Will Parishes Need Public-Broadcasting-Style Pledge Drives?

by Dan Masterton

NCR’s Brian Fraga recently reported on the state of Catholic parishes as we move into this next phase of the pandemic. Read the full article to gather the whole picture, but here’s a few notes that stuck out to me:

First, online giving is increasing. This is great! It’s tough to let go of the romance and routine of dropping an envelope into the basket – as recently as 2013, I used to withdraw certain increments of cash from the bank teller in order to properly stock my weekly envelopes. However, online giving is simpler for parish bookkeeping, likely leads to more consistent contributions, and helps parishes plan better. So a shift in this direction is a positive.

Second, in some places where giving decreased during the pandemic, many donors increased their recurring donation or gave large gifts to offset the downturn. This is heartening, as the pandemic created a weird dichotomy of great struggle for some and growth of stability and wealth for others. Hopefully these large gifts were the recognition from those few folks that their improved situation warranted increased charity.

Third, many older donors were giving plenty, but as they pass on, they are not being succeeded by equivalently generous young people. There are many factors here, including the bumpy landscape for Millennials and Gen-Z’ers in the workforce, housing market, student debts, and other areas of the economy, especially when compared to our parents’ generations. Overall, we often don’t have great financial flexibility from which to give. But also cultural, social trends among these generations are challenging. And this is what pinballed most in my head.

Anecdotally, we Millennials (born 1981-1996 ish) just aren’t as likely to stick in one job, or even in one career, and are more likely to rent and move than to buy and settle down (at least at first). When I look at the post-grad life of my 15 closest family and friends who are Millennials, only two of the group have lived in the same place since finishing undergrad, and only one of the group has worked the same job that whole time. This has largely meant that we are less likely to find and commit to communities; we might make some friends or become fond of a favorite bar or restaurant, but we’re slower to develop loyalty and sink roots. I would imagine this impacts our rates of belonging to Catholic parishes, too.

I prefer the times when Millennials and Z'ers
find ourselves on the same team.
(But there are lots of times when Z'ers drive me bananas.)

Among GenZ, I’ve read – because I’m eight years older than the oldest Z’ers and feel like a bitter old man already – that there’s a more endemic sense of non-affiliation. In a few listening session webinars and some conversations with Z’ers through work, it seems there’s a generationally strong desire to agitate for needed social change but an inconsistent willingness to pre-commit to particular paths, organizations, or actions to accomplish it. Rather, the preference is to consume and engage with the world in spontaneous and curated ways, rising to meet moments when they come. Generally, Z’ers are content with the way technology, social media, and some in-person socializing nourish them, and there’s less concrete hunger to find a formal community and belong to it. Again, I imagine this is impacting or will greatly impact the formal belonging at Catholic parishes.

I’ve learned that Catholic schools and parishes, and many non-profits, have to identify both ordinary and extraordinary fundraising to sustain their work. For ordinary means, parishes depend on the collection basket and religious education tuition while schools depend on tuition, fees, and planned giving from alumni and benefactors; additionally, though, capital improvements have to happen at points (new roof, replacing a heating system, tuckpointing the buildings, etc.) and have to funded by extraordinary projects like campaigns, balls, galas, auctions, special giving days, and more. Extraordinary giving occasions have to be limited so as not to cause donor fatigue, and even then only pitched with great detail and specificity so people know that if they reach deeper to give extra that it’s going to something absolutely necessary.

So here’s the tricky part – how do parishes survive if the ordinary donor base and the degree to which it’s giving is shrinking?

First of all, I’ll admit my ignorance in effective parish-based evangelization strategies. And, at the end of the day, the ultimate parish goal is the development of individuals’ relationships with Jesus Christ, our belonging to the Body of Christ, and our eternal life together with Christ and one another. So what follows is a bit cold and analytical, and just one component, complementary to that central and essential element.

Anywho, let’s confront crowdfunding (ex: GoFundMe). Realistically, it could actually pick up some of the slack. Effective online campaigns can reach far beyond the smaller boundaries of conventional campaigns and perhaps engage a wider base than was previously available. However, crowdfunding is more of an extraordinary pathway. It’s tough to imagine someone giving to the same crowdfund on a regular basis; on the other hand, it’s conceivable that folks would respond to an occasional appeal for major parish projects akin to how folks will stake someone’s passion project or entrepreneurial ambitions. But this likely isn’t viable to sustain day-by-day expenses.

