For the Love of Church

Today is Sunday.  I love Sundays.

Growing up, Sundays were days we didn't have to do chores or be productive.  Sundays were days we all sat together in pretty much the same pew, week after week, learning about the power of prayer. Sundays were days we went out to eat for lunch and had fun afternoon adventures and visited grandparents who usually gave us treats and told great stories.  Sundays were relaxing and they were peaceful and they were...family.

As a young adult, sliding my butt into that familiar pew kept me grounded and brought me that same sense of peace that I remembered from childhood.  It was safety and comfort and rejuvenation as I navigated adulthood and landed where I am today.

And today...as a mom...I try to provide that same feeling for my family.  I want to give my kids that peace, that place to set down the rest of the world and just be family.  Our blended family is a little different in that our big kids are new to this church and this tradition I am trying to build, so I get a little extra joy when I see them participate or ask questions.  It makes me feel like I am being successful in creating this space for them.

So you can imagine how happy I was to see Big Boy paying close attention to church this past Sunday.  Every time I glanced over at him, he was looking around and checking out everything around him.  He watched the altar and eyeballed the stained glass windows and the cross and the baptismal font.  I smiled inside and expected to get some questions after Mass as we mini-vanned our way to lunch.

Here is what I got....

Big Boy raced home after lunch and immediately ran to the computer where he began to start muttering about walls and a roof.  About a half hour later he came to get me to check it out.  As of now, Corpus Christi Parish is officially...Minecrafted.

Yup.

Big Boy spent all that time checking out the dimensions and shape of the church so he could go home and recreate our church in his video game world.  It is located up the hill from his fishing shack, directly next to his giant treehouse.  And it has a giant cross on the outside.  And perfectly proportional windows, walls, and doors.  The inside even has pews and chairs - just like our church- and an altar with a font and candles.  There is even a cry room for all the noisy minecraft babies.  Big Boy is very good at constructing this stuff.  No detail missed.

I am proud of him.  And he may not have had any God related questions this week per se, but construction brought up a very educational conversation about the sacristy and baptismal font.  So my kids will learn about God and faith and peace -  through church and tradition and family...and Minecraft.