Thread by @jdflynn

We often feel self-conscious at Mass. We’re like a circus act. Three kids, two of them with Down syndrome, singing loudly off key, intoning the priest’s parts, talking about Elmo, throwing things, farting, bickering, occasionally bolting for the sanctuary.

(Cont)

We sometimes worry that we’re just a bit too much, and we’re distracting others from the worship of God. At the same time, we’re there to worship God ourselves, so what could we do?

(Cont)

Today we went to Mass at a parish where we haven’t been for almost a year. A lady came up to us after Mass. She said that last spring, she’d learned that her unborn baby had Down syndrome. She was scared. What to expect? She didn’t know if she could handle it.
(Cont)

The Sunday after the prenatal diagnosis, she saw us at Mass. She’d never really noticed us before. But she said that seeing us have her the confidence, and a sense that the Lord would make everything ok.

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We couldn’t even really believe it. We feel like a spectacle, and wholly inadequate, and then we were a spectacle, in just a way that Providence intended.

(Cont)

Her son was born, he has Ds, he’s a great little guy.

We felt so humbled that she told us the story.

it turns out you’re the only one who thinks your family looks like a mess. And God is using the messes of our families to love other people, even when we don’t know it

(This is also a decent reason why parishes shouldn’t encourage parents to send their kids to the cry room or to children’s programming.)

*gave