What are the alternatives then?

One outcome that must be avoided is requiring people to give in order to take part in parish life. We cannot reach a point where only those who donate can come through the doors for Mass and Sacraments. We can expect and encourage the giving of time, talent, and treasure, but we cannot require it or make it a precondition of participation. That’s not even a last resort – it’s a violation of what the Church is.

A model that feels comparable is pledge drives on public radio and television. Basically, our times (or so) a year, regular programming is frequently interrupted by appeals for giving. They look for both one-time gifts and recurring monthly gifts, usually with raffle prizes, matching funds that incentivize giving during particular periods, and little tokens for all recurring giving. This style of fundraising sort of splits the difference between ordinary fundraising (monthly contributions that pay the bills) and extraordinary fundraising (large gifts that can seed capital campaigns and major projects), but is probably best suited to serve the former.

Would love to use the Bernie meme for this,
but I can already hear the socialism accusations...

What are our thoughts on tote bags?

I could imagine a pair of parish weekends during each quarter or so. Special signs are posted around the church; greeters have special pamphlets; the pastor and staff offer a specific plea before Mass, after communion, and in videos on the website and social channels; special raffles are set for new and old donors; and little keepsakes are available as enticements or affirmations. Many parishes have a very watered-down version of this once a year in which dense spreadsheets are stuffed in the bulletin and the pastor offers an austere and sometimes chilling address on the parish finances. A pledge-drive approach certainly could feel tacky or extraneous, but it might be one of the more appropriate, malleable, and effective ways to reimagine confronting this challenge.

On a practical level, one consideration could be reorganizing diocesan offices a bit, perhaps away from ministerial direction roles (such as “Director of Young Adult Ministry”) toward more positions in institutional advancement and development. Truth be told, I’ve always found the central offices for ministry-focused things to be a little confusing. At their best, they’re a clearing house that can collect and disseminate all information to all ministers and sustain a network, but at their worst, they seem to be bureaucratic, titular bloat that often appear not to be serving anyone in particular. With some office-power shifted to development, perhaps a team of professionals could deploy from the diocesan office to help parishes review budgets and facilities, identify and prioritize needs, and build out a marketing-communications-fundraising plan for when and how to improve donations for both ordinary and extraordinary needs.

More locally, the inconvenient truth for us parishioners is that many of us just don’t give very much. Some traditions challenge their adherents to tithe 10% of their income, sometimes even mandating it. Modern Catholicism doesn’t establish any hard norms, leaving us to make conscientious choices, which is ideal. In reality, the choices we make are mixed, and fall short of the level of support parishes largely need (America Media and USCatholic each tried to collect sentiment on this question a few years back).

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that our family contributions to the parish don’t quite add up to 1% of our family gross income, though our other charitable giving (usually to Catholic nonprofits) pushes us over that number. I think my family struggles to set those budgetary ranges and limits and stick to them, so we set lower recurring donation amounts a bit artificially low and try to fill the gap in other ways. Yet the whole of our commitment falls short of what we should seek to do.

And so it brings me, and us, and the generations of Millennials and Gen Z, back to the tough questions. How can parish giving and belonging evolve? How can we gain a stronger generational sense of the importance of belonging, commitment, and participation? How can parishes and the Church engage our generations more fully? How can the person of Jesus Christ and the grace of our Church and Sacraments animate this engagement?

And practically speaking, how can parishes, dioceses, and the Church become better at doing the sort of internal community life, charity and justice outreach, and catechesis and formation if they lack the funding to improve upon their staff and education, training, and formation? It will take a lot of prayer and action.

Aging Empathetically

by Dan Masterton

As someone who’s always been horribly near-sighted, folks who are far-sighted baffle me. Watching people remove their glasses to read or seeing them stretch their arms way out to move small text further away from their eye confounds me. My -5.75 contact-lensed eyes struggle to watch this struggle.

But this is a common thing as people age, since, for example, our eyes’ lenses become less flexible over time and struggle to focus close up (a common benchmark in 40s and 50s). This can eventually be joined by hearing loss, increased physical aches and pains, and slower recovery from physical exertion and exercise. Because aging is tough!

