“Actually, I don’t think we need to hire anyone else.”
In April, I had a conversation with the pastor about replacing my soon-to-be-retired administrative assistant, a wise and humble woman who had worked in the various incarnations of this parish’s catechetical ministry for the last 40 years. It included the above statement, which has been the source of my anxiety for the last few months.
Emi was a primary evangelizer of our families with children in public school, who need a dedicated and supportive presence from our parish. This is a huge loss, not simply because of her position but also because of her person. However, the detriment to the detail-oriented, relational quality of our program appears partially avoidable. The simple solution is for me to take on more work and more of her role - and that may be what I am expected to do.
But… put simply, I don’t want to. Work itself doesn’t scare me, but I’m not suited to everything that would be demanded of me. (Our pastors probably have greater right to this complaint.) If I take on this necessary work, I’ll have less time actually to create anything new, to grow the impact of what we’re doing, to rethink and rework what’s not facilitating conversion.
Truthfully, a main reason for my reticence is the greater demand upon the time I have currently set aside for my other vocation: wife and mother in my family. I’m fighting the toxic mentality that we often place upon our ministers: “If you really cared about the parish families, you’d be here more often.” I’m not here all the time because I’m not just working to make our parishioners saints - I’m supposed to be mutually helping along my husband and children too.
Granted, I have the luxury of being able to lengthily discern this. Many people work two or three jobs in service to the basic needs of their family. Yet a cultural shift towards respect for the family by the workplace needs to originate in the Church’s institutions. We need to be the example. Sometimes we do well. Our Archdiocese recently promoted its 100% coverage of Natural Family planning instruction in its health insurance coverage - perhaps an overdue step, but better late than never. My high school is offering an on-campus child care center to faculty and staff beginning this year. These are good steps.
I do like it when my two vocations get a little mixed up out of necessity. I’ve now showed up to the archdiocesan offices a few times with a toddler and said something like, “I have a meeting with the bishop,” to the amusement of the concierge-esque secretary at the entrance. Clare has enjoyed a little date out to Panera, then sat in the booth quietly through a meeting with a potential catechumen. But I do not want the demands of one to push out the possibility of the other.
And then there’s a third, most important vocation - daughter of Christ. Occasionally I go back and reread a post I wrote in 2012 for the Catholic Apostolate Center, about the strange temptation ministers face to skip over prayer in order to “do the work of the Church,” which is naturally impossible to do. At that point, the temptation to be busy on behalf of the parish could have edged out my time for personal prayer, if not for the wise prioritization the Echo program outlined (and nearly enforced) for us.
At this point, I also have the temptation to skip over prayer so as to spend more time with my little family unit. That’s also a dysfunctional practice. One of the best passages I think there is from C.S. Lewis’ fiction is on one of the greatest spiritual dangers I think good people face: treating family as an idol… even that immediate family whom your sacramental vocation calls you to serve.
In the Great Divorce, a saint is trying to prepare a woman in Purgatory for the possibility of entering Heaven. That woman, however, only wants to see her son who had predeceased her. In the midst of their conversation, that saint of welcome (some friend or acquaintance from Earth, but who was purposefully not her son) explains,
‘...there is no such thing as being only a mother. You exist as Michael’s mother only because you first exist as God’s creature. That relation is older and closer. No, listen, Pam! He also loves. He also has suffered. He also has waited a long time.’Her purification consists of learning to want God for His own sake, and not solely as a means to her son.
My family is a good; a great good; a fantastic good! But they are not THE Good, and I feel my time should also reflect that.
Discipleship will cost everything you have. But how do you split “everything” when you have three different places you’re called to be a disciple?
I think a partial solution is to be present wherever you are. I should be more than merely efficient, but allow my interactions their full weightiness - à la Fred Rogers. A Christlike presence probably involves being conscious but not anxious over the balance of your time, rather than trying to parcel out the best proportional composition of your week as if it were a recipe. This is a life, not a test kitchen.
Prayer, I’ve found, is what makes that presence and peace possible. If you work from rest - if your soul is resting in the peace of Christ - then it doesn’t matter if you eventually need to move to a different job because your current one demands more than you can or should give. Christ is still risen. My husband Kevin said in college that he had the realization that “If God exists, and loves me, then nothing else matters.” I imagine the martyrs would agree.
Another answer probably lies in letting some “mixing” happen - in recognizing that I am not actually three different people called to three different vocations. If I am to imitate the love of God - for what is a vocation but a specific way to do that? - then I have to strive to be the same person in all three areas.
In a book I read recently, the author is counseled by a priest who that day suffered a family tragedy yet seems at joyful peace. Her description evokes the same Lewis quote Rob just used to describe Javy Baez, but I’ll use a different section: “Every so often one meets [saints]... They love you more than other men do, but need you less.” He gives her the advice “Do what God is calling you to do, but do it as one part of something bigger - your family… Unite with your family. Bring them into what you do, and bring what you do into your family.”
Kevin is an excellent listener and clarifier for my jumbled thoughts when working through inspiration on catechesis (whether that catechetical brilliance is meant for my family, for the parish, or both). Clare has begun to be excited about what I tell her I will do at “my school.” If the work matters, they can help.
But I don’t do this well, yet. So I’m not fully present wherever I am. So I fret about what’s required to do these three things and do them well all together. So I don’t pray enough. To start, I’ll take a page from Pope Francis’ playbook and say, “Please pray for me.”
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