Andrew & the Mass

This past Sunday, Andrew attended Mass with us. Unfortunately, our parish ended the Growing with God program for 2 & 3 year olds. So it is either he goes to the nursery with Alex or goes to Mass with us. Well, he is 3 (as of this coming weekend) so he is going to Mass. All his other 3 year old friends are at Mass and are learning to sit quietly, too. So he is to. And he did a WONDERFUL job!

We sat in the front row - of the balcony section. He could see EVERYTHING. The people sitting below us, the ushers, the priest, the alter servers, the reader - everything. And he WATCHED everything. He was pretty quiet until he had questions or wanted to point something out. He asked about the kids that were helping the priest - the altar servers. He asked about the organ (that he couldn't see but could hear very well). He was so good!!! He (thankfully) even whispered when he needed to go to the potty - which he is doing well with that, too! YAY! He made his Daddy and I VERY PROUD!

Before Mass, I printed out some coloring pages about the Mass from the Catholic Toolbox. This site does a great job in having age-appropriate material for those little ones who attend Mass and are just learning to understand it. Here is one of the pages showing how Jesus heals a deaf man:

I know, it may not look like much, but I'll explain: I took this page out of Andrew's tote bag that we brought for him. I told him that he could have his coloring page and crayons after the Gospel reading. So the Gospel reading is over and I hand it to him so he is occupied during the Homily. Ok, this is where the story behind the coloring page begins. Andrew is STARING at our priest, Father Jaya. Then he grabs 2 crayons - green and brown. Green for Jesus' (in the picture) robes and brown for his face, arms, and hands. Then, he hands it to me happily whispering, "Our priest!"

What?!

I love this kid. We both explained to him that Jesus was in the picture and he was fixing the man's ears that didn't work (brought it down to his level). Green for the robes that our priest was wearing for Ordinary Time. And, brown because Father Jaya is from India. How funny? He just figured that they were similar somehow. And he's right in a way.

If you don't know anything about our faith or don't know about the Catholic priesthood, how about a quick lesson?

The priest serves a wonderful part in our faith. The role of the priest is traced back all the way to Jesus himself. He was our first priest. He was/is teaching us the way, wasn't he? During Communion is where his role is the greatest. In our faith, during consecration (when we believe that the bread/wine are consecrated into the Body/Precious Blood of Jesus) the priest is able to act in the person of Jesus to make this possible. This is traced back to the Last Supper. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything who does not believe our denomination of Christianity. 

But, I am pointing out why this was exciting to my husband and I because this is something that he saw that we did not even try to explain yet. Father Jaya must have really made an impression on him.:)



Note: As this is a post concerning our faith and while any comments are welcomed, please understand that any negative remarks will be removed. I am not "pushing" our beliefs on anyone. I am a Christian mother who loves everything about the Catholic faith. It makes us proud parents when  our children can see these things that make our faith so special. Thank you.