Especially as my own dad ages, I am very guilty of poking fun at the unusually high volume of the TV or the physical technique and audible groans and grunts of sitting and standing. That gentle mockery is one of those things I try to do in moderation, knowing that all of these things – and maybe more, and maybe worse – will likely befall me when I’m older.

But, here in my 30s, the ravages of aging aren’t as far off as I imagine; instead, they are orbiting me more and more closely. Life is showing me that aging isn’t a binary mode that activates later on during “middle age” – it’s a continuum whose early stages are right up close already.

Three and a half years ago, while going for a routine run up and down the residential streets of my suburban neighborhood, I took a pretty good fall. Last week, while enjoying some unseasonably pleasant weather, the same thing happened again. In both cases, my toe clipped a raised, uneven panel of sidewalk. I was dragging a little bit, as I failed to pick my feet high enough off the ground in my running stride. As I fell, I went skidding across the pavement and landed on someone's front lawn.

A visual approximation of what I think I run like

After this happened three and a half years ago, I wondered about what success and growth look like as an adult runner who is getting older; this time, I know I am aging. Then, I wondered how I might compare myself not against previous personal bests but against the curve of athletic regression one might face over time; this time, I can just say that I am aging.

Acknowledging it more overtly, and naming it as such, challenges me to expand my empathy. But it doesn’t mean I have begun to empathize better, or that I definitely will.

I find it annoying when older people won’t admit diminished ability and accept proper help or limits on what they can safely do. But when I tripped this way again, scraping up my body and spraining my toe, did I resolve to run slower? Nope. Did I imagine I should probably run less often? Nope. Did I consider rethinking technique, maybe doing some stretches or drills? Nope.

On the upside, I have a strong sense of physical self-care. I stay active and use a FitBit to motivate myself with measurables. I have good habits of regular cardio, whether on the stationary bike or out on a run. And I keep a reasonably solid diet that is enjoyable but keeps me balanced and fairly fit.

This now recurrent episode prompts me to invite my head and heart more firmly into this equation – another heart benefit I can unlock from cardiovascular exercise I suppose! A good spirituality of aging can help – drawing on the same ideals that prioritize listening, quantity time, and even multi-generational living (when possible and feasible), I can have a healthier respect for myself and how I will evolve as I age.

I was gonna post a picture of the bruise on
my sprained toe, but it has healed!
So instead I searched "thumbs up"
in the public domain and found this fellow.

I assumed following my fall a few years back, and stubbornly insist now, that these were flukes, that I’m fine, that it was the sidewalk’s fault. Sure I’m aging, but my body and mind are still plenty able to go for a brisk two-mile run on a sunny Saturday. There’s something to reckon with here that I don’t want to totally face; I’m choosing instead to hold, in tension, that I’m aging with a presumption that I’m otherwise just fine. This is my sort of smaller, earlier version of the larger problems older people face, and that await me as I age.

It sucks. It’s annoying. But I understand, and need to keep understanding, more than I have before.

Not Hogging the Covers

by Dan Masterton

When I’m listening to music, I’ve always struggled with covers. It’s not a total aversion – sometimes they hit just right, like the Smells like Teen Spirit cover by Malia J in the opening sequences of Black Widow.

One of the things that makes me want the original version is that I have an instinctive urge to sing along. Whether out loud or just in my head, I often can’t resist joining in. When you listen to a cover, the artist is reinterpreting the song, so things go a little different. They might change a phrasing or cadence, slow down or speed up the tempo, or diverge from the original in other ways to put their own spin on the song.

My orderly brain is flustered that I can’t sing along as if it’s the original. As a result, I often think covers are inferior or bad. Rationally, I know that those differences are artful, often done in reverent tribute to the original, but I just want the familiar path of singing along with the old standard. This is a small illustration of how I’m just not that literate in appreciating music.

When I first started singing in a choir in college, not only did I not understand much about music, but I especially didn’t know much about music ministry.

One of the components of singing Sunday Mass was that one of our choir members would head down to the sacristy, put on an alb, and take the stand as the cantor for Mass. At my childhood parish, I had cantors at Mass, but I never paid them much specific attention. Now, watching my friends do it, I became more aware of them.

A couple of my dreamboat friends
showcase their cantor skills while
singing the Psalm at my wedding Mass.

