“The most ordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” (G. K. Chesterton).
It was just another ordinary day in our household the other day…
I woke the children up for school, I organised breakfast and lunches and rushed around with the normal school day routine of finding uniforms, packing lunches, eating breakfast and – wherever possible – rushing off to morning Mass…
There was nothing strange about the scene on our kitchen bench that day…
My husband sat there on the edge of the bench, calmly drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper on his mobile phone. Like many husbands and fathers, my beautiful husband is usually struck with a convenient temporary deaf and blindness on weekday mornings. This means that he becomes incapacitated to do any chasing of this own children and in the mornings I am the only adult in the house chasing after the children while he – calmly and obliviously – enjoys that coffee in peace.
My children wandered aimlessly between their bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and study – half dressed and unfinished – while I called out logical commands like, “Please put on your other shoe.” Or, “Have you brushed your teeth and hair yet?” Or, “If you haven’t fixed your bed yet, you are in big trouble from me.” Or, “Put your homework and your lunchbox in your school bag!”
In other words, it was a very ordinary and very busy weekday school morning, and my family and I were working together – each in our own inefficient way – to ensure that we could all get out the door for school and work that day.
I was thinking about the ordinariness of that family scene today.
G. K. Chesterton – the journalist, author and lay theologian who was born at the end of the nineteenth century – said, “The most ordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
And as I considered the ordinariness of the scene in our family the other morning, I considered those wise words of Chesterton.
You see, my family is so ordinary that is actually reminds me of the extraordinariness of God…
This is because our ONE TRUE God is a FAMILY – He is a relationship…
God is the Most Holy Trinity. This means that our ONE GOD is comprised of THREE Persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And each of those persons of the Holy Trinity are EQUAL and DIVINE.
The Father and the Son are CONSUBSTANTIAL, which is the word we use to describe them in the Creed. Consubstantiality means that the Father and the Son are of the SAME AND EQUAL substance and are perfectly equal.
The Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity – and perhaps the One who I have come to ADORE most profoundly since the moment of my conversion – is the LIVING HOLY SPIRIT. For He is the LOVE between the Father and the Son. And my mind is continuously drawn to consider the PERFECTION of such an unfathomable LOVE that is so PERFECT that is EQUALS the Blessed Beings that express It, and becomes an EQUAL PERSON in the relationship between the Father and the Son…
I know that this mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is one that I shall never truly understand – even with all of eternity – though I believe that I shall be better able to grasp this magnificence when I stand in GOD’S Holy presence.
For now, just observing the ordinariness of my own family I can see a reflection of God...
For my husband and I are parents to our children, who are made of our genetic and behavioural material, which is an imperfect reflection of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son.
And my husband and I love our children and guide and teach and enlighten them in our role as parents, which is an imperfect reflection of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to all those who come to Him.
And so, after I drop my children off at school and as I clean away the breakfast things, I stop for a moment and give thanks…
For I am a daughter of the DIVINE and I am made in His Image. He even gave me a perfectly ordinary family to remind me about it… Every. Single. Day…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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