I Don’t Want to Be “That Mom”

I’ll admit it – I had a bit of a reputation as a trouble maker at our previous parish.  I own up to it and admit that I did a bit of rabble rousing.  I made phone calls and wrote emails.  I left notes for people and called things to their attention.  I tried very hard to ignore the small stuff, but teaching the Protestant 10 Commandments in CCD or selling Native American fertility idols in the parish gift shop were too big to ignore.

When I volunteered to help with the Confirmation classes, the Youth Director was warned that I was trouble.  He told me so.  I was militantly orthodox and stirred up controversy, they told him.  Luckily, he chose to talk to me before dismissing me entirely, and we worked well together well for 3 years.

I hate being that mom, the mom whose name makes people sigh.  I want so badly to be the nice mom, the mom who smiles and the CCD teachers are glad to see in the halls.  I’m not destined to be, but I want it so badly.

This past weekend at my eldest daughter’s Confirmation class, her teacher repeatedly called the Mass boring.  She wasn’t just making a personal opinion statement, she was teaching it as fact.  She told her students, “I was born in 1960 when all the Masses were in Latin. The people hated it because it was so boring. Eventually the Pope saw reason and let us have it in English so that the people could hopefully be interested and be able to pay attention instead of falling asleep”

Not only is that wrong in so many ways but I think (and I could be wrong here) that it’s blasphemy.  ( I looked it up and the 2nd definition in Mirriam Webster is  “irreverence toward something sacred or inviolable.”)  It’s one thing if she’s bored at Mass (that’s between her and God), but to actually teach it to a class of teenagers is wrong in so many, many ways.  As a friend of mine said, “If you were the devil and wanted to attack the souls of these children, what better way than to tell them that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is boring and not worth their time?”

The teacher topped off her discussion of the Mass this past Sunday by asking the kids to stand in for key people in the Mass in order to teach them the different parts.  She asked one of the girls to come forward and take the part of the priest.  “Pretend that it’s 1000 years from now and you’re the first woman priest. We finally get to do it,” the student was told.  When my daughter told me this, she asked “Mom, isn’t that kinda like heresy to say that someday a woman could be a priest. .”  No, it’s not kinda like heresy – it is heresy.

I really didn’t want to be the mom who wrote emails and made phone calls, but this is only the third class and I can’t imagine that there will be a conversion here without some outside influence.  I guess that’s me, so I sent a short email to the priests at our parish and asked for their guidance.  My daughter needs to be Confirmed.  She needs to take this class in order to be Confirmed.  I can’t see how a year of blasphemy, heresy and undermining her faith are going to help her in any way.  What, I asked them, should I do?  I’m still waiting for their reply.

I’ve promised my husband and myself to ignore the clueless and dumb things and only speak up when things are morally wrong.  It’s hard to learn to be silent when you’re used to being the loud voice, but I’m working on it.  It’s even harder to learn to be the gentle voice when something you love so passionately is being degraded and torn apart from the inside.

I keep reminding myself that God wins in the end.  I know because He said so.  It is not my job to be the sword of wrath but the quiet voice and the gentle nudge.