Our choir cantors used very ostentatious hand signals to note to the congregation when to join in singing, even when it seemed really obvious, and they also took a sizable step back from singing when the congregation was supposed to stop singing. They sometimes sang something first, solo, before raising their arms to invite everyone else to join in. They also wore big happy smiles on par with cheerleaders or beauty pageant contestants. To be honest, I thought it was all a little silly for a while.

After a few months, it became clear that the consistent ministerial approach of our choir, including our cantors, were part of what helped the congregation be so participative. We definitely started at an advantage, being on a major Catholic college campus where people were predisposed to participate in Mass. But I think the intentionality and consistency of these ministerial points helped make our liturgies as participatory and lively as they could be rather than just presuming that they’d be vibrant. To use a baseball analogy (*grins mischievously*), our congregation was typically above-replacement-level, but with our coaching and player-development approach, we helped achieve all-star level results.

Our friend who cantored our wedding Mass
was the model cantor who
helped everyone in choir learn
to do the ministry well.

Opening and closing hymns were always “unison,” meaning that all choir members (and the cantor) were singing the same melody, so the congregation had a simple tune to follow (tunes were often repeated periodically throughout the year, and after great familiarity, we might add a sopranos-only harmony called a “descant” on a final verse). Psalm refrains were always played by an instrumentalist first, then sung solo by the cantor, then sung by everyone, all in unison; the choir only began to harmonize the refrain after the first verse. Then, during the preparation of the altar, the choir would often do a song that was meant to be more performative, a time for those in the congregation to quietly pray and listen in a contemplative moment, rather than join in – and during this time, the cantor would remain seated or slip back up to the loft to reinforce that this was not a time to participate by singing.

The little details to this pastoral approach could go on and on, but a key practical element was that the cantor always sang what the congregation should sing. Both in terms of when to sing and what to sing, the cantor was essentially a congregation member with an alb and a microphone. The cantor sang at a moderate volume and sang the words and rhythms and notes exactly as they appeared in the program or hymnal. This whole approach provided those in the congregation with a very accessible guiding hand to help them participate as much as possible.

At some Masses in my post-college life, this hasn’t been how music ministry has gone. Sometimes, it’s incidental. Perhaps the cantor and accompanist haven’t had much chance to practice and simply don’t have the rhythms and sequences down. I imagine this likely comes down to insufficient resources to compensate music ministry leadership to dedicate time, or to underengaged parish communities in which those people with gifts and passions for music have not come forward to volunteer themselves.

Sometimes, it feels overt. I’ve been at Masses where it feels like the accompanist and cantor just came from a cabaret and are about to put the beverage schooner on the piano top for tips. Other times, a steady and austere accompanist is overshadowed by a cantor who is attempting too much creativity – swinging rhythms, holding notes too long or not long enough, or singing to hear their own voice rather than to facilitate the raising of others’ voices.

Whether hymnals or song sheets,
worship aids should be prioritized
to help everyone have a helpful guide
to join in the music of the Mass.

I don’t think any of this “ruins” Mass or anything – it just leaves something on the table. There’s some space in the Mass for music ministry to include more performative music – that showcases the instrumentalists, choral voices, or soloists more prominently, hopefully with an eye to facilitating good prayer in the congregation. There’s also major space to do more facilitatory music – that emphasizes simple tunes with singable ranges and intervals, piano accompaniment that doesn’t overshadow the singing, and cantors that are intentionally singing straight, clear, and exactly what the congregation has in front of them. Finding this balance brings something more to the congregation.

For a guy who struggles with covers, I appreciate when I can join in the songs at Mass, which for me means having the music in front of me and music ministers who are guiding me so that I can join in. I’m not going to say there can’t be variety in instrumentation, in harmonization, even in interpretation. I just always hope that there’s a hymnal or songsheet that shows me what the choir will be singing, so that I can keep one eye on the cantor and choir and follow their lead to join along with them. When I lived in Ireland, we often worked off lyrics-only sheets, but at least the song was sung pretty consistently each time it was used.

Mass becomes a richer participatory action when music ministry is an inclusive, engaging, facilitating ministry. If the wherewithal and manpower are there, the main question for the ministry should be are we helping our congregation pray and participate in Mass well?

Mysteries of Multi-Potentiality

by Dan Masterton

My wife, Katherine, is not my soulmate. Well, actually she is. Umm, sort of.

