She learned her lessons well
Tonight I stayed late at school and made calls for the annual fund. The school provided pizza and $25 per hour to call parents of students at the school and ask for money for our wonderful Catholic school which teaches the faith in all its fulness. It's amazing how generous people can be toward a school where they pay upwards of ten thousand dollars a year tuition already.
But one call (not made by me) brought up generosity of another kind. One of the other teachers who had signed up to make calls tonight rang a parent who was pregnant again, the 2nd time in two years. I think this would be their fourth child. Anyway, the teacher who made the call told me this parent kept her on the phone for 25 minutes talking everything in her life. She mentioned that she felt she didn't have the energy to keep having all these babies (at around 40) and that she may have to have her "tubes tied." Her 5th-grade daughter, who has learned the faith well for several years at our school, overheard this and asked what "tubes tied" meant. When her mother told her, the youngster exclaimed, "But Mommy, you can't stop God's plan!"
There was no mistaking the child meant by the remark: generosity in the service of life, the Church lovingly teaches, forbids a woman to mutilate her body, even if more children seem to be a hardship. This family is one of our faith-filled non-Catholic families who apparently doesn't mind their children being taught real Catholic doctrine. The child learned her Catholic lessons well, and in a truly age-appropriate way from our wonderfully wise and faithful lower school teachers who are living it themselves, for the most part, however imperfectly.
This is why I trust my own children to this school. Praise God: may their be many more Catholic schools like it.
But one call (not made by me) brought up generosity of another kind. One of the other teachers who had signed up to make calls tonight rang a parent who was pregnant again, the 2nd time in two years. I think this would be their fourth child. Anyway, the teacher who made the call told me this parent kept her on the phone for 25 minutes talking everything in her life. She mentioned that she felt she didn't have the energy to keep having all these babies (at around 40) and that she may have to have her "tubes tied." Her 5th-grade daughter, who has learned the faith well for several years at our school, overheard this and asked what "tubes tied" meant. When her mother told her, the youngster exclaimed, "But Mommy, you can't stop God's plan!"
There was no mistaking the child meant by the remark: generosity in the service of life, the Church lovingly teaches, forbids a woman to mutilate her body, even if more children seem to be a hardship. This family is one of our faith-filled non-Catholic families who apparently doesn't mind their children being taught real Catholic doctrine. The child learned her Catholic lessons well, and in a truly age-appropriate way from our wonderfully wise and faithful lower school teachers who are living it themselves, for the most part, however imperfectly.
This is why I trust my own children to this school. Praise God: may their be many more Catholic schools like it.
posted by Geometricus at 10:38 PM
5 Comments:
Praise Him, indeed. Wonderful story.
"When her mother told her, the youngster exclaimed, 'But Mommy, you can't stop God's plan!'"
That's awesome!
oh there is hope!! this lil light of mine ima gonna let it shine, ya baby!
That is just so incredible!
My uncle was a Lutheran missionary to New Guinea for a number of years. He told me how the Catholic missions wouldn't try to argue the native adults into the faith, but rather set up school and begin educating the children. Can anyone say NEW EVANGELIZATION?!
Post a Comment
<< Home