Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Simcha FisherSeptember 21, 2017

What your kids get from Mass—even when they’re not listening

(Josh Applegate via Unsplash)

Let’s see, 42 years times 52 Sundays plus seven holy days of obligation, minus sick days, plus a few pious years...

Let’s just say I have been to Mass many, many times. Still, I pretty often hear something astonishing, something that makes the top of my head lift off and let in something new. The word or phrase or idea itself is not usually new; but it penetrates in a fresh way. Just what I needed to hear!

Despite some bitter experience with kids at Mass, I cannot help glancing down the pew to see if any of them heard what I heard.

Inevitably, they did not. And they are pretty good kids. But one is fiddling with her split ends, one is studying his buttons and one is staring into space with such a slack jaw, I mentally review the signs of stroke. They are clearly just waiting for Mass to be over so they can get on with their weekend.

What a missed opportunity. It is enough to make a mother despair.

Or almost enough. When I got home from Mass last Sunday, I set up some coffee and waited for it to slowly brew. I cruised through social media and saw a quote that made me laugh: “Everybody's tired. Nobody feels really well. Everybody feels like they’re no good at least some of the time. Now please get up and go to work anyway.”

“Ha,” I thought, “That sounds just like my mother!” And then (and I know this sounds like a pat, made-up story, but it is true) I read the rest of the comment: “I consider these words nearly every day and it helps me get up out of bed and do all the things. Thanks, Simcha.”

Yep, it was not a Facebook friend quoting her wise mother, it was a Facebook friend quoting me. And the words did sound like something my mother would say. Only, when she was saying stuff like this—true stuff, stuff I needed to hear, stuff that would change my life if I would let it into my heart—I sure wasn’t ready to hear them.

There I was, being quoted by someone, saying things I needed to hear myself, this very day, long after I had forgotten I said such a thing.

I obviously did hear them, though, because there I was, telling it to other people. There I was, being quoted by someone, saying things I needed to hear myself, this very day, long after I had forgotten I said such a thing. Oh, life. Oh, memory. Oh, mothers.

My mother does not say anything that makes sense anymore. She was once brilliant (quantum-physics-as-a-hobby brilliant) and startlingly witty, with no time for nonsense. But now she has Alzheimer’s, and all she has is time and nonsense. Now she says things like, “I can use that for a sunapat. Sunapat with a T. I don’t know, I’m falling out of a tree.” Her nonsense often has a desperate, frustrated air, as if she knows people don’t understand her and she needs to try even harder to get her message across.

But I did hear her, when she could speak. I did hear her, when I did not even realize I was listening. I heard her because she said the important things over and over again, muscling past bitter experience of being ignored, and saying what needed to be said.

In Christ, there is everything we need to hear.

I wish I could convey to my mother that her work is done and she can rest and stop worrying. She got out of bed, she did all the things, she said all the things that needed to be said, while we stood there, staring at our buttons, letting our jaws hang slack, waiting for her to finish talking so we could get on with our lives.

I have gotten on with my life, leaving my mother behind. And becoming ever and ever more desperate to hear the words I need to hear, the things I need to know. God knows it will happen to me, too. Two of my children left for college this year, and if all goes well, they will turn to me less and less. Did I tell them all the things they needed to know? Were they listening?

One thing: I brought them to Mass to hear the things they needed to hear. Eighteen years times 52 weeks, plus Holy Days of Obligation, minus sick days...

In Christ, nothing is lost. I know this. In Christ, nothing is forgotten. I know this. Everybody feels like they’re no good at least some of the time. Everybody feels, at some point, like no one is listening. But in Christ, everything good, true and beautiful is worth expressing, even if no one seems to hear. In Christ, there is everything we need to hear. It is our job to say the truth over and over again; and it is our job to ask Christ, over and over again, to hear what we need to hear.

Say it again, Lord. I am trying to listen.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Spanish Legionnaires carry a large image of the crucified Christ in the rain April 18, 2019, outside a church in Málaga, Spain, during a Holy Week ceremony. (CNS photo/Jon Nazca, Reuters)
Spain’s confraternities often make headlines in the foreign press as their Holy Week processions have become a tourist attraction, demonstrating the complex reality of their fame.
Bridget RyderMay 16, 2025
Beyond a simple affirmation of the pope’s authority, the letter by Arturo Sosa, S.J., called attention to its particular place of importance in the life of the Jesuits.
A destroyed St. Matthew Church is seen June 27, 2022, in the village of Daw Ngay Ku, Myanmar, in eastern Kayah state. Myanmar’s military junta was accused of blowing up the Catholic church with landmines and torching it. A more recent church attack blamed on the junta was the burning down of St. Patrick Cathedral in strife-torn northern Kachin state on March 16, 2025, the eve of the revered saint's feast. (OSV News photo/courtesy Amnesty International)
“I’m glad that there are people still coming through,” Zomi leader Francis Kham says, but refugee resettlement “should be extended to everyone that’s really [facing] the same discrimination.”
Kevin ClarkeMay 16, 2025
Tuesday, May 20th at 5:30pm ET: Featuring Sam Sawyer, S.J., James Martin, S.J., Colleen Dulle and Sebastian Gomes.
America StaffMay 16, 2025