Uh, let me explain.

When I was in college, I attended a summer conference for Catholic young adults. The goal of the week was to help all of us – from college-aged up into early 30s, those discerning religious life and those with little or no idea of any career – work our way to a clearer understanding of God’s invitation for our lives.

One of the panels featured folks from different states of life – single, religious, married. And, surprise surprise, it was the words of the married person that stuck with me. His reply to one question tore apart the notion of “soulmates.” His goal wasn’t to invalidate it but provide it a fuller context.

He explained that he didn’t accept the idea of fate setting two people on a course that would converge at one magic moment. To him, it didn’t make sense that two people have to be perfectly aware and ready for that fleeting moment or else miss each other. It wasn’t as if some special train pulled into a station for one brief stop and left forever, whether you had boarded it or not.

All aboard the Soulmate Express?

He offered a revised definition: your soulmate, if you’re being invited to married life, is the right person at the right time. I thought that was astute. Not only did it reframe the discernment of marriage into healthier, more real terms, but it also acknowledged that there are perhaps different people to whom each of us can get married, and that compatibility is just one factor among others, including timing.

As someone who dated a few different girls in college and found a lot of error in my trials, it helped chill me out. Connecting with someone romantically only to fail quickly and spectacularly in those relationships was hard, but this mindset subsequently helped me date more on its own merits than on the potential of some as yet unknown future.

Allow to weave, also, one more parallel thread.

At my first job, now two-plus years into the relationship that would become my marriage, this mindset took on another layer. My boss was exceptionally proactive about feedback, holding mid-year and year-end job review meetings with everyone. He offered me great advice mid-year that significantly impacted and improved my work – as a campus minister who was reluctantly teaching, albeit just a half-load, he challenged me to stop compartmentalizing and bring my campus ministry mindset into the classroom. This pastoral-academic combo made me a better teacher.

Then, when it came time for the year-end meeting, it was a different story.

There was a greater than 50-50 chance that I was going to leave this job, moving away to join my then-girlfriend in the same place after two years of long-distance dating. We both had been accepted to Masters programs in Chicago, hers the last step before beginning a career in nursing and mine the chance to study more theology on scholarship. To hedge our bets, and because my situation was attractive, she submitted a resume and cover letter to my school, and we considered deferring a year. So my conversation with him about my work was essentially about both of us.

His candor and wisdom stick with me indelibly. With his trademark reading glasses resting low on his nose, he brandished the file folders with her materials and mine on his desk and gave them another perfunctory skim. He was smiling and nodding and remarked, “Both of you are blessed with the curse of multi-potentiality. You both could be really good at a lot of things. You just have to choose one.”

If you knew him a little, you knew this sort of honesty was his way of affirming people. And he added, now addressing me, “I like you. And I’d like you to stay. But I have to be able to take you or leave you.” Delicious Ignatian indifference, and offered in a way that invited me to adopt the same mindset.

I liked my work. I loved my students. I was drawn to the good problems the school faced as it grew.

I also missed my girlfriend. I had a free Masters in hand. I had a way to move to my favorite city, with her, and try to figure out our next steps.

It was discernment between two goods. And his words helped illuminate that when we identify our gifts and passions, and seek to meet needs, there are a lot of possible paths. At some point, we have to choose one and walk it. Whether for a long or short time, whether for a great distance or a little ways, we start to walk in a direction.

With respect to marriage, Katherine was (and is) the right person at the right time. With respect to career and education, as well as relationship discernment, Chicago in 2013 was the right place. And while you choose one person to marry, you can sustain strong relationships with many; while you choose one set of passions to pursue professionally, you can still maintain hobbies and interests. There’s a tension in the multi-potentiality, yet there’s also a peace in choosing one’s response and accelerating down that path.

Our response to God may involve different actions at different times. Our state of life is a greater, overarching piece within which our particular vocations and vocational expressions find breath.

God’s invitation is ongoing, and our understanding and response must be, too.

A Resignation Reset

by Dan Masterton

The labor shortage has cramped my style. My local Chick-fil-a discontinued curbside pickup, so now I have to wait in the drive-through line or schlepp my kids inside to the carry-out benches. My go-to Dunkin’ drive-through stopped taking advance mobile orders. My local Potbelly started closing at 5pm, so we can’t grab dinner there anymore.

