Practicing Resurrection: Parenting Through Easter and Beyond: An Easter Bible Study with the Rev. Dr. Libby Catania
Episode 161, Published 04/24/2025.
You can listen to the episode here and read a transcript of this episode below.
📖 Gain confidence with the scriptures through our weekly Bible Study. The Rev. Dr. Libby Catania returns to help families explore what resurrection means in the midst of everyday chaos. Reflecting on the beauty and complexity of Easter, Libby reminds us that resurrection doesn’t arrive in perfection but in the messy, sacred middle of life—where God meets us. Together with hosts Natalie and James, she discusses how children often intuitively understand the joy of resurrection through their whole-bodied expressions of delight, and how parents can nurture that instinct with language, practices, and presence.
This episode guides families through the lectionary readings for Easter week and opens up honest conversation about Jesus as a friend, the power of love over violence, and how to support children navigating a world filled with complexity. Libby offers both spiritual encouragement and practical advice for forming young hearts—inviting us to normalize talking to Jesus in daily life and helping kids hold both joy and grief in their spiritual imagination. This episode is a companion for any parent hoping to raise children who know, love, and follow Jesus—even in uncertain times.
The Rev. Dr. Libby Catania is a friend, mentor, and example of how to live our one’s vocation in a whole-hearted authentic way. She is the co-founder of Limina Renewal Center, a Spiritual Companion, and priest who is canonically resident in Diocese of Maine.
Libby Catania is a mother of human, furry and plant beings, grandmother, wife and friend. She and her husband Bill are blessed to be co-stewards of Limina Renewal Center on the coast of Maine. Prior to founding Limina, Libby was a full-time priest in the diocese of Massachusetts and prior to that the diocese of Virginia. She has taught ethics and preaching classes at the graduate level, but most enjoys wondering and dreaming with children and teens. When not roaming the tidal flats, LIbby loves to run, knit, read, garden, and cook - especially with family and friends. We highly recommend checking out Liminia if you’re looking for a retreat that will be balm to your soul and food for the journey!
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Key moments in our conversation include:
00:00 – Welcome and Easter greetings from Natalie, James, and Libby
02:11 – Resurrection in the messy middle: Easter hope in a chaotic world
03:45 – How families can reconnect the Easter story with cultural celebrations
05:36 – Children’s intuitive grasp of resurrection and experiencing joy in their bodies
08:12 – Mary Magdalene’s garden moment and childlike wonder in Scripture
11:42 – Modeling friendship with Jesus through everyday conversation
15:49 – Addressing children’s exposure to violence and modeling love in response
21:43 – Wrestling with John 14:6 and the claim that “Jesus is the way”
Further Resources from this Discussion
Poem Referenced: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry — especially the closing line, “Practice resurrection.” A great piece for parents to reflect on during the Easter season
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00:00:00 Natalie Thomas
Welcome to Bedtime Chapel's weekly scripture study. I'm Natalie.
00:00:03 James Thomas
And I'm James. We are deacons in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
00:00:07 Natalie Thomas
And Bedtime Chapel grew out of a shared desire of ours to support families that want to know, love, and follow Jesus in a post Christian world.
00:00:16 James Thomas
We offer a nightly prayer service with a short gospel reading and a weekly scripture study. We are back for our third week, Easter week, with the Reverend Dr. Libby Catania. And, Libby, we're so glad to have you back. And first, let us say Happy Easter.
00:00:34 Libby Catania
Happy Easter to you both.
00:00:35 James Thomas
Yeah, yeah. It's great to be with you. And here we are. Bedtime Chapel kicked off in Advent, the first Sunday of Advent, and it is now Easter Sunday. And here we are. And we're so glad to have you with us.
00:00:49 Libby Catania
Yeah.
00:00:50 Natalie Thomas
It's hard to imagine, you know, this is four or five months of putting out this podcast into the world. And we know that we've had over 3,000, at least, probably at this time, 4,000 downloads and of people who are listening to us. And we just want to say, before we even get started with the conversation, how grateful we are to be part of this community.
00:01:11 James Thomas
Yeah. And to all of you out there, the happiest, happiest of Easter Sunday, Jesus is risen.
00:01:18 Natalie Thomas
Yes. And what does that mean for us? You know, we want to take a moment of pause just to ground us in the moment of where we are in the church calendar and thinking about resurrection. And for me, in this moment of both being a caregiver and a parent and a human in a world that is admittedly very chaotic.
So what does it mean to celebrate Easter or to celebrate resurrection in a time of chaos? And for me, what I'm holding onto in this Holy Week and this year is the promise that in the midst, you know, we know that when Jesus rose, the world didn't magically become perfect. You know, it didn't go to some ideal state that resurrection happened in the middle of the world as humanity has been and always will be in its blessed, imperfect, beautiful mess.
