February 10th, 2025
It is often a struggle to get Asher ready to go to church on Sunday. I don’t think this is a problem unique to Asher. He is a four-year-old boy, and generally little kids don’t enjoy sitting in a pew for an hour. Of course, Asher rarely sits in the pew. He is a perpetual motion machine, constantly on the go. Twice a month, Miss Rachel offers a preschool version of a religion class during Mass, and that keeps Asher happy. However, yesterday she was not at church, so Karin and I had to keep our grandson occupied for an hour.
I find it enormously difficult to focus on the liturgy when Asher is feeling squirrelly. I always have one eye and one ear open in his direction. He tends to run off or throw a stuff animal into a neighboring pew. He is a talkative lad, and yesterday he insisted on speaking loudly while the priest delivered his homily. Honestly, I got more out of Asher’s comments than I did out of the sermon. Still, it would have been nice to be able to have been an active participant in the service and worship with everyone else.
I served as lector at the Mass yesterday. This means that I stood at the ambo (lectern) and proclaimed a passage from Scripture to the assembled congregants. Often, Asher likes to come up front with me while I speak. I talked to him about that after we all finished praying the Gloria and it was time for me to go up near the altar.
I asked Asher, “Are you coming up with me?”
He shook his head. “No, I am going to stay with Oma.”.
I took him at his word and walked up to the ambo. I read from Isaiah 6:1-8. When I was about halfway through the reading, I heard the footsteps of a small person coming toward me. I glanced down, caught Asher up into my arms, and continued to read aloud. The priest ignored Asher’s intrusion. I’m sure he noticed, but he sat in his chair stone-faced.
At the end of the Mass, the priest asked the congregation,
“So, what do the children want to do now?”
He smiled a bit and said, “It was kind of magical time, but now it’s over.”
I didn’t quite know how to take his remarks. I shrugged it off and we got Asher ready to go.
I took Asher to our car and put him into his child seat.
A fellow parishioner stopped at our car to talk to me. He said,
“You know, it means a lot to me when you pick up Asher like that during the reading.”
He smiled, put his hand over his heart, and continued,
“It sends a message.”
Good.
Frank is Emptiness 