Truth, goodness, beauty brings mind to God in tough times

A couple of months ago, before we found ourselves living through a pandemic, I was contemplating how my family of six, with four children under the age of nine, lives out our day-to-day faith life. Little did I know that these musings would come back to me as a source of direction and focus a few weeks later when we found ourselves living with a lot of uncertainty.

I was reflecting on the big ways that living our Catholic faith keeps us grounded: family prayer as our homeschool day begins, prayers before meals, prayers at bedtime, weekly Mass, attempts at regular confession, and time for adoration. What a gift the Church gives us in the sacramental life—grace to help us live out our lives as Catholic families. But what about the times between those bigger moments? What about the day-to-day, hour-by-hour?

I am sure for every family this looks a little different, as our God is a creative God. One way our family has found to live each moment well is through the part of our school day where we all gather together and focus our attention on truth, goodness, and beauty—whether that be through hymns, scripture, saints, music, art, or poetry. Or maybe it looks like time exploring nature, reading a good book together, or learning a new art technique. When we take a few minutes each day to intentionally add in some form of truth, goodness, or beauty, we not only see God through those moments, but I find that we are more likely to notice him in many of the other moments of our day as well—like a new bird that shows up at a feeder, those first few blades of green grass that grab our attention, a friend who shows up with a cake to share… all of these moments are visions of God in our daily lives that keep us focused on him.

Then mid-March hit. All of a sudden we were all at home social distancing. My husband began working from home, our calendar was cleared of all appointments, play dates, school activities, and worst of all: Mass, confession, and adoration. Our first reaction as a family was to supplement those things as best we could with online Mass and adoration, more examinations of consciences, and more moments of family prayer when we felt worried or scared about the news and abrupt changes. We weren’t used to the changes, yet these efforts still brought grounding and peace.

After a week of our mixed-up routine, I felt like we had gone so off course that we needed to put some basic aspects of our routine back in. The first thing was to start with our morning gathering. We listened to our favorite composers, read some nature poetry, started a list of the new birds we were seeing, and reread some favorite family books. Holy Week and Easter inspired us to focus on the life of Jesus in scripture, as well as listening to some of our favorite hymns we’d been missing from not attending in-person Mass. Reflecting on the lives of the saints and how they were so strong in the face of adversity helped us to see a bit of our current life story through theirs.

We still are struggling with all of the changes and uncertainties of this time, but we are inspired by these intentional moments of truth, goodness, and beauty. They draw our notice to God throughout our day—the sun reflecting off the puddles of melted snow, the mallard couple eating breakfast in our backyard, the smiles of the neighbors we pass by on our evening walks, a few minutes to video chat with the family and friends we miss so much, and the example of the heroic health care and emergency service workers on the front lines.

We hope and pray that you too are finding a sense of peace and hope through the sacraments-from-afar, and that the great love of God will be ever obvious to you.
 
Cora Suda is a parishioner of St. Benedict’s Church in Wild Rice.