Back From Retreat

"So, how was it?" I asked DS#2 as he walked in the front door.

"'S okay," he answered. "What's for lunch?"

Forty-eight hours on a retreat with 50 kids from Youth Ministry and that's all I get out of him.

"Well, we're going to Mass at 5:30," I tell him.

He groans.

"You were told at the meeting," I answer.

"Me, too?" asks DD#2.

"You, too."

"Shoot. I was hoping you'd forget."

On Saturday I had run into a friend of mine (who also happens to be the Middle School Religion and Social Studies teacher at our parish school) at the city Christmas Tree Lighting Festivities. (The mayor said it was a Christmas tree and I'm not correcting her!) I mentioned DS#2 was on retreat and she panicked.

"Did I miss something?" she asked.

"No. This is for the first-year kids, not the Confirmation class."

We compared notes about the program. "I wish it was a little more rigorous," I told her. "We're telling these kids they're supposed to go out and defend the Faith and they don't know what it is!"

"You and me, both," she said.

Our current Youth Ministry Director is a "touchy-feely" kind of person. "What does your faith mean to you?" she asks. She is very serious about it. And there is a certain part of faith that is meant to be felt.

But there is a lot of theology and catechism in Catholicism. The kids need to know what makes Catholicism unique among Christian religions. What are our roots? Our theological history? Many people have spent considerable time and effort writing about and arguing about articles of Catholic faith. Is it too much to ask that our kids be exposed to some of that?

I didn't always feel this way. Vatican II was a current event and we spent a lot of time in class discussing what was going on and why the Mass was changing from Latin to "the vernacular." In high school, freshman year we studied the Old Testament; sophomore year, the New. How we actually felt about God was a new concept.

Now I find that I am explaining some basic concepts to my children--concepts that I'm surprised they haven't learned. Especially with DS#1 and DD#1, whose misunderstanding of the Church's basic teachings often surprises me.

Plus, my kids are bored by the "touchy-feely" stuff. To them it is a colossal waste of time. They game the system: "Just write down how it makes you feel all warm and cozy inside." I had to memorize the answers to all the questions in the Baltimore Catechism before I could receive Confirmation. Sister tested us regularly, both orally and in writing.

I'm not advocating that we return to those days, but give them something.

DS#2 did mention two things he received during the Retreat. One was a rather nice wooden cross necklace. The other was a new nickname: "Tall White Guy."

"You were the only one," I said.

"Yeah. Everyone else was either Filipino or Spanish."

"How did you feel about that?"

He shrugged. "It was okay. Everyone knew who I was."

For a kid whose lived much of his life in the shadows of his mother and older brother and sister, recognition is enough.