{"id":1467,"date":"2010-01-28T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T14:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints\/"},"modified":"2017-01-24T19:12:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T00:12:51","slug":"because-of-the-communion-of-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html","title":{"rendered":"Because of the Communion of Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/a>Guest post by Allison Salerno\u00a0<\/i>
My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti, his response was \u201cI don\u2019t think that is necessary, Mom. No one is against Haiti right now.\u201d Our son\u2019s frame of reference for fasting was the tradition of a hunger strike\u2014where participants fast in a public way as an act of political protest or to bring about a policy change. Such strikes happened in 2005 among Guantanamo Bay detainees, to protest their innocence and the conditions of their detainment.
<\/a>
Fasting in the Catholic tradition is far different, a concept lost on my altar-serving confirmandi boy-turning-man. And if he doesn\u2019t understand it\u2014a boy whose parents are deeply involved in the life of their parish\u2014how about teens with a more tenuous hold on our faith?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t blame my son for his ignorance. Not until May 2007 did I really understand the meaning of what had, until then, been a phrase to me: \u201cthe communion of saints.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was when our second son, Lucas\u2019s, CCD teacher gathered us \u201cFirst Communion parents\u201d (there were six communicants and six moms showed up for the meeting) in the parish hall for a meeting to prep us for the sacrament.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

\u201cDo you understand what is going to happen Sunday?\u201d the 28-year-old Catholic mother of two asked. Our answers were boilerplate: \u201cThey are undergoing a sacrament of initiation in the Catholic Church.\u201d Or \u201cThey will receive the body and blood of Christ for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she challenged us, \u201cbut what is really happening?\u201d We had no answers.<\/p>\n

She went on to describe how we all are part of a family that exists beyond the bounds of space and time. I left that meeting understanding\u2014finally, at age 43\u2014that this communion of saints is real. Each of us is part of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. That body includes those of us living in the \u201creal\u201d world, who pray for one another, and those who have gone before us, are living in a heavenly dimension, and are praying for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour children will fully enter into the mystical body of Christ on Sunday,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is forever. Souls in heaven will be praying for them now, and when they die, your children will be praying for the souls on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never has this communion of saints felt more powerful to me than right now. Consider that tens of thousands of people died in the Haitian earthquake without time to prepare. We can pray for their souls. We can pray for the families they left behind. We can offer our temporary suffering to relieve a piece of theirs.<\/p>\n

In partnership with my parish priest and another mom who coordinates youth group with me, our parish is organizing a teen Fast for Haiti. Inspired by a movement loosely affiliated with Catholic Relief Services and being organized through the Internet, Catholics throughout the world have been donating $5 a meal to the Catholic Relief Services\u2019 efforts in Haiti<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At our tiny parish, we hope to educate young parishioners about the role of fasting in one\u2019s spiritual life. We plan to meet on a Friday night during Lent to fast and pray, play some quiet board games and make tee shirts that say \u201cFast for Haiti.\u201d Teens will ask sponsors for $5 each, to be donated to CRS. Most powerfully, we hope to share with our young parishioners the value of prayer and fasting in relieving human suffering.<\/p>\n

Because I am Catholic, I have the great comfort in knowing we can pray for the souls in heaven or on their way to heaven (the process known as Purgatory) and that the souls in heaven pray for all of us, too.<\/p>\n

I hope my son and our other young parishioners will learn this essential lesson long before I did.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Allison Salerno\u00a0My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti, his response was \u201cI don\u2019t think that is necessary, Mom. No one is against Haiti right now.\u201d Our son\u2019s frame of reference for fasting was the tradition of a hunger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBecause of the Communion of Saints<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Because of the Communion of Saints\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Why I Am Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-28T14:37:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-25T00:12:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/S2HnfyUlCCI\/AAAAAAAAA9s\/xvO-GZTnqwo\/s200\/CommunionSaints\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Webster Bull\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Webster Bull\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html\",\"name\":\"Because of the Communion of Saints\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-01-28T14:37:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-25T00:12:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/b9e15b90318657f7448facc9529d0f79\"},\"description\":\"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Because of the Communion of Saints\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/\",\"name\":\"Why I Am Catholic\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/b9e15b90318657f7448facc9529d0f79\",\"name\":\"Webster Bull\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3fb246bff84598a72f076cdc78c3c22b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3fb246bff84598a72f076cdc78c3c22b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Webster Bull\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/author\/websterbull\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Because of the Communion of Saints","description":"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Because of the Communion of Saints","og_description":"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html","og_site_name":"Why I Am Catholic","article_published_time":"2010-01-28T14:37:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-01-25T00:12:51+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/S2HnfyUlCCI\/AAAAAAAAA9s\/xvO-GZTnqwo\/s200\/CommunionSaints"}],"author":"Webster Bull","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Webster Bull","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html","name":"Because of the Communion of Saints","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-01-28T14:37:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-01-25T00:12:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/b9e15b90318657f7448facc9529d0f79"},"description":"Guest post by Allison Salerno My 13-year-old mistook me for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. When I told Gabriel last week I had been fasting for Haiti,","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/01\/because-of-the-communion-of-saints.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Because of the Communion of Saints"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/","name":"Why I Am Catholic","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/b9e15b90318657f7448facc9529d0f79","name":"Webster Bull","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3fb246bff84598a72f076cdc78c3c22b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3fb246bff84598a72f076cdc78c3c22b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Webster Bull"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/author\/websterbull"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}