The Smallest Gift Becomes the Greatest

I can pinpoint a turning point in my spiritual grown to nearly ten years ago when, on Christmas morning, I reached deep into my stocking for that last small gift that often times has far greater value than any of the large packages. I pulled out a rectangular box with all the hallmarks of jewelry. I smiled knowingly to my wife, and gave the box a little shake. A rattle. Couldn’t be gold or silver. Perhaps it was one of those make-me-laugh gifts like a box full of M&Ms. I eagerly unwrapped.

A rosary.

I looked up at my wife and smiled. They were beautiful, wood beads, silvery links, made in Italy. Maybe we could do it together sometimes, she said. And that was all she said. I thanked her, placed the box on top of some other gifts and went about the day.

When it came time to assimilate the gifts into normal life routines, new shirts on hangers, new pants in drawers, I found I had no real place for the rosary beads. If I simply put them in the jewelry box, my wife might think I didn’t appreciate them. If I put them in one of my desk drawers, they would somehow make their way to the back, and I would find them on a cleaning excavation ages hence.  I finally placed them on a bookshelf next to my desk still in their box.

There they sat.

My wife, walking past me as I sat writing at my desk, asked me if I’d used the rosary beads yet. I told her no, but I was going to.  Did I want to do them together later tonight, she asked me.  Sure, I said nonchalantly like I was accepting a bottle of soda, but inside my stomach coiled. I skillfully avoided the situation by telling my wife I would do the rosary with her after I’d finished grading some papers. The papers took me long into the night, and she was asleep by the time I was done. 

I had always had a fear of the rosary. Perhaps it comes from the image I grew up with.  The only people I’d seen actually doing the rosary were old people who scared me very much.  I never saw my parents doing a rosary. In fact, I never even heard them discuss church much more than "are we going this week or not?".  A rosary was decoration, too cumbersome to be a necklace, but something that looked cool hanging from a rearview mirror.

I received my first rosary beads at my First Communion. We all did.  We were handed a Mass book, a black one for the boys and white for the girls, and in a little plastic pocket with a snap was a rosary. 

The following year in CCD, we were told to bring those books with us. When we misbehaved, the teacher would make us do the rosary.  We kids were a bit…well…rambunctious.  We kids saw CCD like school but not really school, and quickly realized we could be bad (smart-alecky remarks, frequent trips to the lavatory, paper airplanes, spitballs, etc.) without really getting into trouble.  Sure, occasionally the teacher might call our parents, but all we would get is a talking to, but if that had been my school teacher on the line, it’d be no TV for a month. 

Thus began the institution of the punitive rosary. It began with threats.  If we don’t start behaving ourselves, we’ll do a rosary, she would say.  We’d groan and generally straighten up.  After awhile, even the threat didn’t work, and out came the beads.  What was worse, our teacher didn’t start our punitive rosary until there was only about ten minutes left to the class, forcing us to stay late.  When we’d finally been let out, we’d see our parents fuming more than the running cars.  Only then, when our parents were most inconvenienced, came the more serious lectures on behaving ourselves.

While that may have been our teacher’s the master plan – and it did work – my now adult conditioned response to the rosary was dread. So, when I opened my last gift that Christmas morning, my initial response was, as silly as this sounds from a then 40 year old, wondering exactly how I had been bad.  Of course I quickly dismissed the thought, but I believe evading my wife’s invitation to do the rosary with her had its roots in that thought.

But the beads were relentless. Whenever I sat at my desk, there they were.  So, one night, I took a deep breath and asked my wife if she wanted to say the rosary with me.  I was nervous for no rational reason, but the psyche isn’t always rational.  When we were done, I told my wife that I had felt a little self-conscious, and that I was going to try it alone.

The next day, while driving my 25-minute commute to work, I prayed a rosary. It was probably one of the most stress-free commutes I’d had in years.  I’ve been saying the rosary during my morning commute ever since.

That Christmas morning when I reached deep into my stocking for that last small gift, I had found something that had far greater value than any of the larger packages could ever have: a Mother’s love and a child’s devotion.