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By Suzanne Haugh, Staff Writer
COLLEGE PARK—They called it the multiplication of the
lunches—and it couldn’t have fit more perfectly with the day’s
script.
Organizers of the children’s track at the Corpus Christi
celebration responded quickly to the tremendous number of children that came to
register, estimated to be about 100 more than the pre-registered 430. Children
from pre-K to 4th or 5th grade learned firsthand about Jesus’ miracle of
feeding a crowd, estimated in the thousands, with five loaves and two fish.
“Here we were talking about how Jesus multiplied the loaves
and the fishes and we didn’t even know there were not enough
lunches,” said Mary Lou Gamache, the organizer and a parishioner at St.
Catherine of Siena Church, Kennesaw.
Volunteers broke open plastic containers, halving peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches, chips and a cookie.
“The kids were fine with that and we even had a few lunches
where we divided what was left. Everyone was fed.”
When Gamache looked out over the “sea of kids . . . packed in
like sardines,” she wondered what she had gotten herself into months
earlier when asked to spearhead the track. She credited some of the
track’s success to the main catechist, Cathie Riola, who “was like a
rock.”
Volunteer teachers were assigned to tables of 10 kids so that each
child would feel safe amid the great number of participants. Gamache credited
the volunteers for being flexible and “full of grace.”
“The pressure at registration was intense,” but she felt
assured of the comprehensive program that centered on the life of Christ and
included games, crafts, music and storytelling.
“I told the volunteers beforehand that what they really
needed was to be Christ to the kids—his hands, his feet, his
attitude,” said Gamache, who revealed that some volunteers skipped lunch
so that the children could eat. Volunteers also bypassed the opportunity to
hear acclaimed speakers in order to serve the children.
“Some people never got a lick of anything, but they did it
out of love for Christ. There were no egos, even people in line, maybe there
were one or two oinky ones, but most were patient . . . The volunteers really
had the grace to be Christ to these kids.”
The session started with a gathering activity where children drew,
cut out and glued a self-portrait on the cover of a folder, with the lesson
being that each one of them was special and that they were uniquely created by
God, Gamache said. They followed this up with a cheer: “Our God is
dynamite!”
“To hear 500 children yelling this out would have given you
shivers. The kids were having a good time.”
Because of the large number, Gamache had to scale down the
activities at the last minute. Even so, the day of lessons was impressive,
discussing the Trinity, the reason why Jesus entered human history, Mary,
Jesus’ parables and his presence in the Blessed Sacrament.
Zulma Garcia, 10, Isamar Morales, 11, and Claudia Herrera, 9,
glued cotton balls on a white paper plate as they constructed angels, finishing
with the placement of a guardian angel prayer in the center. They wore T-shirts
that said “Solidarity Mission Village” in Sandy Springs. So far,
their favorite part of the Corpus Christi celebration had been this track
“to learn stuff about God,” said Claudia, who came because “I
believe in God . . . I go to church. I love the church and I love God,
too.”
Zulma and Isamar discussed their thoughts on God, who
“protects our families and us and everybody else,” Isamar professed.
Al Frost and his daughter, Elissa, served as teachers together at
one table. He looked on as Elissa asked questions which kids at the table
quickly answered. Frost was confirmed in the church this past Easter and saw
the day as a way of doing works and “impacting the lives of these
children.”
Frost, who took the name of Augustine at confirmation, said he had
struggled most of his life with the concept of religion, wanting hard facts and
data “to go with the faith thing.”
At 43, he rediscovered in the Mass the concept “something
cannot come out of nothing,” which had intrigued him since learning it in
a college philosophy course years earlier. “‘Perhaps I was being too
stubborn,’” he recalled thinking. “I began to open my eyes and
realize that there was a lot of data out there already.”
Saturday’s event provided an opportunity for his entire
family to minister together. “I watched my son, who is 12, leading a group
of kids. I probably didn’t do something like that until I was in college.
And my daughter, she did a nice job with kids at our table,” he said.
“Every now and then it brings tears to my eyes to think that we can now do
something like that as a family. We’re united in purpose, in faith. To see
the kids there doing something good, before I probably wouldn’t have even
been there.”
Frost’s wife, Debbie, served as one of the track’s
coordinators. “Wonderful,” was how she described working alongside
her husband and children. “There’s a whole new feeling of
family.”
As he handed out “Good News Bingo” cards the children
would color, teacher Don Gizinski said, “This is the fun part—when
they get to eat Skittles.” Besides having to “run back and forth to
the bathroom 50 times,” he said, the lessons ran smoothly. “The kids
are doing it all. I just have to calm them down every now and then.”
Gizinski referred to his participation as “a family
affair,” since his wife and 12-year-old daughter also served as teachers.
He called the entire day an event for the whole family. “Kids are having
fun. Parents are not worried about their kids . . . It’s great to be a
part of something as worthwhile as this.”
Sitting at Gizinski’s table was Jon Truong, 11. He stood
beside his youngest sister, age 5, and pointed to his other sister, age 9, at
another table. Besides being with his sisters and making crafts, his favorite
part was “going to adoration and being with Jesus.”
Volunteers had a chance to “be a fool for Christ,”
Gamache said, during the section on prayer where the children learned that to
sing is to pray twice. Here, they constructed bean tambourines with brightly
colored streamers and paraded through the room singing, “I want to walk,
walk like Jesus.”
The final activity focused on the Blessed Sacrament and how Jesus
is present with us always. “It was all about the Blessed Sacrament in the
host and how Jesus waits for us in every Catholic Church in tabernacles
throughout the world,” Gamache said.
Nathan Anderson, 9, shared his thoughts on receiving the
Eucharist. He remembered “getting pretty scared” before his first
Communion, but said the practices helped. “I’m not scared now. Jesus
won’t get mad if I do something wrong. You really can’t do anything
wrong with him.”
Anderson goes weekly to a children’s hour of adoration at St.
Peter Chanel Church, Roswell, where he is a parishioner. “It’s one
whole hour to be with God and pray. Sometimes I really want to do something
else and I get mad and it’s really tough, but afterwards I realize it was
for the best.”
Prayer is important, he added, because “if you lose touch
(with Jesus) the devil can tempt you.” He described Jesus as
“powerful.” “He can do anything.”
In the activity on the Blessed Sacrament children glued a brown
cross onto a white piece of paper with a gold doily and what looked like a host
on top. When flipped open, the host revealed a sticker of Jesus children had
placed in its center.
By this time, parents began arriving to pick up their children,
Gamache said.
The program took months to prepare, calling on the talents of
local catechists mainly from St. Catherine of Siena.
“These gals had the greatest ideas,” Gamache said.
“It was great for people to work together on something this big. We hardly
knew each other before this and now they’re like my best friends. I feel
like I’ve been living with them for the last few months.”
Throughout the day, Gamache mused, “we were operating on a
much higher plan than I had. There were some disgruntled parents and some
unhappy children, but overall most people were happy with the job we did.”
This was one example of how God’s grace poured forth during a
day “with a ton of obstacles.”
“We were seeing something supernatural,” Gamache said.
“There’s no way a handful of people could have pulled this off.”
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