Spirituality

I'm finding it difficult to explain spirituality to my children.  I struggle to find the words that express the spiritual imagination required to understand God (at least as much as is possible), in ways that they understand.  Last night, they asked me if magic was "real".  I told them no.  Then they asked how God was able to do such amazing things, if there was no magic.  After struggling for a moment, I told them that God had "power" and that was different than our understanding of "magic",but yes, I guess you could say that God almost seemed "magic".  They wanted to know where Jesus lived.  I told them Heaven.  Quinn said "No, Mom, is it like on the other side of the world?"  and Colby said "Like, do you go to Bethlehem, and then straight up?"  They were getting frustrated by my answers, because I wasn't addressing their questions in ways they could understand.  I told them Heaven wasn't a definitive place, it wasn't on Earth, you couldn't find it on a map.  People used to imagine it was up in the sky, but that's not exactly right, either.  WHERE was Heaven?  Colby finally said "I know, Mom.  It's on a really thick cloud."  OK, I told him.  Heaven's on a thick cloud.  I just have such a dificult time explaining something so "ethereal" to my children who are so concrete. 

I want to encourage imagination in my children, but also find that they are so concrete, that they WANT to know what is real and what isn't, and I answer them truthfully.  "Are vampires real?" No.  "Are monsters real?" No.  "Are fairies for real?" No.  "Except for the tooth fairy, right mom?"  Uhhhhh.  I want them to believe in the POSSIBLE, because that's where God begins to take hold in a concrete mind.  I want them to think beyond the here and now, beyond what they see around them.  I want them to believe that maybe, just maybe, things can happen outside what our senses are telling us, but how do I instill that in them?  And still remain truthful?

I was reading First Corinthians this morning, and Paul was talking about our resurrection - about how our earthly bodies are just seeds for the heavenly bodies we will one day have.  From corruptible, dishonorable and weak, to incorruptible, glorious, and powerful.  Maybe this is just the analogy I need - especially now at this "harvest" time of year, where my children have seen our garden grow from a seed placed in dirt to something much different, fuller, beautiful, and bearing fruit.  Something life-sustaining from a tiny, seemingly inert seed.  Maybe I can use something concrete here in the natural world to explain about "supernatural" to my children. 

Dear Lord, please help me encourage a spiritual imagination in my children, so that they might understand.
Amen.

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires . . . "


- Pope Benedict XVI



"It is a very common phrase of modern intellectualism to say
that the morality of one age can be entirely different to the morality of another.
And like a great many other phrases of modern intellectualism,
it means literally nothing at all."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton



"The danger when men cease to believe in God is not that they will believe in nothing,
but that they will believe anything."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton



"He who marries the spirit of this age will be a widower in the next."

- William Ralph Inge, Dean, St. Paul's Cathedral, London


Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the "Jubilee" in Rome, 2000

Dear friends who have traveled so many miles, in so many ways, to come to Rome, to the Tombs of the Apostles, let me begin by putting to you a Question: What have you come here to find? You have come to Celebrate your Jubilee: The Jubilee of the young Church. Yours is not just any Journey: if you have set out on a Pilgrimage, it is not just for the Sake of Recreation or an Interest in Culture. Well then, let me ask again: What have you come in search of? Or rather, Who have you come here to find?


There can be only One Answer to that: You have come in Search of Jesus Christ! But Jesus Christ has First gone in Search of you. To Celebrate the Jubilee can have no other meaning than that of Celebrating and Meeting Jesus Christ, the Word Who took Flesh and came to Dwell among us.

The Prologue of Saint John's Gospel, which has just now been Proclaimed, is in a sense Jesus' "Visiting Card". These Words invite us to Fix our Eyes on the Mystery that He is. These Words hold a Special Message for you, dear young people: "In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the Beginning with God" (John 1:1-2).

Indicating to us the Word Who is One-in-Being with the Father, the Eternal Word Generated as God from God and Light from Light, the Evangelist takes us to the Heart of the Divine Life, but also to the Wellspring of the World. This Word in fact is the Beginning of all Creation: "All things were made through Him, and without Him was not made anything that was made" (John 1:3). The Whole Created World, before ever it came to be, was in the Mind of God and was Willed by Him in an Eternal Plan of Love. Therefore, if we look at the World in Depth, allowing ourselves to Marvel at the Wisdom and Beauty which God has Poured-out upon it, we can see in it a Reflection of the Word, which Biblical-Revelation Unveils for us Fully in the Face of Jesus of Nazareth. In a sense, Creation is the First "Revelation" of Him.

The Prologue continues with these Words: "In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of Men. The Light shines in the Darkness, but the Darkness did not accept it" (John 1:4-5). For the Evangelist, the Light is Life, and Death, the Enemy of Life, is Darkness. Through the Word, all Life appeared on the Earth, and in the Word this Life has its Perfect Fulfillment.


Identifying Light and Life, John is thinking of the Life that is not just the Biological-Life of the Body, but the Life which comes from Sharing-in the very Life of Christ. The Evangelist says: "The True Light that Enlightens every Man was coming into the World" (John 1:9). This Enlightenment was given to Humanity on the Night-of-Bethlehem, when the Eternal Word of the Father took a Body from the Virgin Mary, became Man, and was Born into the World. From that time onwards, every Person who by Faith shares in the Mystery of that Event, experiences some measure of that Enlightenment.

Christ Himself, announcing that He was the Light of the World, said one day: "While you have the Light, Believe in the Light, that you may become Children of Light" (John 12:36). This is a Summons which the followers of Christ Pass-on to one another from generation-to-generation, trying to answer it in Everyday Life. Referring to this Summons, Saint Paul writes: "Walk always as Children of Light, for the Fruit of Light is found in all that is Good and Right and True" (Ephesians 5:8-9).

 The Heart of John's Prologue is the Proclamation that "the Word was made Flesh and Dwelt amongst us" (1:14). A little before this, the Evangelist had declared: "He came to His own Home, and His own People received Him not. But to all who received Him, He gave Power to become Children of God (cf. 1:10-12). Dear friends, are you among those who have Accepted Christ? Your presence here is already an Answer to that Question. You have come to Rome, in this Jubilee of the 2,000th Anniversary of Christ's Birth, in order to open your Hearts to the Power of Life which is in Him. You have come here to rediscover the Truth about Creation and to Recover a Sense of Wonder at the Beauty and the Richness of the Created World. You have come to Renew within yourselves the Awareness of the Dignity of Man, Created in the Image and Likeness of God.