Spiritual Formation of the Family Seminar - 2023
“We know by faith that Christ is in our own family. It is He whom we foster in our children; When you tell your child a story, when you play a game with your little son, you tell a story, you plan a game with the Christ Child.”
Welcome & Introduction – Fr. Michael, Charles Sperry & Lindsay Powers
The Nature of Children, Godly Play, and Corporate Worship – Julie Smith
Spirituality of the Family: Meditation on "Hidden Life in Nazareth Icon” – Lindsay Powers
Story – Kathryn Lalli
Family Life – Lillian Panella
Prayer – Joey Panella
Beauty – Charles Sperry
Imagination and Moral Formation – Sharon Mugg
A Lullaby for the Child of Israel’s Exile
“Be still, my little one;
I hear you tossing in the dark.
Your restless dreaming tells
Of sorrows churning in your heart.
Sorrows much too heavy for
A little one to claim.
The burdens of all Israel
Borne upon one child’s frame.
But child of Israel’s exile,
Even far from home you’re known.
The God of Heaven knows your name,
And by your name he calls you home.
Fear not the troubled way ahead.
Fear not the shadows deep.
The road is long, but homeward bound,
So little one, don’t weep.
We’ll find again our quiet town.
We’ll know that kindly gloam,
When lamplight dances in the street,
And laughter sings us home.
Once more we’ll harvest laden vines,
And sheaves of golden grain,
Till amber glows across the sky
And calls us home again.
Tears no more shall be our food.
To feasting we will come.
Golden loaves and crimson wine
Declaring we are home.
Israel’s God has promised
And his promises are sure.
The love with which he calls us
Is a love that will endure.
So do not fear the way ahead.
Fear not the shadows deep.
The road is long, but homeward bound,
So little one, don’t weep.
Sweet child of Israel’s exile,
Even far from home you’re known.
The God of Heaven knows your name,
And by your name he calls you home.”
Conclusions & sharing of resources – Lindsay Powers
Poems
The Bright Field by R.S. Thomas
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
From The Sermon on the Mount by Caryll Houselander
I understood,
When He began to teach,
Why first
He had given light to blind eyes;
And to deaf ears,
The music of water and wind;
And to hands and feet that were numb,
The touch of the delicate grass and the sun;
And speech to the dumb.
For He spoke of the things
Men see and taste and hold:
Of salt and rock and light
And the wheat in gold;
Of winds and wings and flowers
And the fruit on boughs;
Of candle-light in the house
They heard His voice,
Like the voice of a murmurous sea
A long way off, washing the shores of peace:
But each knew within him
A soundless music,
A voiceless singing,
Saying
“Feel the pulse of My love
With your finger-tips Prove My tenderness
in the tiny beat
of the heart of the mother bird;
lay your hand
on the hard bark of the tree–
know me
in the rising sap
of the green life in the dark.
“I have strewn the flowers
under your feet:
see if I love you:
see if My love is sweet!”