Begin the Day with Love
How to keep your children wrapped in God’s Protection
Gospel of Matthew
He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
We love our kids so much! It is hard to imagine loving anything more. They bring so much joy to our lives and they inspire us to mature, to stay positive, to achieve, to find patience and good judgement, to build a secure home and develop wisdom. The list of ways we strive to be better for our children is endless. They are so dependent on us for everything and the pressure to take care of them can feel like more than we can handle. It is a lot of responsibility. Love is HUGE. It is the virtue that makes us the most like our loving God. To love the way Jesus loves should be the goal of parenting.
“God loves each of us as if there is only one of us.” St. Augustine
As a theological virtue, love is a habitual and firm disposition to seek to become like the Lord in concrete situations, loving God and our neighbor, and giving us the spiritual freedom of the children of God (CCC 1803, 1822, 1828). Fur-ther, one of the words for “love” in Latin is “caritas,” from which the word “charity” is derived, and so to love is also the self-sacrifice of giving yourself freely, willing and seeking the good of another (CCC 1766).
This week at school, we have been praying the Act of Love at morning prayer. It is one of the prayers each of us should memorize. To act in love, to live in love, and to receive love is EVERYTHING. This is how the children can bring God with them as they learn, laugh, feel and work together. We take the time in the morning to shut our eyes and block the out-side world. Through meditation, the students are learning to be very calm and find a peaceful place with God where they can feel unconditionally loved.
Students practice hugging themselves, or putting their hands on their stomach, heart or brain, as a way to be calm and then use this calm to hear God’s voice, reassuring them of his love. By taking the time to start the day in prayerful med-itation, we can be guided by our desire to be connected to the divine.
God Bless,
Anne Atkin, Principal
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