Confirmation Preparation & the Story of the Clay Balls

Terry Mischler preparing St. Mark's students for Confirmation.

Luke along with his 8th grade classmates are preparing for their Confirmation next spring. Do you remember your Confirmation prep? I don't remember much about mine, so it's been good to be a part of Luke's preparation. When we first met a few weeks back, Msgr. Brownsey used a fun analogy to help explain Confirmation. He said we are like a glass of milk and at baptism, the gifts of the Holy Spirit (chocolate!) are poured into us. Well you know how the chocolate and the milk can separate? Confirmation is like a spoon, stirring up the chocolate, reactivating it. so to speak. Reactivating the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Tonight we met again, the 8th graders first, then all of us for a potluck and a session together. Msgr. Brownsey brought some Bradley Newman students with him and three of them gave amazing testimonials about their faith and the important role it plays in their lives. At St. Mark's we are so blessed to be close to Bradley and have the wonderful relationship with the Newman Center.

Next our junior high religion teacher and DRE Mrs. Terry Mischler spoke about the sacraments and how they use simple, basic things, like water and bread and oil. These things both point to something beyond themselves and also contain it. Mrs. Mischler told the story below which beautifully illustrates how appearances are not the most important thing.

A man was exploring caves by the seashore, In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of  hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.

They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.

Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth. 

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them. I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with each of you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.