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called by name

13 Comments

I woke up to the litany of names. Maybe you did, too.

Every year on this day they wind around me as I sip my morning cup of tea, greeting another sunny September day like that bright one we pause to remember (can it be eleven years ago now?). I listen to the litany. Names read by loved ones, a simple, solemn recitation. Just enough pause to let the sounds and syllables sink in before the next name begins.

Names that sound foreign and names that sound familiar. Janitors and bankers and moms and firemen. People who rushed in and people who tried to get out.

All of them gone. All of them loved.

The only thing I treasure about this awful anniversary is that honoring each name is our way to remember.

. . .

We’ve been church shopping for months.

I hate to admit it, because I dislike a consumerist mindset when it comes to faith communities: what can I get here? what can you give me? But our recent move landed us smack in the middle of four different parishes, all equal distance from our house. So we have to decide where will be home.

Each one draws us for a different reason: a great school, a beautiful worship space, a vibrant liturgical life, a warm community. The choice is hard, but we long to settle in – to stop slipping in and out of pews unknown, to cease the Sunday hop from church to church.

But one parish has something that none of the others have.

Before you walk into the sanctuary, you stop at a wooden table with markers and nametags in a wicker basket. The small sign above reads: We are all called by name through baptism. Babies and adults alike slap the sticker on our shirt. When we wind our way to the front for communion, the minister glances at our nametag with a smile and proclaims our name before offering the Body of Christ. The children are blessed the same – by name, with a soft hand laid on their heads.

Every time it gives me goosebumps. The power of being called by name.

I think we found our home.

. . .

I dropped him off at preschool again this morning. I mentally crossed fingers and toes that we’d have another day like last Thursday, the one day he didn’t cry when I left. But I wasn’t sure. He’s a cautious soul, my firstborn.

We held hands tightly as we crossed the parking lot to the front door. Parents and preschoolers all around us did the same. But one little boy, carried in his mother’s arms, squirmed to the side and pointed with delight at my son.

“There’s S!” he exclaimed with a broad smile.

His mother turned. “Is that your buddy?” she asked. The boy just grinned. My son smiled right back, though he said nothing in return.

He didn’t cry today. (Though I teared up as I drove away.)

The power of being called by name.

I think he’s home.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Claire says

    11 September 2012 at 10:53 am

    That is beautiful! I would love it if our parish did something like that. And I’m so glad to her that preschool is going well!

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      12 September 2012 at 11:04 am

      Thanks, Claire! It is certainly a transition for us but I think it is going better all the time…always little by little, right?

      Reply
  2. Erica Chappelear says

    11 September 2012 at 10:57 am

    Love the way this parish encourages the use of Name Tags! I will take this to my church 🙂 Also, the preschool story brought a tear to my eye. I’m so with you as my 3 year old boy has those days too… and one special friend who will give him a hug (and sometimes they fight too) just like brothers, very much home.

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      12 September 2012 at 11:06 am

      I had never been to a Catholic parish that used name tags, although I know other traditions use them more frequently. I can tell the people who have been at the parish for ages and are used to the nametags, b/c they will often use people’s names at the Sign of Peace, too – total culture change for Catholics who often need a little nudge toward fellowship! 🙂

      Reply
  3. Leanne@ Life Happens When says

    11 September 2012 at 10:52 pm

    I don’t know if it is your goal in life to write a book, but I promise you- I will be one of the first to buy it if you do!!! You have such a powerful way with words. This was beautiful and lovely and it brought me to tears.

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      12 September 2012 at 11:08 am

      Leanne, you rock. This totally made my day. And I definitely dream of writing a book some day, although now is not the time…you could still be my 1st pre-order on Amazon if you wanted though. 😉

      Reply
  4. Ginny at Random Acts of Momness says

    12 September 2012 at 9:30 pm

    Sniff. I love this. You got me all choked up, in a good way.

    Reply
  5. Thrift Store Mama says

    13 September 2012 at 9:52 pm

    I’m so happy for you that you’ve found a church home. I grew up in the perfect (for me) parish and just loved it. I haven’t been able to find the right mix of worship space, liturgical style, and community in a parishin my own adult life and I miss that.

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      14 September 2012 at 11:12 am

      It’s so hard, isn’t it? No parish is perfect, but it’s still a gift to find a place that feels like it could become home.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. mama or “wa-wa”? the choice is yours | mothering spirit says:
    20 June 2013 at 1:41 pm

    […] bounced with excitement as he asked me if he could go write our nametags. I had my hands full with his already-cranky brother, wondering why on earth I bothered bringing them […]

    Reply
  2. this is church right now | mothering spirit says:
    2 April 2014 at 9:25 am

    […] minutes late (aren’t we always these days). Smudged nametags, courtesy of Crayola markers. Pile of coats on the end of the pew (will it ever be […]

    Reply
  3. we care about the crumbs | mothering spirit says:
    6 March 2015 at 6:00 am

    […] for these crumbs. A church where children are seen and blessed. A church where children are called by name. A church where all parts of the Body of Christ are welcomed, regardless of appearance or […]

    Reply
  4. We Care About The Crumbs | Practicing Families says:
    4 May 2015 at 10:31 am

    […] cares for these crumbs. A church where children are seen and blessed. A church where children are called by name. A church where all parts of the Body of Christ are welcomed, regardless of appearance or […]

    Reply

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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thismessygrace

thismessygrace
If our daughters had lived, we never would have pl If our daughters had lived, we never would have planted this garden. 