And so I am grateful for this Holy Easter amidst all of the Holy Easters as a reminder that Jesus the risen Christ is here with us and around us and is available for us to turn to, both in this moment of. In kind of a geopolitical moment, but also in the everyday moments of miniature chaos and upheaval that will definitely appear if you're raising young humans.
So, yes, just, you know, celebrating the presence of. And I have some notes from Libby here that I'm gonna riff off of a little bit that maybe resurrection does look pretty yucky sometimes. You know, maybe it's not perfect, but it is present with us. And for that, on this Easter Sunday, we say thank God and Happy Easter, and Libby, over to you to share any thoughts you have about Easter.
And then. Yeah, and then we can get into the readings for this week.
00:03:18 Libby Catania
Well, I think, you know, culturally, Easter is such a big deal that families are trying to hold next door to each other, hold at the same time the chocolate bunnies and the Easter grass and the egg hunts and the community meals or the family meals, depending on where folks live. And in many contexts, those have become disconnected from the story of the resurrection.
So it's such an awesome opportunity for families to help children recognize, like Christmas, that there is this incredibly special and powerful life changing story that's available to us all on this incredibly special day. And, you know, for me, there's a beautiful poem by Wendell Berry called the Mad Farmer Liberation Front that he actually wrote in the early 1970s, which, as we all know, was another time in our society when there was a lot of political upheaval and cultural turmoil following the Vietnam War and of course, Watergate and the Nixon administration.
So I love thinking about resurrection in the context of the cycles of life, because at the very end of this poem, he, his last sentence is two words. Practice resurrection. There are a lot of people who will say, well, you know, as humans, we can't have any part of resurrection that's the work of Jesus.
That is, you know, only something that God could accomplish in the specific incarnation of Jesus as the Son of God in the world. But from my perspective, as Jesus blesses us all, sends the Spirit to strengthen and inspire and comfort and motivate us. And as Jesus called us his friends and calls us to follow him, I think that we are given the explicit command to practice resurrection, especially in these times that are so overwhelming to all of us, children and adults alike.
When talking with children about Easter and what the story of the resurrection can mean, of course there are all sorts of ranges of questions that can come up. I find that the younger the children are, the more intuitively they grasp the power of the story. Because at least in my understanding of child development, until they're 7, 8, 9, their cognitive powers are not the primary way that they are engaging the world.
Their hearts, their energetic bodies, their senses are so much more open and receptive. And somehow the concept of resurrection, of things that were once dead coming back to life, have a more intuitive, knowing quality in the younger children. I don't know how have you guys experienced that with Phoebe at all? That she sort of gets things in ways that maybe our adult brains want to try to understand too much.
00:06:43 Natalie Thomas
Well, what I was actually thinking of when you were talking was the pictures I get from her at school when she's running around the playground in pure delight. You know, just full on smile, mouth open. And often cognitively I'll think, well, I wonder why she enjoys that so much. And I don't think there is perhaps, perhaps an answer to that.
I think that she is just overwhelmed by joy, you know, and I, I noticed that in Stephen too, sometimes that his whole body is just overcome by joy. And so, yes, that may be a roundabout answer, but if I really pay attention to them, I find that they are not what I often do, which can get me very stuck to try to think and reason my feelings.
They're just letting themselves be completely overtaken by them for the good and the bad, honestly. Right, but for the good and the easy, maybe is the right way of saying that the good, the easy and the not so easy feelings of being completely overtaken by them in their bodies.
00:07:46 Libby Catania
I love that so much because I think that's the experience that in John's gospel we see Mary Magdalene having when she encounters Jesus in the garden. You know, her head is saying, you know, where is he? Somebody's stolen his body. I don't understand how the rocket, I mean, like her, her mind is so active that even while she's having a conversation with a person, she feels is the gardener.
It's not until he calls her name and she has that, I mean, you can almost see in your mind or feel in your body that visceral sort of intake of breath. Oh my heavens, Raboni. I mean, just that I love that image of Phoebe running around that like pure shock and joy and wonder and awe.
And how can this be? That was not an intellectual conversion that happened for her. That was Jesus speaking, literally speaking straight to her heart. And for me, that's the power of the Easter story is to find a way. And especially, you know, when children hit that like 7 to 18 time frame and even, you know, a little bit later, their, their brains are so beautiful and are expanding constantly and they want to understand and they're in cause and effect thinking and we need to be able to prove everything.
And all of that is extremely age appropriate. And it can get in the way of experiencing that, you know, sheer delight of running around the playground or, you know, frequently when I would have conversations with Adults who say to me, I need proof. I need some scientific proof that the resurrection happened before.
