My twin sons don’t remember their baptism. Not the virtues bestowed on their infant heads, the lighting of the paschal candles, or the lamb palak and chicken tikka we adults shared afterward. Fifteen years later, my sons are confirmands, mere months away from receiving their confirmation, another sacrament of initiation into the Catholic Church. This sacrament they will choose to make — and, hopefully, will remember.
Let me set the scene: longhaired and hooded-of-sweatshirts, at prayer, at table and at school, their vibe is the disaffected, eyerolling way of teens going through the motions. “Come, Holy Spirit,” they pray, their lips barely moving, their voices an unsure whisper.
As my sons follow the path to becoming full members of the church, I am prepared for rocky stretches. Still, I want them to walk the way with their eyes open, to remember their stumbles and recoveries as lessons for this life’s long journey with God.
My own confirmation was more than 30 years ago, and I have forgotten much about that day. My own way as a young Catholic was at times rocky, with long stretches of, if not unbelief, then inattention. So, I study up. I read that the sacrament marks the beginning of the mission to witness Christ’s immense love to the world. I wonder how best to communicate to my teens the magnitude of this mission, when the missions they are most interested in these days are virtual ones behind screens.
As a Catholic parent, I defer to sacramental preparation. Confirmation service hours school my confirmands in the corporal works of mercy, strengthening them for service to the church, our Body of Christ: feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned.
As a writer, I default to the storytelling aphorism, “show, don’t tell,” to demonstrate the power of the sacraments to my sons. I focus on experience over information, something they are bombarded with all their waking hours. Through the Eucharist, we meet God in a physical way, I remind them. As a Catholic writer, I understand that communicating through our senses is both how we tell a memorable story and how we meet and experience God — not only at Mass but in the world.
Through Ignatian spirituality, we are invited to find God in all things, the extraordinary and the ordinary. An extra-careful way of looking — I imagine this practice of discernment can help prepare my sons (and me, too) for the sacrament. More importantly, it might help us experience God’s presence every single day after.
I look to Catholic writers, like Andre Dubus, for inspiration for both my writing and spiritual practices. “I need sacraments I can receive through my senses,” the late author says in his essay “Sacraments.” Writing in a way that feels both inspirational and instructive, Dubus describes making sandwiches for his daughters while navigating with difficulty the wheelchair he used. He calls the act a sacrament, a quotidian anointing centered on the human body and soul in relation to other human bodies and souls.
We are, after all, corporeal beings (like Jesus was) who understand through our senses, Dubus seems to be saying. We hunger and thirst, and we satiate others’ hunger and thirst, because we love. Dubus describes the everyday sacraments we offer each other that make love real and reciprocal. “If I could give my children my body to eat … I would do it,” he says.
He is on to something. Parenthood is a giving of oneself to be consumed, as God gave of himself. Before our children are born, they take of our bodies, and they don’t stop once they arrive. These days, my teens take my rides, my money, my food, my love and my patience. I remind myself that every sacrifice is a gift of love to share. These acts are our ordinary sacraments, made less ordinary for training all of us for confirmation — and sustaining us for the long haul.
Before our children are born, they take of our bodies, and they don’t stop once they arrive. These acts are our ordinary sacraments, made less ordinary for training all of us for confirmation — and sustaining us for the long haul.
One of my favorite poets, Marie Howe ruminated on the word “sacrament” in a 2018 interview with Alex Dueben at The Millions: “I think poetry is one of the last places where the inner life of someone is held sacred,” she said. “That reading it is a sacrament. Writing, when one is in the right attitude and position … is a kind of sacrament.” Other writers have discussed the way Howe’s poetry doesn’t rely upon symbol, but upon ordinary things happening to ordinary people, to bear witness. As I write, it is the start of Lent, and this short poem of Howe’s hits extra hard:
Calvary
Someone hanging clothes on a line between buildings
someone shaking out a rug from an open window
might have heard hammering, one or two blocks away
and thought little or nothing of it.
We don’t have to be experts in close reading of an essay or poem or prayer. We only need to close read for God’s presence, everywhere. Just like in the best literature, the little things in life — a sandwich, a clothesline, a cross — take on much greater significance when we contemplate them. New meaning is instilled in the ordinary, a new meaning that follows us everywhere. Life, I believe, is a stringing together of everyday moments made sacred by our attention. The best we can do is try to embrace the divine in our ordinary journeys, which are marked along the way by our extraordinary sacraments.
When it comes to sacramental preparation, all is not extraordinary. There are documents to unearth, forms to fill out, clothes to iron. In a way, I want my sons to feel the commonplaceness of the sacramental journey, that it’s not a performance, but a way of being and doing, even when no one is watching — those corporal works of mercy made regular, made ritual. I want my sons to feel that the identity of confirmand is their new way of going about the world, this and every season.
As they continue on their sacramental path toward confirmation, I aim to say less and show more: help them see God in the ordinary, each and every day. When my sons return home from youth group, they don’t talk of fellowship. They describe a scene of pizza shared with friends. They don’t tell me of working together for a common cause. They offer me highlights of an epic game of 9 Square in the church parking lot. They don’t recite Bible passages or talk of loving service to their neighbor. But without complaint they step up to box meals at the interfaith food pantry and eagerly help an older friend care for her diabetic dog. They don’t know these are everyday touchpoints of the sacrament they will soon receive. Would that we all consider such acts of Christian witness ordinary, everyday!
As they complete their journey to confirmation, I pray that my sons will raise their heads to meet God in the mundane, point their shuffling feet toward a deeper faith and remember the way. That they will know the joy of putting their faith into action, as I have known the joy of sharing my faith — and life — with them.