Teresa Masters remembers the times when one of her young sons would confide that a classmate had been mean to him. Listening with understanding, she’d then ask her child: “I wonder if something might be going on at home to make them act like that. When you’re sad that Dad [a traveling sales rep] is gone, are you sometimes mean?”
A member of St. Jude Parish in Columbiana, Teresa Masters and her husband, Brad, try to raise their three children (Eli, 17, David, 15, and Samuel, 11) to have compassion, kindness and “a heart for service,” along with a commitment to practice their Catholic faith. The boys attend Columbiana Exempted Village Schools.
“We just talk to them ad nauseum,” said the stay-at-home mom, a former public-school teacher, an avid reader of historical fiction and an assistant in her parish’s youth ministry program.
Every topic is open for discussion in the Masters home, she said. When the children mention classmates whose values are different from theirs, she tells them, “You’re allowed to disagree with someone and still help them if they need help.”
Teresa said she hopes she models for her sons her experience of being “very blessed, for nothing I myself have done.” It’s important that they know they should be sharing their blessings with others, she said.
Recalling her own childhood of attending Mass every Sunday, going to Catholic school and praying before meals, “what had the biggest impact on me were the acts of service” that her parents did and those they did together as a family,” she said.
She remembered her mother taking Communion to shut-in individuals and the family taking food, socks and batteries to a local Vietnam veteran who suffered mentally from his war experience.
Several years ago, when the family traveled
to the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley to learn about its ministry, the director explained to them why children who lived there were always the first to be picked up by the school bus and the last to be dropped off. It was so the other students would not bully them about where they lived.
Hearing this, young David blurted out, “Wow, someone would make fun of them, just for being homeless?” Obviously saddened by this possibility, David, who liked to bake, decided to make and help deliver 200 cupcakes for the residents of
the mission. “Love for all people” is what Teresa tries to impart to her sons, she said.
Recently, when Teresa and a friend met at a restaurant on the Youngstown State University campus while Eli attended a college-level class there, he and several students walked in for lunch. There, she witnessed her son pray before eating—a confirmation of his taking to heart one of
his parents’ religious expectations for him and his brothers.
An earlier example of the family’s faith in action took place when Eli was in middle school and basketball games were on Sundays. When Teresa, Janette Koewacich (former parish director of religious education) and Father Chris Cicero (then-pastor) worked with others to try to have the day changed
but failed, the priest announced that the involved parents would have to make a choice.
Though the Masters children love sports, “there was no pushback” from them when Teresa told the coach that they would miss any games scheduled the same time as Mass or CCD.
Teresa said she realizes that not every mom or dad is able to stay home with their children. She feels “so blessed” that Brad’s diligence in his job and their decision to live on one salary enables her to do so.
On another occasion, when Samuel excitedly speculated how the family’s life would change if they won a parish raffle, his mother assured him that, “even if we won a million dollars, we’d do nothing different.”
She said her commitment to try to follow in Jesus’ footsteps in her life inspired her, in adulthood, to study Scripture. Her interest piqued when she found the daily podcast, The Bible in a Year, whose host, Father Mike Schmitz, explains the Scriptures from a Catholic perspective. She also enjoys watching the TV series The Chosen, a drama about the life of Jesus.
Catholic devotions that mean a great deal to Teresa are praying the Divine Mercy prayer and receiving the Eucharist. In addition, her faith is empowered by her decade-long participation in a group of parish women, which began as a card club but has evolved into a sisterhood in Christ, whose members now seldom play cards when they meet!
The women of various ages discuss things that deeply impact their lives, such as the challenges of parenthood or losing a spouse. “They handle their trials and tribulations with such grace, they inspire me to be a better person,” Teresa said. “They draw me closer to God.”
Her father’s experience with cancer also strengthened her faith. When he was diagnosed, “I was terrified,” Teresa said. But seeing how peacefully he died, there in their home, where he had come to live earlier, “I knew that no matter what happens, we will be OK.”
