Every fall, my mom would stop the car in the middle of the street to point out the trees lining McLean Park.
“Look at the colours!” she would swoon.
I would shake my head, “Mom! You say that every time we pass here! I know, they’re red!”
Of course, as an adult, I do the same thing with my kids. The colours of the changing leaves are a part of my childhood that stuck. I was taught through that short but predictable moment to look for beauty.
And now, the leaves are starting to change, and after a very long, hot summer, there is ice in the air. And I am looking for beauty.
Andrew is back for his second year at Thomas Aquinas College in California. He had to work full-time to keep up his portion of the financial aid he’s receiving, so it feels as though we only had him back home for a moment before he left again. But he was with us enough to witness his growing wisdom, humour, and love for truth.
Nicolas has begun his first year studying psychology at Trinity Western University and is enrolled with Catholic Pacific College’s Catholic Formation Track. The college has provided him not only with amazing professors and classes, but regular Mass and fellowship with other Catholic students committed to finding truth.
There have been bonfires, dances, movie nights, on top of all the challenging courses. He comes home exhausted and talking about different concepts and subjects he either loves or finds problematic. (CPC is one of only two Catholic colleges in Canada in the Newman Guide, meaning they commit to upholding Catholic teaching.)
Elijah is in Grade 11. In classical education we would say he is in the rhetoric stage. If he has been led well, his mind and imagination (not the dreamy imagination we have come to think of, but the power of the mind to hold and order images and ideas) will have been formed to reason and articulate things clearly. I see in him a desire to sort through and sift the issues of our times and to clearly speak out what he discovers. There is a powerful force of truth-seeking in his soul.
Madalen has started Grade 9 and loves it so far. This is the “end” of the analytic stage of learning. She will be encouraged to find logic, or the lack of it, in certain arguments. She will be encouraged to use reason to form and write intellectual arguments. I’ve witnessed this in her recent essay on the reliability of the Scriptures.
Isaac is in Grade 7 and looking forward to his confirmation. He says Pius X will be his patron. We read about him a year or more ago and it obviously left an impression. (In fact his younger brother Thomas says he will take Pius as well.) This grade is also a part of the analytic stage. This is a time for important and complex conversations. (There has been no lack of subjects these past few years.) Isaac will read and memorize Shakespeare. Henry V has been a favourite of each of my kids.
And Thomas, my wee little baby, is in Grade 4. I remember Grade 4 most clearly of all my elementary grades. I had a teacher I loved, and a boy told me he liked me. This grade level is called grammatical, and despite my superficial personal experience, the focus is on observation and memorization (something this age group is particularly skilled at). Thomas will observe the natural world around him, the changes, the colours, the feathers, and discuss and memorize poetry and Church teachings. He will continue doing copy work as he learns to master spelling and basic grammar.
Despite the heady labels for the stages of learning, much of our days are made up with laughter, games, ice cream and music.
So, the leaves are changing. And so are my children. My vocation in life has been the attempt to form them into something just as beautiful. I have to ask myself every year if I have wisely invested the “talents” left to me by the Master. Will I have doubled the portion left in my care, or smothered them, “hidden in the ground”?
My own weaknesses, my sinful pride and selfishness, are constantly before me. If children seek truth, goodness, and beauty, and cling to them with all their power, it is a gift of God’s grace, his honouring of a mother and father’s love, their deep desire for the full formation and salvation of their children, and the hope that they will serve him as their only master.
Their intellectual abilities will each vary, but beauty, truth, and goodness are always found when sought, regardless of curriculum. If they seek beauty, it will be because they have been witness not only to it, but to its contradiction, in daily life at home and in the world and still been able to willfully use their hearts and minds to choose which they will serve.
The formation of our children’s minds, hearts, and souls is grave matter. I pray that we Catholic parents take up this duty and fill our homes with joy, wisdom, laughter, warmth, debates, prayer, readings, and mostly, confidence in God’s love for us.