I'm not sure that teaching our kids to sit on the mensa and monkey with the tabernacle is quite the answer to today's liturgical mess. They pretty much already do the same and worse if they can actually find the tabernacle. Of course they don't do it in such a sugary way.
Those taking the photo literally were never exposed to those pious books with such symbolic pictures and the truths they portray. How I loved seeing my old Catechism book filled with them. It allowed the good sisters and brothers I had to get across very deep concepts. Not a judgment of those who do not get it, but a simple observation of what I feel these decades have deprived so many. -Donnacha
There are pious books and then there are syrupy, saccharine, treacly, precious books that only instill an imaginary metaphorical spirituality far removed from that of the saints. An illustration of Christ with children would have made a much clearer point than this where the child is actually kept from Christ till his First Holy Communion. Regardless, I do realize that there are some who still have Victorian sensibilities and for which this has a nostalgic value.
In fact, this picture was originally printed in France with a delightful poem (see http://prieresetdevotions.blogspot.com/search/label/Tabernacle); the story of the poem is the following: in England, a missionary teaches with a deep emotion Catholic children about the Real Presence of Our Lovely Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Afterwards, one of the children runs to the church, and, being too small, climbs on a chair to reach the tabernacle. He knocked at the tabernacle door, hoping an answer from Christ. Full of faith in the catechism he just heard, he calls JESUS again; thinking that maybe Christ was sleeping like in the crib, he knocks again and sweetly calls Him to wake Him up. The Lord answers and the child asks his father's conversion; Christ promises it, and very soon the child's father is converted and goes back to the Sacrament of Penance. The poem ends with a moral stanza: everybody has spiritually to knock at the door of the tabernacle with such a confidence, and the Lord, even without uttering a word, will speak him to the heart.
Teach them not to sit on the mensa? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that teaching our kids to sit on the mensa and monkey with the tabernacle is quite the answer to today's liturgical mess. They pretty much already do the same and worse if they can actually find the tabernacle. Of course they don't do it in such a sugary way.
ReplyDeleteYes, now I (don't) recall Jesus saying "Don't let the children come to me."
ReplyDeleteThe image is a metaphor.
What an adorable image!
ReplyDeleteThose taking the photo literally were never exposed to those pious books with such symbolic pictures and the truths they portray. How I loved seeing my old Catechism book filled with them. It allowed the good sisters and brothers I had to get across very deep concepts. Not a judgment of those who do not get it, but a simple observation of what I feel these decades have deprived so many.
ReplyDelete-Donnacha
There are pious books and then there are syrupy, saccharine, treacly, precious books that only instill an imaginary metaphorical spirituality far removed from that of the saints. An illustration of Christ with children would have made a much clearer point than this where the child is actually kept from Christ till his First Holy Communion. Regardless, I do realize that there are some who still have Victorian sensibilities and for which this has a nostalgic value.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, this picture was originally printed in France with a delightful poem (see http://prieresetdevotions.blogspot.com/search/label/Tabernacle); the story of the poem is the following: in England, a missionary teaches with a deep emotion Catholic children about the Real Presence of Our Lovely Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Afterwards, one of the children runs to the church, and, being too small, climbs on a chair to reach the tabernacle. He knocked at the tabernacle door, hoping an answer from Christ. Full of faith in the catechism he just heard, he calls JESUS again; thinking that maybe Christ was sleeping like in the crib, he knocks again and sweetly calls Him to wake Him up. The Lord answers and the child asks his father's conversion; Christ promises it, and very soon the child's father is converted and goes back to the Sacrament of Penance. The poem ends with a moral stanza: everybody has spiritually to knock at the door of the tabernacle with such a confidence, and the Lord, even without uttering a word, will speak him to the heart.
ReplyDelete