As Catechists and members of Giao Ly, you are so important. You are the hands and voices that can directly help children, students, and young adults learn about the unique relationship with their mother, and the unique relationship with their father.
My dear Giao Ly catechists and friends,
Among the great things we can teach our students, as Catechists, is about the love a child receives from a mother and father, and how this love and these relationships are unique.
That’s why I’m saddened to read the news that a school decided to turn away from Mother’s Day celebrations, in their spirit of inclusivity. Just two years ago, there were headlines about how cancelling Mother’s Day and Father’s day was crazy talk, and that banning Mother’s Day is just fear mongering. Well, that reality is here now, with a public school this week announcing to not celebrate mother’s day, and the online news and social media applauding the decision (search “school cancel’s mother’s day“). I sense that other schools will follow.
I’m discovering that as I learn more of the world, I realize society isn’t going to be the place where these values and special relationships are defended & taught. Instead, Giao Ly and our Church will have to be the home where our morals and values form and take shape, because there is little lasting wisdom to be found without God. In a society that treats everything relative to each other (what’s good is good for me, what’s good for you is good for you, it’s fine as long as it doesn’t affect me), means that we’re building our values on a foundation of sand. What is wise and true today could quickly become unwise or offensive tomorrow, depending on how people “feel.”
As Catechists and members of Giao Ly, you are so important. You are the hands and voices that can directly help children, students, and young adults learn about the unique relationship with their mother, and the unique relationship with their father. These two relationships, together, offer a more full view of the love Christ has for us.
Jesus, too, has a very special and unique relationship with Mother Mary. Jesus also has a special a relationship with God the Father. God’s love is manifested first to us in our own family relationships, and that is important to preserve.
I do not want to intentionally make a child feel inferior if they grew up without parents, in a single parent family, or in a same-sex family. That’s not what our Catholic faith teaches us. What I will do, though, is celebrate and remind students that these relationships are unique, that they exist, and that our hearts yearn for it.
That way, when a child feels in their heart that something is missing, they can put their finger on it and figure out why, and seek the right solution to their longing.
May the Holy Spirit guide and support you in your classes and faith journey, and thank you for being a part of Giao Ly.
Minh Quan
UPDATE: I know that for the school I highlighted in the post, they cancelled their celebration for reasons specific to the kids in the class. The responses to the article on social media are what really motivated me to think about our role as Catechists. That is what I wish to highlight.
