Sheila Sims Iding
It started 6 years ago. It wasn’t even an assured start. It was a wobbly start. It was a request almost not made because I was worried he might be too busy. But the thought and the hope of it had been on my wish list for years. It was a simple thing but I wasn’t sure it could really happen.
When you are a teacher aide for 16 years hoping against hope to have your own classroom someday, you make a list in your head (and in your heart) and it is a list of the things you hope to do with your own class. One of the things I hoped to do was to give all my students a cross to wear to mass. The desire to do this was two-fold.
1) When I was in the youth choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (yes…I’m a convert), I loved putting on my choir robe every Sunday morning. It was a deep purple with a deep purple velvet “beanie”. (Yes, we had to have our heads covered in church too…just like you Catholics.) The robe was beautiful but my favorite part was that we got to wear a cross with it. Part of the “uniform” was that big, beautiful gold cross that completed the choir robe ensemble. It made me aware that I was going to honor God in a special way.
2) I wanted my students’ visits to church for mass, adoration, stations of the cross or just to pray to have special meaning. I wanted our visits to be set apart from our visits to other classrooms and places around St. Gerard. I wanted something visual and kinesthetic to say “I am going to a special place. I am going to honor God in a special way.”
So when I finally, (FINALLY) got my own classroom, the mass crosses became a reality. Just wooden crosses with beads that they learn are the liturgical colors. I put them together each summer and carefully write their names on that tiny wooden cross bar to make it a “just for you” cross. That very first year I made a special display so they could hang by our doorway under a special poster that says “Child of God”. By being on display they are always in use. Either on the wall as a reminder of our strongest purpose at St. Gerard School or they are on a Care Corner Kid going to church to honor God in a special way.
The mass crosses were always going to be if I had a classroom. The part that I wasn’t sure of was asking Fr. John to come and bless them. That first year I already had grown-ups and teachers telling me not to let first graders wear those crosses to church. They will play with them, twirl them, move the beads up and down on the string and they will be distracted from mass. Some people thought I was crazy to have the expectation that they would just leave them alone for a whole mass and, further, that they would respect them as a holy item if blessed by a priest.
Fortunately, I didn’t listen because even though I wasn’t full of “sure”, I was full of “hope” that first graders could meet this expectation if it was presented in just the right way. If it was “taught” in just the right way. And so it is, every year in Care Corner, the brand new Care Corner Kids get presented with their sacred mass cross. We try them on the day before Fr. John comes to bless them and we play with them. That is right. We PLAY with them. We twirl them, we run the cross back and forth on the string, we slide the beads up and down and we play with them and then we are done. Then we have the special religion lesson about the meaning of the cross, the power of blessed items and the respect of caring for them. Then we hang them back on their special display and wait for the next morning when Fr. John visits Care Corner to bless them.
Today was the “next morning” Today was Blessing of the Mass Crosses day. Today was the day that, 6 years later, still steals my heart. We put our mass crosses on during our morning prayer and when Fr. John comes with the Holy Water, we stand in our prayer circle and he tells us how special the crosses are, he tells us that Jesus loved us enough to die on a cross and he prays with us. Then before the blessing a Care Corner kid presents Fr. John with his own cross and as we stand in the circle, the Care Corner Kids hold the cross in their little faith-filled hands and Fr. John goes around the circle and blesses each child and cross individually. That is the part that steals my heart. At that moment that simple wooden cross with the cheap plastic beads becomes a holy item around the neck of a holy child of God.
It’s a moment some of them won’t forget. Some of the former Care Corner Kids still wear their mass cross to church. Some of them wear them when they have a special part in a school mass. Some of them just hang them in their bedroom where they pray.
It was Fr. John who first said it last year when I asked him to come bless the crosses again. He said it has become a “special annual tradition”. It seemed like just a simple request six years ago to ask Fr. John to come bless the crosses. I almost didn’t ask it. I almost thought he’d be too busy. I almost thought first graders couldn’t respect a blessed item. Thank God I didn’t listen to the nay-sayers. Thank God I decided to raise the expectation bar (and every year they meet it.) Thank God I decided to interrupt Fr. John’s busy-ness. Thank God for today’s memory of these Care Corner Kids so lovingly and gently holding that cross in their little hands and being blessed. Thank God for the blessing of this Blessing of the Mass Crosses Day. Thank God. Truly…thank God.