Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...

The more I take the time to ponder, the more I realize that we are a people who talk a lot and do very little.

Now that may come as a shock to those who are so busy they scarcely sit still, or to those who don’t spend much time talking. But that’s not what I mean. In everything we engage in, be it a conversation or a business meeting or a class or a book club…we talk through, around and over everything. This blog is no exception. I gab on for pages at a time.

What’s wrong with that? I hear you saying. Yes, God gave us voices and he gave us language, and it is only natural to use it to share our experiences of this world.

But if the old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is true, how much more is an example worth?

For centuries, millennia even, the method of passing knowledge down from generation to generation was through apprenticeship. One learnt by doing, not by talking about it. Those whose profession it is to talk all day have often been viewed with at least some degree of distrust, from the sophists to the lawyers and politicians. In contrast, many who have taken holy orders also take a vow of silence…

Why? If verbal communication is indeed of paramount importance, why is it that so much more information is conveyed without words?

Those of you who homeschool your children, think to yourselves: how often do you find yourself lecturing to your children? How often do we talk when we could convey the message more succinctly by simply providing a concrete example? And how much more powerful is the example when the child himself actually performs the action?

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

This quote is attributed to Confucius—and how true it is. Yet in no subject is this more true than in the conveyance of our faith. How many a child has been bored to death in a catechism class?

But these things are important, you say! How are we supposed to teach these things without using words?

Aha! This is the essential question. How can we convey our faith without words? Surely we cannot convey the richness and depth of that faith with no words at all, yet an overabundance of them only serves to choke off that spark of spontaneity that is characteristic of the Spirit.

God designed our children to learn from the world around them. They learn like sponges, whether we want them to or not (and often it is those things we prefer they not learn that they learn best…because they learn it on their own, without interference from us!). But they also are much closer than we to the Kingdom, for so Christ himself told us. Their ability to love and trust Him unquestioningly surpasses our own, though we may understand the whys and wherefores much better. Simple sincerity of heart is worth as much, if not more, than lofty and learned erudition. Isn’t this borne out by surveying the choices that God makes in carrying out His will?

Therefore those spiritual truths that we deem most pressing are those that we must teach them by example. We cannot teach our children patience while we hurry them along and tick the time off with our feet. We cannot teach them to serve others by waiting on them hand and foot. Most of all, we cannot teach them peace or joy or love if we are tormented, discontent and isolated. When we are at peace, when we are cheerful and gentle, and when we spend our time serving God and our fellow man with compassion and humility, those virtues will spring up in our homes and fill our children’s hearts. The gaps in knowledge will fill themselves through access to well-chosen books, through time and maturity, and of course, through the voice of the Spirit Himself speaking in their hearts. We must become like little children ourselves and trust in the ways that our Lord leads each one of us. In doing so, we truly become instruments of His peace.

I don’t know about you, but this is no mean task for me. I sometimes feel as if I am constantly frustrated, solemn and cross. But I am determined to emerge from this overtight cocoon of self-centeredness and rigidity and to be transformed into that which I wish my children to be.

And I plan to do that by shutting up and just doing it.

…And as always, by praying unceasingly.

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