This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The Fatherhood Chronicles L

Catechizing Sofie

As a new father (only fourteen months under my belt), I am learning things I never knew before. There's the Third Law of Wet Wipes which states that the actual number of wet wipes needed to clean a bottom after a poopy diaper will be in proportionately inverse ratio to the actual number of wet wipes on hand. Along with this is Sofie's corollary which notes that when attempting to retrieve said wet wipe for said cleaning mission that said wet wipe will have either fallen back into the wet wipe dispenser and is no longer retrievable or will be impossible to retrieve from said dispenser because it has firmly lodged in the dispensing hole leaving the bottom cleaning person (usually daddy) to no other recourse than to swing the wet wipe and dispenser wildly about one's head as one attempts to dislodge the wet wipe while also ensuring that the poop-bespattered bottom does not make contact with items of clothing, the changing table pad, or the baby's other clean body parts.

But this is not about poopy diapers. Rather, there's something else I've learned, something so awesome and mysterious, so humbling, that one can't help but say it in a whisper: Children are naturally religious.

Don't mistake me. I did not say that children are naturally Christian. Christians can be, and the best of us are, very religious. But being religious does not make one a Christian. What being religious does, however, is provide a natural pathway and conduit toward the channeling of these energies and needs toward the Christian Faith and Christ's Body the Church.

And I have been absolutely amazed and flabbergasted at how remarkably easy, in some respects, it has been to teach Sofie the Christian Faith. More to the point, I have been blessed and filled with wonder at how easily Sofie mimics and takes on as her own the actions of Christian worship.

Just this morning, Sofie was playing with some toys, and began walking back to the back of the apartment to where Anna was. I had just lit the vigil lamp, so I said to Sofie, "Sofie. Come here and receive your blessing." Sofie stopped in her tracks, turned around and walked right toward me. She stood quietly as I signed her with the blessing cross and prayed the blessing over her. And all I needed to do was hold the cross in front of her for her to venerate it. She needed no coaching or encouragement on my part. She knew what to do. In fact, she stood expectantly as I placed the cross back on the mantle which functions as our icon "corner." I immediately recognized that she wanted to venerate the icons as well. So I took down our diptych of the Theotokos and Pantakrator and held it for her to kiss. She kissed the Blessed Virgin and Our Savior, and then her left hand made the motions as though she were crossing herself. I put the diptych back on the mantle and then helped her, with her right hand, to make the sign of the cross: forehead, breastbone, right shoulder, left. A few moments later, to my utter amazement, completely on her own, Sofie signed herself with the cross--in the proper traditional form. (Okay, admittedly, it was a little bit sloppy, but it was clearly recognizable.)

Now some I understand, especially my colleagues and family from my heritage churches, may well take issue with these practices. Kissing icons? Kissing crosses? Rituals? There are learned responses to each of these to show that they are fully in keeping with the evangelical and New Testament Faith and worship of the Apostles. But I'll not take the time to go into them here. Rather, I will simply ask one question: How else is a fourteen month old daughter of Christians going to worship the Lord and express her faith in Him?

I do not catechize Sofie in intellectual terms right now. She has no ability yet for the sort of conceptual comprehension necessary to understand things like Jesus dying for our sins, Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension into heaven. She will not likely have this ability for a handful more years yet. She will soon be able to recite by rote these things we teach her. But understand them? Heck I wonder if I understand them now!

But to return to my point. If I must wait till Sofie has the ability to communicate with us and both memorize by rote the basic Gospel teaching as well as to have a basic understanding of them, then there are going to be many years in between in which presumably I can do nothing. Sofie can do little more than tag along while mommy and daddy do their religious things. But to participate . . . well if she has to understand it, even rudimentarily, then she cannot participate.

But the Church has always recognized that Satan and the demonic are always at work. And even from Sofie's first days, the prince of the powers of the air was utilizing his medium to infiltrate Sofie's heart. The noises and words and music all around her were potential means for infusing Sofie with the devouring worm. I was most struck by this the first outing Sofie and I had on the el as I headed to school. Perfect strangers swore vile profanites and blasphemies in her presence. The name of God was taken in vain. Short of putting cotton in her ears, there was little I could do to restrain these evil influences. And even if I could stop her ears, she had eyes to see. Only a few months old and she is already being bombarded with the idea that women can only be related to and can only relate to others by sexual objectification. Daddy and mommy watch the news program and she is confronted with blood and violence. I pray regularly each day that through the intercessions of the Theotokos Sofie's heart and her innocence will be guarded and protected.

In short, from before my daughter was born, we have been engaged in a war for her soul.

I said above that Sofie was naturally religious. This is true. I said that being religious provides important natural pathways for teaching her the faith. This is true as well. But it is also true that this religiosity is also being exploited by our enemy to turn Sofie away from the Faith. And it is precisely because of this battle that I dare not wait to catechize her in the Faith.

So it is a matter of eternal life and death that I now teach Sofie the sign of the cross, to venerate the icons, and to pray the Our Father and sing the Church hymns, and that our family is often and regularly at Liturgy whenever it is served. It is vital that we pray together and often in our home, and that Sofie be included and can pray in the only ways she can know right now: crossing herself and kissing the icons, the blessing cross, the Scriptures.

My hope and prayer is that soon Anna and I may be chrismated, and Sofie baptized, in the Orthodox Church. Pray for me a sinner.

Posted by Clifton at October 21, 2004 06:30 AM | TrackBack