These are minor problems. I will be fine.

And anyway it’s an invitation to chill – acknowledge the inconvenience and think about it for a bit.

I can review my own habits. Am I getting drive-through and carryout too much? Could I brew my coffee at home more often? Do I need to come up with some new recipe and grocery ideas? The answer is basically always yes. I try to be a minimalist as much as I can, and I would be better served recalibrating my habits here.

I can scrutinize my consumption. Typically, when I run into these inconveniences, it’s when I’m consuming from big, national chains. I could pivot to choosing more local options, choosing them more often, whether when deciding between items in the grocery aisles or when choosing a coffee shop or a carryout restaurant. Moreover, even within that, there’s a chance to think about acting to more directly benefit the producers and local economy most, through avenues like ordering carryout directly from the place, by calling in or going in-person rather than using a middle-man online service.

I can consider why there’s a labor shortage. Some have suspicions about the degree to which public benefits may disincentivize work. I don’t find that suspicion to be true or worrisome, and I think those benefits should be very minimally means-tested, if at all (our care for brothers and sisters in solidarity should be gift, and should build collectivism).

In this case, with labor demand so high, it’s an opportunity for workers to leverage for higher base rates, signing bonuses, greater benefits like paid time off, and more. A true capitalist (myself included!) would say that something is worth what the market will bear, and right now it appears the market is being moved to setting higher compensation and benefits for “unskilled work.” Sure, that may change as future conditions change, and it could create a pop-able bubble, but every increment of progress sets a precedent that impacts future considerations. Catholic Social Teaching holds that workers are entitled to basic rights, including a just wage, collective action, and safe conditions. The friction over pursuing these rights means limited hours of operation, higher menu prices, or other issues that impact my convenience as a consumer, and I can deal.

This is approximately how Chipotle
makes my tummy feel.

No company is perfect, and many are guilty of tenuous practices, for sure. I do like to acknowledge companies that, even if still flawed, are at least taking substantive steps. Chipotle stands out to me as a place where supply chains have been maintained with integrity and ideals, where wages have risen, where benefits have been improved, and where they’ve transparently communicated about realities. I’ve seen them openly explain a processing charge connected to online orders, shortages due to items not meeting standards, and adjusted treatment of workers during the pandemic. With their good faith efforts at transparency, even when there are also negative anecdotes, it seems to me to be a place where I can continue enjoying my favorite foods while knowing there’s significant efforts at the right things.

I try to exercise thoughtful consumption as much as I can, but I do remain a capitalist. I’m generally looking for the best quality for the lowest price, exerting my consumer force on the market. There are times when I feel less guilty about this – such as pitting mortgage origination companies against each other to secure the best terms for my home payments. And then there’s those times when I feel more guilty about this – like when I lazily drive through Dunkin’ instead of parking and going inside the one local coffee shop in my town.

I can certainly be a capitalist and a Catholic, but only if I don't compartmentalize. I cannot sacrifice morality or social justice in cold pursuit of the best quality for the lowest price. Easier said than done. I need to strive to honor solidarity and the dignity of work. I need to consider the poor in how I spend and consume. And I need to find better ways to honor subsidiarity, focusing more of my economic activity on local and small businesses who work, own, manage, and live locally.

Children as Sacramentals

by Dan Masterton

Catholicism can be distinguished by its seven Sacraments, the seven formal moments of ritual and distinct grace that mark various initiation, commitment, and healing. A big part of these Sacraments, and of prayer and liturgy, throughout our Tradition is sacramentals.

These are items that carry a significance symbolically without being themselves the Sacraments. Eddie O’Neill at SimplyCatholic.com captures it well: “Sacraments are outward signs that give grace to those who receive them in a worthy manner. Sacramentals, on the other hand, are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church.”

Personally, it makes me think of familiar items of piety like the rosary, things that come into play at Mass like holy water or the thurible and incense. As a longtime retreat director, I also think of standbys like cross-marked rocks, plain wood crosses, and even ritual fires as ways to invite prayer and reflection into ritualistic actions, using such things to bring participants into greater communion with one another and with Christ.

I think at the heart of this practice is the very Catholic notion that we ought to identify and utilize rich visuals and tangible items to help us understand the non-visible grace that we believe to be present and in motion. I think when we take the time to contemplate these sacramentals, it can strengthen our spirituality and help us more deeply engage in the Mass, in the Sacraments, and in a life of prayer.

