Sometimes God Affirms

Erin McCole Cupp describes a moment when God responded to her arrogance with a reminder of His love and mercy.

I settled into my seat at the Sacrament Parent Forum our parish was holding the fall before my youngest child was due to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. I placed my stack of handouts in my lap and skimmed through their contents: the Important Dates to Remember Page, the Requirements for Confirmation Page, the Reminder That You Are Your Child’s First Teacher Page.

Just one more of these things, I told myself, and then, at my age, I’ll never have to sit through another one of these again.

The DRE gave her welcome speech and introduced the speaker. Then the speaker launched into the importance of including Catholic faith formation in our family life.

I tried not to be insulted. I really did.

“Try to make it to Mass sometimes, even if you can’t go every Sunday.”

And here I was bringing my kids every Sunday and at least one daily Mass per week.

“Maybe start saying grace before dinner every once in a while.”

I’ve taught my kids that grace is a habit before every meal.

“Don’t start off praying an entire Rosary. Maybe just one decade, or even just one Hail Mary before bed would be a great start.”

With very few exceptions, we pray the Family Rosary nightly.

I felt my jaw tightening with every idea the speaker suggested. I looked around the room as unobtrusively as I could, and I hardly recognized any faces from Sunday Mass.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and instead decided to direct my complaints at God.

God, I am already doing all these things and so much more! Why do I even have to be here with these people?

Whenever I get arrogant, God is so kind. I immediately felt in my heart that gentle reminder that, in the grand scheme of the distance from earth to heaven, I was not that much closer to God than were these strangers in the seats next to me. Besides that, chances are, every single one of us was doing our very best to give our kids the best we could with the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resources at our disposal.

I took a moment to lower my head in self-reproach, then I once again tuned into the energy in the room. While I felt my body losing its residue of annoyed tension, I also noticed that many of my neighbors were wriggling in their seats as much as our children might have done had they been discovered not doing their homework.

God, show me how can be present to this moment without being like the Prodigal Son’s self-righteous older brother here?

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Whenever I get arrogant, God is so kind. #CatholicMom

That’s when I realized the gift He was offering me in this, the last Sacrament Parent Forum I was likely to attend. He wasn’t admonishing me for things I wasn’t doing. He was affirming me for the hard work I’d been putting into teaching my children to love Him above all things. Sure, I didn’t hit that mark perfectly all the time, but being their first educator was and remains my primary aim as the earthly parent to these particular children of His.

This time I moved as unobtrusively as I could, not to look with judgment at my neighbors but to wipe the tear of humbled gratitude out of the corner of my eye. It was good that every single one of us was in those chairs that night at the Sacrament Parent Forum. That was where once again, because of our love for our children, God decided to remind us of His perfect love for us.

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