I would be willing to believe in something that seems that outlandish. And my sort of pat response became, well, prove to me that you love your partner. Oh, well, I do this, I do that. Nope, nope, nope. Those are actions. I want you to take a picture of the love. Bring me the love X ray, the love.
Like. Like, I want evidence of love. And you can. It's a quality. It's an experience, and it's. It's an exchange. It's a flow of energy. But you. There is like, if. If we could bottle love, it would have happened millennia ago. And so helping children to realize that there are some things that are profoundly and deeply true that we cannot prove.
And they. I mean, you know, with. With my teenage son, you know, he absolutely adores Taylor Swift and her music, and you can see that him. It moves him so deeply. I would never say to him, prove to me why that moves you so deeply. But I can point to it and say, you know, see, buddy, there.
There are some things that happen when we hear things or we feel things that we know are resonating deep in the bones of our being and in our hearts that we, you know, we don't really have a way to describe. So I, you know, I don't mean to say that it's not important to answer questions that children will have about, like, well, how did it happen?
And what about this? And did he still have his wounds? Because of course, those are their questions, and we need to meet them where they are. But if we can also help them experience just the pure delight and the power of Jesus loving his friends so much that he came back and spent another 50 days with them, then that, to me, is the power of the Easter story.
00:11:42 James Thomas
Yeah, thank you so much for that. And I'm wondering what you think about. In John 16, we really sort of centers that the friendship of Jesus and disciples and the people among whom he lived. What does that mean in our context? How can we bring that the deep, deep friendship of Jesus and the disciples and the people around him into our own lives?
How do we model that in callous times, suspicious times, angered times? How do we model the love that is demonstrated here in the fellowship between Jesus and the disciples and others in the time of resurrection?
00:12:25 Libby Catania
Well, I think especially with young children who are children, not just young children, children of any age who experience parents and other caregivers talking about their friends. So I might mention, oh, you know, my dear friend aileen called last night, and this is what we talked about. Or. Oh, I've been trying to reach my friend Diana because I'm just so worried about this, and I want to hear her thoughts if we can get comfortable in our own selves.
And I'd be curious to hear how comfortable you all would be with this. I had to work at this. You know, being raised in the Catholic Church and then in the Episcopal Church, you know, talking openly about Jesus was not something I had learned to do as a child. So it took. It definitely took some practice for me.
But I will now, you know, say, you know, to. At the dinner table or sometime, like, I was feeling so anxious about this podcast that I had to record with Natalie James. And so I, you know, I poured a cup of coffee this morning and I sat with Jesus and I said, okay, Jesus, what's the deal?
How are we gonna. How are we gonna approach this? And, you know, just to pepper the conversation, you know, I'm sure you all turn to Jesus in prayer multiple times throughout your. Throughout your day just to be willing to talk about Jesus in the way you would talk about your other friends. I think begins to help ourselves experience Jesus as friend, but also models for our children that, you know, Jesus as our companion who experienced, God willing, more than most of us ever will experience in this lifetime, is there for us no matter what.
00:14:14 Natalie Thomas
Yeah, I love that, you know, we try. I have. I am finding that. Ooh, I want to be. I'm finding that Phoebe and Stephen, as much as I am a tune, are already having a very deep theological experience and intimate. Maybe not theological, but embodied and lived experience of God. And the best I can do is sometimes offer some language for them to share that through words.
And when I talk about Jesus the way that you are. I grew up in the evangelical Baptist tradition, so I'm much more used to people talking about Jesus as friend. And the hymn that. One of the hymns I've been thinking about is and he walks with Me and he talks with me, and he tells me that I am his own, which, you know, Southern Baptist, Southern hymn, folkie, country hymn.
And so often we will talk about with them of, you know, let's ask Jesus for help, or if Jesus was here with us or, you know, who would Jesus spend time with at your school? You know, it's a real conversation about the embodied presence around us. And to me, I don't know what that is.
Who knows what sticks or what doesn't stick right now, But I do know that that normalizes it in A way that makes it accessible. And it's a good spiritual practice for me, too. Definitely draws me closer to Christ. So this is an interesting next question. Bouncing off of this idea of developing language for the love of Christ.
You know, in this week we're going to have two readings, both Easter Monday and John 15, that engage themes of hatred and violence and the ways that they are present in the world around us. And as much as we might wish, it isn't so. We know that kids are encountering violence at a very young age.
So what, what might we model and what language might we offer that supports children to understand the conflicts between love and violence that are present in the world around us?
00:16:20 Libby Catania
Oh, gosh, it's just so crushing to think about what children are exposed to these days. And I think especially with school shootings and war and the climate catastrophe that we're in the middle of, they're constantly soaking in language and images that are full of destruction and death. And I wonder if the best that I have been able to find as a parent to be able to do with this is to help bring a little bit of context to what Charlie, my youngest, who's 14 now, might be experiencing or our little grandson, who is 8, might be experiencing.