There are pockets of beauty in my life today that could not have existed if they had survived.

Acknowledging this does not mean I accept their loss. Or that I wouldn’t trade it all to have them here instead.

But the grieving know this strange, stubborn, saving truth: that goodness can grow in the gaping holes left by the ones we love.

I don’t know any simple ways to make sense of the hard times in which we’re living. As a porous soul, I feel it all and it breaks my heart, even as I cling to what I know is true.

But loving and losing my girls has taught me that life is both heart-breaking and resilient, that surviving is more complicated than we suspect, that most people are walking around shattered beneath the surface.

Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of it, searing as sunlight: the grief in someone’s eyes behind their anger, the burden sagging their shoulders, the past that’s poisoning their present. Few things have transformed my life more than learning to recognize pain in others.

Grief is a long letting go of a life you thought you’d have. Most of us are carrying more of it than we realize—or remember when we’re dealing with each other (especially when we’re tearing each other down).

Go gentle today. Practicing compassion and generosity of spirit will crack open more of the world and its confounding struggles. You might lose the satisfying clarity you clung to before life broke your heart in complicated ways, but you will find more of God in the messy, maddening middle.

I have learned this much from the garden I never planned to plant, from a version of life I never dreamed.
Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated Nearly 20 years ago (!) these crazy kids graduated from Notre Dame. Now we’re thick in the midst of life-with-kids, celebrating middle school & preschool & everything in between. 
 
Since June is a month for graduations & celebrations, I’m delighted to help you celebrate with @grottonetwork .

Grotto Network shares stories about life, work, faith, relationships, and more. Check out their videos, podcast, and articles to help you reflect on where you are in your journey.
 
Grotto Network has generously given 2-$100 gift cards to Bloomin’ Brands Restaurants (Outback, Carrabba’s, Bonefish Grill & more) to help you celebrate this month with friends & family! It’s a huge giveaway, because we all need to savor and celebrate whatever joy we can find these days.
 
To enter the giveaway, follow @grottonetwork and @thismessygrace and leave a comment below about what you’re celebrating this month. Tag a friend for extra entries (up to 3).
 
Rules: Open to the U.S. only. Entries will be accepted until 6/11/22 at 11:59 pm CT. The 2 winners will be chosen at random and announced on 6/12/22. Per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram's terms of use.
“How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “H “How did you do this?” I want to ask her. “How did you let your heart break a thousand times?”

I want to call my mother and ask her impossible questions, to probe her heart that held five children and let each of us go in the hardest ways. But I know what she will say, “It’s hard. But you’re doing a beautiful job.” She can’t give words to the deepest yearnings and groanings. None of us can.

I wish I could ask my grandmothers, each of them gone for decades now, each of them matriarchs who raised big broods of their own. I never got to know them as an adult, but I have heaps of questions: How did you do it? How did you not lose yourself or your way? Or did you, and that was precisely the point?

I want a whole book of answers to impossible questions, and none exists. So I send my thoughts to the mothers of faith whose short stories, mere snippets on pages, have sparked small lights to guide me along. To Sarah and Ruth, Hagar and Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth. Every unnamed anguish the holy ones carried, every treasure of love they held in their heart.

Is it any coincidence that birth often brings both cries and screams, laughter and joy?

We hold it all within us. We cannot give words to the enormity of what it means to mother.

I sit outside a coffee shop two blocks from my children’s school on a sunny afternoon, the last day of the year. I wipe away tears for the natural nostalgia, but I also feel the gutting grief welling up from my own wounds of motherhood to know a deeper truth: marking milestones with love and longing is nothing compared to the gaping loss of not having your child here to break your heart in a thousand tiny ways.

So I resolve again, a hundred times again, to let this vulnerability become the strength that keeps me fighting for all children to have what I want for my own: life, love, health, safety, support, opportunity, community, hope. This is how parenting asks us to change. To let the particulars of our lives stretch us to love more widely.

I once thought “to mother” meant to have and to hold.

Now I know it also means to let go.
Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I s Many of you asked me to save these suggestions I shared after the school shooting in Uvalde.

Remember: we can’t do everything, but we can each do something.

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Any work for justice and peace is long and hard. But we can build this work into our daily lives in concrete ways.

Look at the children in your life. What would you do to keep them safe and alive?

Start there. Let your life and love lead you.
When women meet, the world changes. Today is the When women meet, the world changes.

Today is the Feast of the Visitation. A day when we remember the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.

Two women pregnant with new life, blooming with prophetic power.
Two mothers called to change the world.

What would happen if we gathered together like this today?
How could the world change if we made Mary’s song our own?

“He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
(Luke 1:51-53)

Imagine if we stayed in this holy space—not for a moment’s meeting, but for months together—to gestate the dreams God was waiting to birth through us.

Imagine if we let ourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit to shout out with loud cries.
Imagine if we lifted our souls with prayers of justice and joy.

Imagine if we gave each other strength and service, courage and compassion, as we kept asking how to answer God’s call in our ordinary lives.

When women meet, the world changes.

If you want to know how to fight for justice for your children, for your people, for this world, look to the Visitation.

The mothers will show us the way. They already have.

(Image from the “Windsock Visitation” by Br. Mickey McGrath, OSFS, commissioned for the Monastery of the Visitation in north Minneapolis.)
Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached t Here’s what I wish I would have heard preached today on the Ascension.

Right now is a time to be prophetic and pastoral, a time for each of us to ask how God is calling us to act.
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