Coming to see God face-to-face
I love teaching. It is really an energizer for me to prepare parents for their children’s reception of the sacraments. In the required classes I give them the theology and spirituality of that sacrament. The content focuses on not only what they are supposed to do when those events take place, but also is about salvation history and each one’s coming to see God face-to-face. (1 Cor. 13:12)
Class begins with prayer. However, prayer isn’t concluded until the end of the period as the whole class is a part of the prayer. For the sacrament of the Eucharist, I try to awaken within the parents the importance of the Mass through a different outlook. I take them back to the Scriptures to see how they tie together and find their expression through the Mass. Going to church then becomes more valued as it’s understood as being vital, at the heart of who we are, versus being a mandate of law. With the sacrament of Confirmation, in a little over an hour, parents receive the whole theology of Confirmation.
It’s the same story — the story of God’s love for us. It’s about who Jesus is, who God is, and rediscovering or deepening our relationship with God through Scriptures and prayer. Each class doesn’t just hand them knowledge, it gives them meaning. As I share my faith, they learn more about life and who we are to be as Christians. I ask the questions, “What was God’s plan here?” “What does this mean to us spiritually?” “What does it mean to us in our relationship with God?”
In order to help parents understand the sacrament of Reconciliation, I break apart the word. Did you know that “cilia” is the root of the word? Do you know what “cilia” is? Parents usually are baffled for a bit and wonder where I am going with this. That’s when I draw a paramecium (one-celled animal) on the board with all its appendages. From biology we learned that cilia are the tiny hair-like things all around that help the paramecium move. The cilia look like eyelashes. If we were to put a pupil in the middle of our paramecium, we have an eye. “Con” can mean “against,” but also “face to face.” Thus, the sacrament of Reconciliation is that which brings us face to face, eye to eye with God. We can only achieve this when we are “pono,” when everything is right between us. When parents scold their children, they say, “Look at me.” Jesus came to earth to reconcile us to God and bring us face to face with him. This is our mission too.
My local community is what keeps me sane during the busyness of my work in the parish and beyond. When we pray together, we share deeply from the heart. We are neither afraid of silence, nor of addressing the hopes, concerns and fears that we face personally, collectively and in our ministries. As our mission statement says, “We strive to be a unique sign of God’s loving presence and we commit ourselves individually and communally to a preferential option for the poor as we pray, heal, teach, love and forgive.”
Sister Eva Messina is a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet. She has been professed 52 years. Since 2004 she has been ministering at St. Anthony Church and School, Wailuku, Maui as the director of religious education and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. She resides in Wailuku.
