{"id":5859,"date":"2011-10-12T01:30:09","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T06:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=5859"},"modified":"2011-10-12T01:30:09","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T06:30:09","slug":"children-the-first-teachers-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/children-the-first-teachers-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Children, The First Teachers of Faith?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children get it.<\/p>\n

We can learn much about faith from listening to the words of toddlers. Last weekend, my mother-in-law was in town and went to Mass with us.<\/p>\n

During one of the readings, she whispered into my two-year-old Olivia’s ear, “I love you.”<\/p>\n

Olivia turned, put her mouth to my mother-in-law’s ear and went “Shhhhh!”, then pulled back, made her hand-sign for book and said “Time for readings!”<\/p>\n

Kids can help us (re)discover prayers that we have long\u00a0abandoned. Litanies were never “my thing”, too\u00a0repetitive\u00a0for me. But not for a two-year old. Olivia’s current prayer-of-choice is the Litany of the Sacred Heart. I say whatever the invocation and she responds “Have mercy us!”<\/p>\n

Today, we are so connected in so many ways. I’m an early adopter (read: geek) and was one of the first\u2014if not the first\u2014of my friends with a website<\/a>, on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Google+<\/a>, Foursquare<\/a>, the proto-Foursquare service Dodgeball<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, etc, etc, etc. I communicate with people more via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter than face-to-face. I catch myself checking my phone far too often.<\/p>\n

But toddlers, nope. They live in the moment and are present only to those physically around them. They might not have a 1,000 followers on Twitter and just yell out “birdie!” when they see the Twitter logo, but they’re fully present.<\/p>\n

Lately, when I’ve been frustrated with where I’m at on my spiritual journey, I can look at Olivia and be reminded that, sometimes, I’m making life too hard. You have to plan for the future and be connected to others, but, first, you have to pay attention to where you are now and experience that for what it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children get it. We can learn much about faith from listening to the words of toddlers. Last weekend, my mother-in-law was in town and went to Mass with us. During one of the readings, she whispered into my two-year-old Olivia’s ear, “I love you.” Olivia turned, put her mouth to my mother-in-law’s ear and went… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,89],"tags":[127,165,216,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-5859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog","7":"category-family","8":"tag-children","9":"tag-parenting","10":"tag-readings","11":"tag-social-media-2","12":"entry","13":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1329,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/the-great-olivia\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":0},"title":"The Great-Olivia! Be Gentle With Your Sister!-Silence","author":"Brandon Kraft","date":"April 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Easter Triduum celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday are some of the most beautiful liturgies in the modern Roman Rite. After 40 long days of Lent preparing ourselves, the big dance is here. Not only Christ's rising that we celebrate at Easter,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/b.kraft.im\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/olivia-screams.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25876,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/how-to-make-a-family-litany\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":1},"title":"How to Create a Family Litany","author":"Lauren Gulde","date":"October 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"All Saints Week - here we are! A week of beauty, starting with Halloween full of fun costumes and candy, All Saints Day with our holy heavenly friends, and ending with the ever hopeful and solemn All Soul's Day, praying for those we love who have died. What a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"create a family litany of saints","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/All-Saints-300x201.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6464,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/mass-and-children\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":2},"title":"Mass and Children","author":"Brandon Kraft","date":"October 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month, I wrote about some ways to prepare for Mass, intellectually, in light of being distracted more because of the kiddos. But, how can we prepare to reduce those distractions? First, a disclaimer, we are no experts. I'm just a father of a two-year old and an eight-month old.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39691,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/05\/ten-beautiful-books-for-summer-reading-for-all-ages\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":3},"title":"Ten Beautiful Books For Summer Reading {for all ages}","author":"Lauren Gulde","date":"May 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This isn't a list of THE ten books you should read, but just ten of the thousands of books you should read. I do not dare suggest that I know everything about literature.\u00a0 But I do know that: 1. My life has been changed by the books I've read 2.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ten books for summer reading","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/tenbooks.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31837,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/epiphany-traditions\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":4},"title":"Epiphany Traditions","author":"Brandon Kraft","date":"January 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was the Solemnity of the\u00a0Epiphany, both the traditional date of January 6th and more recent \"transferred date\" of the Sunday between January 2nd and 8th, which is one of the marks used to end the traditional Christmas season. Growing up, all of our family traditions revolved around Christmas Day\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Epiphany Blessing on a doorway[photocredit: flickr\/stanbury","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/8354918090_7d0ee30c00_b-630x423.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/8354918090_7d0ee30c00_b-630x423.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/8354918090_7d0ee30c00_b-630x423.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":44278,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2014\/03\/lent-40-days-40-ways\/","url_meta":{"origin":5859,"position":5},"title":"Lent: 40 Days and 40 Ways","author":"Lauren Gulde","date":"March 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year I try to approach Lent anew. I don't want it to ever grow old. Lent holds a dear place in my heart, as it always reminds me of the days that brought me up to my joining the Catholic Church in 1994. Those emotional memories are strong, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ACNM"","block_context":{"text":"ACNM","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"lent 40 days and 40 ways","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/lent40daysand40ways.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}