Happiness {9}: My Sunday Best

Participants in “Write 31 Days” pledge to write for 30 minutes on a single topic every day in October.  My topic?  Happiness.

Today is Sunday.

In the past I’ve participated in the “My Sunday Best” link up hosted by Rosie.  If you visit that link, you’ll see a list of reasons why someone like me who despises selfies and lacks all fashion sense would participate in such a thing.   I <3 all Rosie’s reasons!

But she didn’t quite get to one of my favorites.

The linkup is mostly (but not exclusively!) moms.  The linkup is all people who go to church.

That means that many, many posts “regale us with your child’s antics.”  It’s a way to know that I’m not alone in my objective to pass on the faith to my kids.  And I’m not alone in finding that challenge to be…difficult.

It would be easier to just stop going.  But we don’t.  The moms who link up– we don’t stop going.

Why in the world do we continue to do something that sometimes brings more strife than happiness?

It comes back to that happiness-joy tension.  The thing I want for my kiddos isn’t just fun and happiness now.  We could probably find sixty-eleven things to do besides attending Mass.  Faith is a gift that that can provide comfort, guidance, and joy amidst suffering as well as eternal life.

Okay.  So let’s say faith is really just “the opiate of the masses.”  As a faith-filled person, this is pretty much worse-case-scenario for me.  Although obviously I don’t believe that to be true, let’s say it is.

Let’s say this whole Mass business is a bunch of huey.  Let’s say I come to the end of my life and find out everything was a joke, and there is no afterlife, no need for morality or service, no true peace.  Other than feeling a little sheepish, that would be fine.  I’m not out anything, and leaning on my faith would have helped me make good choices and serve other people.  That’s still a win-win.

But what if faith isn’t garbage?  What if it’s true?  Then I have a duty to help my children find faith.  To see its beauty and truth for themselves.  For now, that means hauling them to Mass so their souls can soak up the graces pouring from the presence of the Eucharist.

The “My Sunday Best” linkup encourages me to continue sacrificing my short term happiness (this song summarizes all the everything!) for the long-term payoff.  Joy for the win.

 

PS– How small can I make this picture so you can’t tell it’s super-duper blurry?  Still looks blurry? Well, that’s a fitting “My Sunday Best” for you.  A blurry-looking but full-hearted attempt at living out the faith.

 

PPS– My kids know all the words to “The Weary Parents of Church” song linked above.  They definitely know Mass can be a production.  But we keep on truckin’ there just the same.

 

 

Check out a blog for my mom for others’ takes on “My Sunday Best.”

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Day 1:  The Evolution of an Idea
Day 2:  In a Cave
Day 3:  The Pursuit
Day 4:  Peanuts Gang Style
Day 5: A Beautiful Death
Day 6/7:  Like a Moody Teenager
Day 8:   Survival of the Fittest Gardening
Day 9:  My Sunday Best