!' when we see a little dog on a lead at the school, or if the cows are in the field across. So funny!
I was save from getting emotional in Mass by a) the liturgy class, and b) the terrible behaviour of a tot in front of us, and then my 5 year old kicking off 'cause the little one took his pen. I had to lift him bodily and transport him out of the room. Luckily we were adjacent to the door, but the little one panicked as I'd momentarily left him in the room hence more disruption. Eeek. Well you can only try.
One thing that does get me is that when listening to the words of the Psalm, in particular, 'Goodness and mercy will surely follow me, all the days of my life' and I think about the people I've read about in the Gulag, in the Nazi death camps etc. Which makes me feel so so lucky to be born, touch wood, extremely privileged compared to vast areas of the world past and present. You would not blame the most persecuted in the world for stumbling on the faith block.
Judaism teaches that to question faith is to affirm your initial belief in the Creator (I've read that Jews do not say 'Lord' or similar, and find the reading of the concept of Judaism very interesting and thought provoking. The actual act of reading up on this briefly, was that my Jewish boss reckons they don't call the Lord, creator or whatever your choice is, 'He'. Well I've not laboured the point with him but I've seen no evidence to support what he says...anyway, onwards.)
I took the boys into liturgy class, and the lady who runs it had ingeniously brought some toy sheep, a 'grass' blanket and a tiny fence. The theme was, of course, why we say, 'The Lord is my Shepherd'. My 21 month old was most taken with the sheep. He has a real thing for the creatures and will even shout excitedly 'Sheep, sheep!' when we see a little dog on a lead at the school, or if the cows are in the field across. So funny!
I was save from getting emotional in Mass by a) the liturgy class, and b) the terrible behaviour of a tot in front of us, and then my 5 year old kicking off 'cause the little one took his pen. I had to lift him bodily and transport him out of the room. Luckily we were adjacent to the door, but the little one panicked as I'd momentarily left him in the room hence more disruption. Eeek. Well you can only try.
One thing that does get me is that when listening to the words of the Psalm, in particular, 'Goodness and mercy will surely follow me, all the days of my life' and I think about the people I've read about in the Gulag, in the Nazi death camps etc. Which makes me feel so so lucky to be born, touch wood, extremely privileged compared to vast areas of the world past and present. You would not blame the most persecuted in the world for stumbling on the faith block.
Judaism teaches that to question faith is to affirm your initial belief in the Creator (I've read that Jews do not say 'Lord' or similar, and find the reading of the concept of Judaism very interesting and thought provoking. The actual act of reading up on this briefly, was that my Jewish boss reckons they don't call the Lord, creator or whatever your choice is, 'He'. Well I've not laboured the point with him but I've seen no evidence to support what he says...anyway, onwards.)
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