You know, again, I come back to something that we all know so well in our household, which is our dog Georgie. He's a little 11 pound shih tzu. His nickname is the Tiny Tyrant. And he's very, very standoffish in a lot of ways. He can be extremely loving and friendly and sweet, but you never exactly know which way George is going to go because so much of his time and energy is spen in making sure that he's safe.
And so our little grandson was visiting one day and Georgie bit him. Ali got right up in his face and Georgie felt threatened and nipped at him and thankfully didn't, you know, break the skin. But it was an aggressive act. I mean, it was a violent act in many ways that this tiny little tyrant brought to bear on sweet Ali.
And, you know, after comforting Ali and making sure he was okay, we sat and we had a long conversation that George is a lot of things and he was stepped on a lot as a puppy and he's gotten super protective of his space and it's not an appropriate action, but we can understand why it happened.
And so trying to help Ali and myself and, you know, when dealing with adult issues, you know, to see that there is always so much more to the story than the violence, the hatred, the racism, the exploitation of the environment that there is always multiple layers that we're experiencing. So after comforting in John 14, when Jesus says to his disciples, do not let your hearts be troubled, the first thing that he does is comfort them as he's trying to help them understand.
I guess that's, you know, that's where I go with these readings, is leaning into the cultural experience of what kids are going through. I mean, this is in no way to justify, you know, George was not justified in what he did. It may help soften it, to explain it or, you know, now when Ollie comes over, he and George know how to interact with each other and everything goes smoothly.
So it, you know.
00:19:45 Natalie Thomas
Yeah.
00:19:46 Libby Catania
So I guess giving some broader cultural context, especially to older children like Charlie and I have been having a lot of conversations about this particular administration and what, you know, what might be at the root of some of the behavior and how we see that in other areas of our life. And. And frankly, where I can be, you know, as snippy and nippy as George can be, I can be that way, too.
And so recognizing that, you know, it's not love versus hatred, but it's always these things walking hand in hand with each other.
00:20:24 Natalie Thomas
Yeah. Yeah, that's so great. And what's coming up for me there is, you know, as we were talking about children being able to develop a conversant relationship with Jesus and the nearness of Jesus, the reality is, is that we also have in us as humans just as near frustration and tiredness and fear.
And how do we also begin to thinking of, I think this is a Buddhist phrase, but make friends with that at times and not to be so afraid of it, to have some language of why that is in us too. And so as we can talk tenderly about Georgie or the people who we experience as violent, if we can, again, not to excuse it, but to humanize it and to have some space for it and to face it with kindness, you know, face it with love, as Jesus did, to really turn towards it in love, then that allows us to turn towards ourselves in love when we're not at our best, which I think is probably one of the best gifts we can offer any young humans that are in our lives, to be able to face the not so pretty parts of us with love and with acceptance.
00:21:43 Libby Catania
I love the way you said that. And, you know, you mentioned Easter Monday with John 14:6, where we have that, you know, beautiful phrase that's complicated. You know, I am the way, the truth and the life, which was not ever intended to mean the only possible way. Because Jesus of course, then sends the Paraclete, sends the Holy Spirit as another way, a different way that people can be brought into experiencing the incredible love.
Recognizing that not everybody in the world will necessarily hear the story of Jesus. So, you know, in the context of the violence that was happening at the time that John's Gospel was, was written, we can understand why this young Christian community who is so desperate to be sure that the story of Jesus is preserved when they are being killed in mass numbers, would say such a strong statement because he, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
You know, what is the way? Love. What is the truth? Love. What is the life? Love. And it ends on the cross. It ends in a non violent way. So I, you know, I think that's a wonderful way to show that even in an incredibly violent context where we want to say, you know, this man, Jesus, he like this is the, that we could imagine, we still are left holding the reality of violence next to the incredible power of love.
00:23:27 Natalie Thomas
Thank you so much. Wow. I'm going to be soaking in this conversation for a good amount of time. So this was absolutely our third.
00:23:35 Libby Catania
Oh, me too.
00:23:36 Natalie Thomas
Our third of four conversations. I only wish that we were together with, with coffee and scones, but our third of four conversations with the Reverend Dr. Libby Catania. And please do stay in touch with us. She will be back with us one more time next week. Until then, you can look up her work.
Highly, highly recommend the Limina Retreat Center. We'll put the link in our show notes and stay in touch with us as well. Let us know what's working and what you want to see more of on these weekly scripture episodes and in our weekly bedtime chapel in our nightly prayer services. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Bedtime Chapel handle.
And until next time, we will be praying with you
