Swallow Your Saliva

I grew up with a mom who always told me to “offer it up” whenever I complained about something that went wrong. Sometimes she would more specifically detail to me how to “offer it up.”

For example, if we were in the car and I said I was thirsty – in hopes she would stop to buy me a Slurpee – she would matter-of-factly reply with, “Swallow your saliva.” I heard that phrase a lot growing up, and my own kids in turn heard me use it with them a generation later when they whined from the backseat of our car hoping I would stop and buy them Big Gulps.  

What my mom was trying to teach me – and I in a similar fashion tried to teach my children – was that we need to take advantage of daily sufferings and crosses that God sends to us. It is through this process of offering our sufferings that we can help both ourselves and others through our prayers and hardships. We need to generously offer up our little pains in life – from being thirsty to spraining an ankle, and from suffering due to getting fired from a job or getting rejected in a relationship. When we do this, and if we join our hurts with the foremost pain or Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, then we can know the result will be God the Father bringing about some good somewhere else, to someone else, for something else. 

How Do You Teach Your Children to Offer It Up?

It is difficult to get children to understand how their suffering can bring about a greater good, especially when they are in the middle of their trauma in pain or in despair. Using age-appropriate language, parents need to help their kids understand that by not only accepting the suffering but actually welcoming it, we are uniting that suffering back to the suffering Jesus had at His Passion. Like Him, we can then begin to realize that we must get through Good Friday in order to celebrate our Easter morning. 

It may help to explain redemptive suffering to kids by defining it as the suffering that Christ first allows us to acceptingly experience and then offer back to Him as a way to be in union with his suffering on the cross. When we do this, we humble ourselves and feel a deeper connection with Our Lord. It was Christ’s act of redemptive suffering that destroyed death and the eternal effects of sin. By offering our suffering in unity with Him, we are a part of Christ’s work of salvation.

You want our children to understand we should not be suckers for punishment or seek it out like masochists. But when suffering hits us, if we lovingly and faithfully offer it to God, He will use it in a mysterious way for the redemption of the world through the power of our love. When suffering and “offering it up,” we need to recognize that it is God our Father giving us an opportunity to become like Jesus His Son. 

Our all-loving God desires we spend eternity with Him in Paradise, and so we are to look at the daily misfortunes we face as a test of our faith. When adversity hits us, we can choose to either reject God and His love or turn toward Him. If we continue to place our faith and trust in God we can strengthen our relationship in the long run, even though in the initial times of suffering we may not be able to recognize the importance of offering up our misfortunes. 

Take Up Your Cross

Jesus tells us, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”(Luke 9:23). We are taught to accept the cross(es) exclusively given to us because it is in this suffering that we will be led at the end of our earthly time to meet Jesus in all His glory. Help your youngsters keep an eternal perspective, realizing that our time of earth is but a minuscule blip in time, and earthly suffering is nothing when compared to the everlasting joy we hope to attain in heaven. The Catechism tells us:

“Christ calls His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him, for Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example so that we should follow in His steps. …Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”

The cross is central to our religion. Our fundamental symbol is Christ crucified on a cross. We are present at the cross when we are present at Mass. Something that many Catholics have been erroneously taught for the past 50 years or so due to faulty interpretations of Vatican II by progressive priests is that the Mass is primarily a symbolic, communal, fellowship meal and a reenactment of the Last Supper. No, the Mass is in fact primarily a sacrifice.

When the priest speaks the words of consecration at Mass, he is not addressing the congregation – he is directing them to the Heavenly Father. The priest is speaking in the person of Christ and indicating that this act of our worship, as members of the Body of Christ, is united to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. 

When breaking this down for children, they should be taught that the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends. What never ends is the offering of Christ as a suffering victim to the Father for our sake, and the invitation for us to offer our sufferings as well. The one, perfect sacrifice in 33 A.D. was a bloody one. But at every Mass since the original Good Friday we are re-presenting this sacrifice as an unbloody act. We are to join our personal sufferings during the Offertory as we ask the Son to take our sufferings with His and offer it up to the Father. 

The Mass Can Teach Us About Suffering and Sacrificing

To both help their kids stay alert during Mass and teach them about how the Mass is a sacrifice, parents can note a few occasions when their youngsters should be intently listening for key words. To start out, listen during the Preparation of the Gifts when the priest says to the congregation, “Pray, brother and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.” This reminds us of the different things offered in every Mass – the priest presenting to the Father once more the sacrifice of the Son on the Cross and we, the people, offering ourselves in union with this.

Another key time to listen attentively is during the Eucharistic Prayer (especially Prayer I, AKA “the Canon”). Kids – and adults – should anticipate hearing the words of sacrifice, “This is My body . . . this is My blood . . . given up for you.” Our worship is offered to God by Jesus as it was at the moment of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. However, now it is offered through the priest acting in the person of Christ, and it is offered as well by all of the baptized, who are part of Christ’s Body, the Church.

Parents could challenge their sons and daughters before Mass that if after Mass anyone can state the correct number of times they heard the words “sacrifice” and “victim,” that child gets rewarded with double donuts at their favorite bakery after Mass.

(Parents’ Answer Key: the script of the Canon uses the word “sacrifice” four times and “victim” four times. By the way, it also includes the word(s) “offer/offering” a whopping nine times!)

Our Lord Understands and Will Help You When You Suffer

Kids these days who are complaining about troubles and burdens not only need to be told to “offer it up” like in past generations, but they need to be taught how the words suffering and sacrifice are related. Perhaps the frequency of children squirming during Mass will be cut down if the youngsters more fully understand what is going on. At Mass, the risen God the Son becomes present on the altar and offers himself to God the Father as a living sacrifice who suffered by being crucified on the cross.

No matter what our cross in life is, if we can consider it a gift from God as He desires to strengthen us for some greater purpose, we will discover that our greatest struggles in life actually turn out to be our greatest blessings. Realize our Lord will not allow you to go through something you cannot handle. Reflect on St. Paul’s words:

“In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13).

Our Lord is more concerned that we develop fortitude, tolerance, and perseverance than He is concerned that we feel comfortable. So the next time you or your children feel like complaining about a sprained ankle, a broken relationship, or an unquenchable thirst, swallow your saliva.