So today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. A very "heavenly" mystery.
Today's experience at Mass was utterly "human", though. We went to Mass today and it's always interesting going to Mass with 25 - 3 year olds, but today became more so. They were all pretty well behaved, I have to say, but at some point RIGHT before everyone got up to recieve communion, one of my three year olds while kneeling reverently during the concecration, obviously did not want to disturb this sacred moment and instead ...decided to leave a BIG pee pee accident on the floor... right in the FRONT row.
So... knowing how much little children enjoy jumping in puddles, I'm running around after communion trying to find something to mop up the puddle and rearrange the other kids (in a "reverent" way) so no one slips...or jumps in. Thank GOD for good help! My classroom helpers are ever my life savers, always jumping in as needed... no pun intended
Then there's the explaining the whole mystery/feast to 3yr olds. Explaining the Immaculate Conception to adults is tough enough! They understood that it was a special day given to Mary. We basically we talked about how Jesus/God can "walk back" in time and "walk forward" in time, he's essentially not "bound" by time... because he's God. So he decided when he was beginning to make Mary, to take all the "graces" (special gifts from God) that he would win on the cross and bring them "back in time" where he gave them to Mary when she was still in the belly of HER mommy, St. Anne. He gave her these special graces because he knew that when she was born & grew up, he was going to ask her to be Jesus' Mommy. A VERY special thing.
It's funny how kids sometimes "get" what grownups don't. They understand how much Jesus loves Mary & Mary loved Jesus. They don't have trouble with God going back and forth in time and because they're so used to "depending" on grownups for all their needs, it doesn't seem strange to them that God gives gifts to us and takes care of us in the most beautiful ways.
So on the day when we celebrated God's preparing Mary to be his Mother in the womb of St. Anne by keeping her free from all stain of original sin, we also remember how Jesus would desire to become man and enter into our humanity in a real way.
I guess Mary may have smiled at my very "human" scenario as I hurried to mop up the pee pee mess in church right after recieving Jesus. It's like Jesus was inside of me, helping to clean up this mess. And I guess ...It's sort of like meditating on how God came and cleaned up a MUCH bigger mess that we leave with our SIN.
Hmmm... Thank God for that!
So Payton has been talking about the Immaculate Conception all week and this helps explain why! lol. She also told me that Instead of needing to point upward towards Jesus, you can point to your belly, "Because Jesus is in all of us". I asked "Isn't he in our hearts?" She said "NO, MOMMY!! He's in our bellies" and then she had to add that it has to be a "clean belly". LOL! Now it all makes sense!
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