Parents: your children are not your own
Today is the feast of the Presentation, and when contemplating this event, I often marvel at the faith of Mary and Joseph as parents. They were given a great gift from God in the form of a miraculous baby, and the first thing they do is to give him back to the Lord!
Now this might not seem too impressive, considering the events surrounding Christ’s birth, but if you are a parent, you might recognize the great faith involved in such an action. Every parent is given a great gift that we don’t deserve every time we are blessed with a child. An eternal soul is placed in our care and we are graced with that child’s presence in our lives. Our capacity to love is expanded and through the sacrifices we are required to make for that child, we are given a sure means to holiness if we just take it.
But what do we often do in the face of such a gift? We cling our children with a miserly grip. We act like these precious children are “ours” and that we deserve them. Instead of presenting each and every one of them to the Lord, we refuse to let them go, trying to control their destinies and ultimately afraid that God will not take care of them like we will.
This can be most obvious when we discourage religious vocations in our children, either explicitly or implicitly. Most people reading this blog would never outwardly reject a religious vocation for their child, but we can often do things to subconsciously lead our children to a “safe” vocation, i.e. married life with a nice comfortable job.
But there are other ways we cling to our children. Whenever we do not trust in the Lord to take care of them – when we are anxious about their futures, when we hold them back from their God-given dreams because they don’t conform to what we want for them, or when we try to direct their life path – we act as if these children are our own, instead of realizing that they are simply on loan from God.
Let all of us parents look to Mary and Joseph as perfect examples of how we should raise our children – they are not our own, let us present them to the Lord!
Some parents hold on to their sons specifically by leading them into the vocation of priesthood. Seen several “mama’s boy” priests…
Here’s a great piece of advice from St. Philip Neri which suggests the same thing:
“Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold of God.”
When our five children were young, we never considered ourselves knowledgeable or wise enough to “control” what walk of life they followed.
The daughter in the 8th grade who went to Mass on Saturday mornings and attended evening prayer groups (I thought that she might have a religious vocation!) is now a mother of five, home schooling her younger kids.
The son who while in high school slept in on Saturdays and whom I thought would be a history teacher or sports writer was ordained 23 years ago, and seems happy working with parish groups. HE opines that the dearth of vocations is a result of the contraceptive mentality of current young adults. If you limit your marriage to no more than two children, you have an incentive to push them toward marriage; young parents need to accept children WILLINGLY from the Lord to be generous in accepting Religious vocations for some of their children.
We know of two cases in the 1940s – 1950s where parents pushed children, one into a rel. vocation, and another AWAY from such a vocation. In both cases, the adult child subsequently made choices that badly stung their parents.
Trying to “force God” in some action doesn’t work, and in some cases it doesn’t work spectacularly.
Just a thought.
TeaPot562
Only too true. I’m sorry to say – if not for my (devout Catholic) parens’ objections, I’d probably be in a cloister now… As it is, I have a nice comfortable job, but I’m still single, which means alone (and not going to change that by any means!) – and, as my parents now doubtlessly see, when we meet – totally unhappy.
This is awesome!
Thanks for a great and timely reminder.
I’m reading this on the heels of a week that hasn’t gone quite as I wanted, so rather than clinging to my children, you might say I’m longing to push them away. Maybe I needed this for a different reason than you intended, but I’m grateful all the same.
Keep up the great work!