Dear beloved sisters and brothers in Christ,
Mother’s Day might mean breakfast in bed. The family might take you to brunch at KeKe’s, Breakfast Club, Toojay’s Deli, or First Watch. (Hey, we gotta pay the bills.)
More seriously, Mother’s Day for many women is a hard day. For the woman who cannot have children, or for the mother whose child died, no matter how many years ago, Mother’s Day is a very hard day.
With abortion in the headlines this week, I offer a special prayer for healing. It’s normal to grieve a pregnancy loss, including the loss of a child by abortion. It can form a hole in one’s heart, a hole so deep that sometimes it seems nothing can fill the emptiness. You are not alone.
Project Rachel is a healing ministry for women who have had an abortion.
Saint Monica lived in the fourth century. She is the patron saint of alcoholics, conversion, mothers, and wives. She could well be the patron saint of Christian mothers with wayward children.
Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions that when the day was approaching when his mother Saint Monica would depart from this life, she and he happened to be standing at a window. They overlooked the garden in the courtyard on the Tiber River in Rome. The two of them, all alone, were enjoying a conversation, asking one another what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed by the saints. It was a picture-perfect pious conversation between saints, a blessed final moment between saintly mother and son.
It was not always that way. Although Monica was a Christian, her parents arranged her marriage with a non-believer. Her husband, besides having a violent temper, played around. Monica's mother-in-law lived in her home and was the original monster-in-law. But through years of her prayer and her example of charity and piety, Monica’s husband and mother-in-law eventually were baptized.
Her son Augustine was an even harder cross. He led a wild party life and lived with a woman with whom he had a child. He sought the glory of the capital of the Roman empire. When he left North Africa and went to Rome to teach rhetoric, Monica followed him to Rome. When he went to Milan, Monica went to Milan. During those long eighteen years, Monica prayed for her son Augustine.
Like Monica, mothers pray for their sons and daughters without cease:
- “I took my children to church every Sunday, I sacrificed to send them to Catholic school. When they were in second grade, they received their first communion like the three dozen kids last week dressed in white shiny suits and white lacy dresses. Why don’t my children go to church?”
- For the daughter living with her boyfriend and dog, “Why don’t they get on with it and get married?” For the grown son living at home playing video games, spending weekends with his girlfriend, “I had three children when I was their age.”
- And when their children have children, mothers beg and plead that their grandchildren are baptized. Crickets.
Like Monica, you can pray for your children. You can follow them around the world. But the one thing you cannot do is change their hearts. You are not responsible for their conversion. That is the Lord’s domain. He alone changes hearts. He is the one who saves us. It is up to the Lord and to your children. They have to decide to repent and believe.
You can, of course, do some things. Even when camping in the mountains, mom and dad would wake us six kids on Sunday morning and drag us to a Georgia country church they had somehow found long before Google maps made it easy. Your weekend tournaments with the travel team are a golden opportunity to impress upon your children that God comes before soccer. It might mean missing a meal or a practice, but by God, your child (and their teammates and coaches!) will know that Mass is not negotiable.
The family meal can begin together with grace. “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” Such a habit teaches the children that our food and all we have are gifts to God. We must give thanks.
Money speaks louder than words. You can tell your children that the family gives money to the church and to the poor. “We give ten percent back to God and keep ninety percent. It’s a good deal of money, but it’s God’s money.”
They say that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. True. However, you can make him thirsty.
Brandon Vogt wrote an award-winning book,
Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too). "For years, I’ve longed for a book that I could recommend to parents whose children have left the Church or to people who have lost their faith. This is that book.”--Brant Pitre.
Brandon writes that you can talk to your children why you go to church, what blessings you have received, and who your favorite saints are (hello Saint Monica). You can nurture a daily habit of morning prayer and night prayer and instill the daily habit in your children. Although you cannot change the hearts of your wayward children, you can show your heart.
Monica did not live to see her wayward son Augustine become a priest and later a bishop. She did see him get baptized. She saw him come home to the Lord. What more could a mother want?
Blessed Easter,
Father David