You are under arrest for pride! |
“The very essence of politeness seems to be to take care that by
our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with
themselves.” ~ Jean De La Bruyere
I have been laboring under the assumption that I
was trying to be a better person by helping out our pastor when he was ill or
out of town and couldn’t say Mass by studying how to become a Eucharistic Minister,
sacristan and holding a Communion Service. A Communion Service, for those of
you who either are not Catholic or whose parish is never without an actual
priest, is a type of prayer service held in Church where we read the Holy
Scriptures and then receive Holy Communion, already consecrated Hosts of our
Lord. We do not have the Consecration because only a priest can consecrate the
Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord. This is hardly ever done on
a Sunday when a priest from somewhere will come help fill in for an ill or
out-of-town pastor. It’s usually done during the week when it’s harder to find
a substitute priest. But in order to
bless our day and still receive the Lord, the priest will consecrate extra
Hosts so we can have a Communion Service when he is unavailable for Mass.
If you are wondering
how I’m getting to my Civility lesson of the week, especially the quote above, here
you go. Because we have a parish school
and the school kids come to Mass several times a week, sometimes if Father is
ill we will have a Communion Service with the students present. I am privileged enough to be asked to hold
these services. But lest I ever think I
am rising above my station in life to have this opportunity to serve the Lord,
in other words, to keep my pride from getting too prideful, the Lord loves
inserting a reminder to me every once in a while to keep me in check. Case in point: One of the first graders in
the school is also in my family’s martial arts school and one day after holding
a Communion Service that morning, I walked into our martial arts school and saw
said first grader in class. Very loudly, so no parent that was sitting in the
waiting room could possibly miss what he was saying he announced that he saw me
that morning, at his school, doing Community Service!
Now, in our close
knit neighborhood, if you are performing Community Service somewhere it usually
means that you have been convicted of a crime, not something like murder, but
usually some kind of misdemeanor and instead of jail time, you spend several
hours doing some kind of service in the community, working at a food pantry or
serving meals; hence the name Community Service . So of course every parent in that waiting area
looks at me with a questioning look. Here is their child’s martial arts
instructor, teaching their child how to physically defend him or herself and
she’s in trouble with the law?
And prideful me
turned beet red, laughed nervously and replied, “Oh, you mean Communion
Service, AT CHURCH!” My red face did nothing to help my situation.
My husband and
youngest daughter, who were teaching the class at the time tried hard not to
laugh. I quickly escaped into the office.
But, God doesn’t let
you off so easily sometimes and the next week I saw this same first grader in
class, and he repeated his accusation, only this time right in front of his own
parents and of course several other parents. I tried to laughingly explain he
meant Communion Service, but I have a feeling they were more than just a little
confused since most people haven’t attended a Communion Service if they only go
to Church on Sundays and so aren’t familiar with this type of thing.
So right there,
wham! I had an instantly blow to my pride, which is forever trying to ferret
its way into my heart and make me not very civil. In this lesson I became aware that what God
was trying to tell me was I should quit worrying about what other people think
of me and just keep doing His work. My lesson in civility was in my own pride
always getting in my way. Instead of doing good, I’m forever worrying about
what people think – do I say the right words, do I do the right actions? Why am
I so narcissistic? Ack!!!
Darn old pride!
It’s forever tripping up my civility – pointing out other people’s faults:
their bad driving, their inconsiderate actions, how they say the wrong things
at the wrong times. Could being more
civil mean accepting my own faults as well as other people’s faults? It seems I
miss THAT point constantly. God is civil with us; I mean we’re not struck
by lightening every time we say something awful or unkind, He gives us
beautiful sunny days, gorgeous flowers. He is ALWAYS civil. Never does the wind
blow whispering all of our faults. Do the trees accuse us of wrong doings? God’s
world is pretty much a civil place. Why
can’t I be the same?
Ugg! So here I go
again off during the week working on NOT thinking of myself first…kindly or
otherwise and just trying to concentrate on helping people for the sake of
helping and being polite because it’s just the right thing to do, not so people
don’t talk bad about you!
never thought of how Communion Service and community service sound so similar! =) Thanks for sharing and for linking up at the Catholic Bloggers Network!
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