When it comes to Mass, I find nourishment both in the structure of the Sunday liturgy as well as in embracing the space within Mass to prayerfully go to those places God may be bringing me. On my best Sundays, it’s a happy confluence of attentive presence and thoughtful wandering.

So take those ideals and add in two children, currently four and two years old.

On the whole, as my family has reestablished a weekly habit of Mass-going, after almost two years of very sporadic attendance amid this pandemic, they have been very well behaved. They’re not very loud; they don’t try to wander or climb too much; they quietly read or color or eat and intermittently show an interest in learning more about what’s going on. It’s about all I can ask for, and in those moments of explaining and sharing, I feel the full goodness of parenthood.

Our parish church, St. Francis of Assisi
(from their Facebook page)

The catch is that, while they are technically behaved, they are not exactly reverent. At points, I may be able to harness some reverence by drawing a little Mass-y coloring page for my four-year-old or lifting my two-year-old to see the priest or lector whose voice is booming through the speakers. At other points – more frequent points – their frenetic activity is a definite foil to whatever quiet and calm I might be otherwise seeking.

On a recent Sunday, here’s a few real things that happened while we were at Mass. While I stood and held my two-year-old, I closed my eyes to take a deep breath and find quiet prayer – she stuck her fingers in my eyes and manually opened my eyelids. Later, while again holding her, I decided that, instead of closing my eyes, I’d let my gaze drift up over the sanctuary to the stained glass window of the Holy Spirit – she grabbed my chin and yanked my gaze back to her. At one point during the Eucharistic Prayer, as I kneeled and faced the altar, she grabbed my arm to make sure I knew there were exactly two people in the pew across the way – she counted. Later, while I continued to kneel, she decided this would be the perfect time to force her way past me and her sister to retrieve snacks – let’s scale some family members!

It would be easy to get frustrated as these little interruptions pile up. And believe me, patience is a virtue I’m still relearning – and that these two littles are teaching me – just about every day. But for whatever reason, where I might get flustered or short-fused at home, it just doesn’t happen the same way at church. It rolls off my back more easily (even if not always), and I settle more quickly and ably into calm gratitude that we’re here together and that they’re receptive to it.

Ever since my kids were little, I’ve had a habit of sort of pressing my face against their heads and just breathing them in. Sometimes, it might give me a whiff of an as-yet-undetected dirty diaper or a reminder that it should have been bath night. Most often, it’s just my reset button. It’s the thing that dissipates my stress and nerves, that pares away the BS that accrues at the edges of my consciousness, and brings me back home.

I do it at home; I do it at church. Maybe there’s something biological here, but I believe there’s definitely something sacramental. Some sort of grace is streaming through their little pre-rational beings and coursing on to me, when I’m able to let it.

I certainly still dip my hand in the holy water and present myself for Holy Communion. But it’s neat to somehow have the moments of these little kiddos being such palpable vehicles of grace. The root of the word inspiration is “to breathe life into.” And that’s what these little breaths I borrow from them are.

Curation

by Dan Masterton

My brothers and I often poke fun at my dad, who is nearing 70.

One of our favorite foibles of his? His penchant for syndicated shows, for flipping channels, and for watching movies on TV when cable TV just happens to play them. No matter what we do or say – including personally logging into my Disney+ on his smartTV and setting him up with a personal account and a preexisting favorites list – he just prefers to sit down and see what’s on.

Remember when remotes looked like this?

We three millennial sons just cannot fathom this anymore. Sure, we remember a time when we would put on the TV Guide channel and watch the program guide scroll slowly up the screen. But this is 2022, and we use our streaming services to watch what we want, when we want, how we want. And our dear old dad just doesn’t work this way.

On one hand, it’s frustrating, because we know there’s a lot he’d enjoy watching, whether reclaimed old stuff or new things that are right up his alley. But on the other hand, we kind of get it. It can certainly be overwhelming to pick through the myriad choices available, especially with six millennial sons/daughters-in-law worth of accounts hurling ideas at him. And for him, when he sits down, he just wants what he knows. And “missing out” on stuff doesn’t bother him, a virtually FOMO-less boomer, in the slightest.

