MCA Members: Living Their Faith “Out Loud!”!

My family is a musical one; as long as I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by song.  When we gather, all it takes is a word or phrase and one or more of us launch into a familiar tune that has everyone joining in, causing my brother-in-law John to lovingly roll his eyes and proclaim, “Everything’s a song with you people!”

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that when I visit a school or parish Religious Education program, as I did recently in Bridgewater, that I would get the students singing!  As one would imagine, some of them are more willing than others to join in the “fun”. 

At St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, there was not a shy one in the bunch! Over the course of my four visits to the parish, I spoke to over 900 children about the missions and how as Catholics, they were called to live their faith “out loud” – letting everyone around them know by their words and deeds that they were followers of Jesus. The song they sang with me was fun, a little silly, but got the message across:

I am a C

I am a C-H

I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N

Cuz I have C-H-R-I-S-T

In my H-E-A-R-T

And I will

L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!

Even saying it is a bit of a tongue twister, especially at the end! The eighth graders learned it first and then had the job of teaching the others this simple but profound song about the basics of our faith, giving them a feel for what it’s like to be a missionary right there in their own parish. I encouraged them to sing the song and live it wherever they went!

Their membership in Missionary Childhood gives them the chance to spread that same message to the children of the world, even though the children at St. Thomas may never get a chance to go to some of the faraway places where missionaries are serving their brothers and sisters in Christ.

It was such a thrill, then for me to get an email from the parish DRE, Deb Hill telling me that she heard that the seventh graders were indeed “singing the song”, literally – in the hallways, before history class, in school; in a public school mind you and at the top of their lungs!

Now, that’s definitely living their faith “out loud”!

-Maureen Crowley Heil