A more frustrating version of this manifests in my dear four-year-old daughter, Lucy. She is a picky eater. However, I don’t mean that there’s a set of foods she won’t eat and a set of foods she insists upon – though that’s sometimes true. I mean that she has no consistency in what she wants and doesn’t want. And when we bring up a new food, especially one that we think is nicely adjacent to foods she already likes, she usually won’t even try a bite (our policy is “two no-thank-you bites” before we make her a different food).

In the self-incriminating way that only little kids can nail, Lucy often looks at me or my wife, Katherine, as we eat a certain food, and authentically asks, “Why do you like that?” And you know what… how can you even answer? It tastes good… but that’s largely subjective. I like the texture or spice or juiciness… subjective again. Food is so largely about one’s willingness to try different foods in different preparations or different combinations that it’s difficult to answer the question plainly.

Sometimes, I try to be grown up and hand-bread
chicken strips like this. Other times, I am just weak
and order the same food as my kids.

Often, I just turn it around on her. “Lucy, why do you like McDonald’s chicken nuggets or peanut butter toast?” She usually doesn’t have more of a reply than “I just like it,” and I sort of hope the futility of the discussion illustrates the point for her. You have to do some trial and error, receive suggestions, and offer feedback. It’s a lesson we’ll have to reteach and relearn perennially, both for our kids and ourselves, really.

When I was in middle school, the Harry Potter book series had just started. In my ignorance, I followed the early trend and made a brief attempt at reading the first book. My interest fizzled, and I let it go until the movies came out. After seeing the first movie, I resolved to just wait for each movie to come out rather than try to read the books. They were getting increasingly long. The book nerds were chastising the rest of us for not reading and settling for abridged versions of the stories in the movies. And I was thinking there was no way to dig out of that hole and catch up to the movies and nerdom anyway.

Then in college, I met Katherine – someone who, with her brother, obtained new installments of Harry Potter at midnight at the bookstore and read them in a day or less. Since all the movies had come out by then, I knew the whole story (at least as the movies told them) already. So, in a way, I was free to read the books on their own merits. She badly wanted me to read them – both because she thought I’d enjoy them and also because she wanted to watch me read them and discuss them with me in depth.

So I read them. And you know what? They were great! I really enjoyed them. I really enjoyed discussing the characters and plot and themes with others. And I was able to admit that the movies were solid in their own right but certainly (if necessarily) a reduction of the books. I look forward to helping my kids read them and enjoying them yet another time as a family. These are joys I wouldn’t have known if I had stubbornly clung to past choices over her curation.

This is all to say that curation is a fascinating phenomenon. And in modern life, there is a tremendously easy path toward complete self-curation, or at least the facade of it when one is steered almost entirely by the invisible hand of algorithms that fuel social media, phone apps, and streaming platforms.

I think the lesson for me is to remain open to others’ suggestions. Sure, there are times when the note I keep in my phone of shows and movies to watch grows impossibly long, and it doesn’t even feel like it will be fun to catch up to it. But, when I have time for a show or movie, can I find the curiosity to branch out beyond my own reliable favorites to honor another person’s idea? Certainly, there’s time where the old nightstand book stack has piled mighty high, and it feels daunting to crack open a new book. But, when I go to read, can I give that book rec from a friend a fresh chance? When I’m able to, I realize my close friends and family are often amazingly insightful curators for me.

I think the same things can be said for music, food, social outings – and even for spirituality.

How receptive are you to
others' suggestions?
Foods, movies, shows,
outings, music?

Allow wider curation to bolster your prayer, your piety, your spiritual reading. If I had been too stubborn, I never would have found the joys of Taize Prayer. I also might not have found with greater certainty, after fresh tries every few years, that the Liturgy of the Hours really isn’t my favorite. I’ve learned that sitting in the front of church (suggested by parent-friends to us) isn’t best for my kids, who do better near the back. By writing for an editor, I’ve learned how to write to catechize or offer faith-forward reflections to a more churched audience as well as identify different approaches and vocabulary to reach those starting from a more distant point.

And you know what may be even more satisfying than enjoying that other person’s suggestion? Telling them you enjoyed it, and sharing that mutual enjoyment. If all else fails as you audit your curation tendencies, ask yourself the empathetic question that keeps me trying to stay continuously open to others: how would you feel if someone ignored your suggestion?