God hears the cries of the poor, the anguish of parents whose children are victims of gun violence, and the anger of those who have been marginalized and oppressed and whose history has been hidden by people of privilege and power. God also delights in the singing of sparrows in the early morning and the flashing of fireflies on a summer evening. God feels the pain of an injured baby bird, fallen out of its nest, and the loneliness of a pet mourning the death of its human companion.
God’s experience of the world is cruciform in nature. The cross is more than an event on Calvary’s hill. The cross reveals God embedded in all creation, sharing our joys and sorrows. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he was crying God’s tears. When Jesus died on the cross, his pain was real, and so was God’s. God feels the anguish of those who have been abandoned and persecuted. God has not abandoned you. Do you feel that?
—from the book Simplicity, Spirituality, Service: The Timeless Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure by Rev. Dr. Bruce G. Epperly
Being a parent is far more than just having kids. As the Catechism reminds us, the fruitfulness of married love extends to the moral and spiritual education of a couple’s children. Parents are the primary educators of their children, especially in the ways of virtue and prayer. Fr. Mike reminds us that it is also parents’ privilege to evangelize their children. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2221-2231.
Gratitude is the proper response of children toward their parents. Out of this gratitude comes respect. When we are children at home, this respect includes “true docility and obedience.” Fr. Mike emphasizes respect for parents doesn’t expire when we leave home as adults. Grown children are responsible for caring for and supporting their parents in their old age. As Fr. Mike stresses, this can be the simple but often overlooked phone call to mom or dad. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2214-2220.
The Fourth Commandment addresses the most universal human relationship: our relationship with our parents. Why does God command us to honor our father and our mother? Fr. Mike explains why this Commandment sets the foundation for all the other Commandments. He shares the 3 levels of respect and what it looks like to honor our parents despite their brokenness and imperfections. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2196-2200.
The Ten Commandments tell us to “honor thy mother and father”, but what does that really look like? Especially for adult children?
Parents are not perfect, and sometimes they make mistakes that leave us and others wounded. So when God tells us to honor them, what does he mean by that? There’s a certain respect that all are owed simply by their personhood, and then there’s a respect that someone deserves because of their role or position. But what if our parents are dishonorable people? Does this commandment change once we’re adults out of their direct care?
Today, Father Mike explains how we can love difficult parents.
Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow, and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life.
Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded.
Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness, and charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ’s crown of thorns. She meditated frequently on Christ’s passion. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She also counseled lay people who came to her monastery.
Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the reputation, together with Saint Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many people visit her tomb each year.
Reflection
Although we can easily imagine an ideal world in which to live out our baptismal vocation, such a world does not exist. An “If only ….” approach to holiness never quite gets underway, never produces the fruit that God has a right to expect.
Rita became holy because she made choices that reflected her baptism and her growth as a disciple of Jesus. Her overarching, lifelong choice was to cooperate generously with God’s grace, but many small choices were needed to make that happen. Few of those choices were made in ideal circumstances—not even when Rita became an Augustinian nun.
St. Rafqa / Rafka (Arabic for Rebecca) (1832–1914) was born in Himlaya, a Maronite village in the Lebanese mountains. She was an only child, and her mother died when she was seven. After her father’s remarriage there was much family discord as to whom Rafqa should marry. Not wanting to wed any of the men in question, she turned to God and entered religious life at the age of 21.
Rebecca had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary which she learned from her mother. She studied and served as a teacher for many years, but, after witnessing and surviving a massacre of Christians, she decided at the age of 39 to become a cloistered contemplative nun living under a strict rule in a monastery. Here, Rafqa prayed earnestly that she might share in the sufferings of Christ. Her prayers were heard almost immediately. She became blind and paralyzed, and over the course of 30 years she struggled with deteriorating health and incredible pain. All of her sufferings she united to the sufferings of Christ without complaint.
Under obedience to her superior Rebecca worked on an autobiography near the end of her life. She died at the age of 82, and her grave is credited with many miracles. St. Rafqa is a Catholic Maronite saint canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2001. She is the patron of sick people, bodily ills, and loss of parents. Her feast day is March 23rd.
Before my oldest daughter, Maddie, was born, I remember spending what seemed like hours washing, folding, and refolding her little outfits before placing them in her tiny laundry basket. I remember holding them close to my face, breathing in their baby-powdered scent. I would then carefully place each of them neatly in her dresser drawer, anxiously awaiting her arrival.
After she was born, I remember diligently working to get the spit-up and then baby-food stains out of those same outfits. As she got older, the source of the stains changed—food, mud, blood—but the process did not: wash, fold, place in her laundry basket, repeat. Late-night washes of bedsheets morphed into last-minute washes of school uniforms, which transitioned into my husband, Mark, asking, “Is this yours or Maddie’s?”
So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that it was a laundry basket that undid me when Maddie recently moved out. No, it wasn’t her bed missing. It wasn’t the bare room that just a few days ago had been filled with all of her stuff. No, it was a white, plastic laundry basket with her name written on the handle in red marker that reduced me to tears.
I should have known it would be something so nondescript that would bring the reality home. I quickly learned after my mom died that it was always the little things in life—not the big, predictable moments—that seem to hit closest to home and evoke the most emotion. In fact, this would have been a good time to have her around.
Reality Check
It was just an average day when it happened. I was downstairs in our laundry room helping my youngest daughter, Kacey, look for her gym clothes. As I reached for Kacey’s basket, I looked at the shelves where our family’s laundry baskets are kept, and I froze. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with the empty space where Maddie’s basket had, until just recently, resided. Five laundry baskets sat on the shelves where just a few days ago there had been six. An overwhelming rush of emotion came over me.
Really? I thought. It wasn’t as if I didn’t realize it was gone. After all, I had helped her do the last loads of laundry before she left and piled her basket high with clothes for the move. In fact, I think I might have even carried it into her new apartment. But now, seeing that empty space made the reality of her absence crystal clear.
And it wasn’t as if her moving out came as a complete surprise. You see, Maddie is fiercely independent. She has been ever since she was little. She had made it very clear to Mark and me that she planned to head out on her own as soon as she was able. Apparently, that time was now.
And so we packed up her car with her belongings and helped her take that next step into adulthood. After all, that’s what we’re supposed to do as parents, isn’t it? It is the moment we work toward from the time we fold and refold those baby clothes to the time they take one more step away from us and into their own lives. We hold their hands, teach them, support them, and then, at some point, we help them pack up and move on—unfortunately, with their laundry basket in hand.
As we begin reading the first book of Maccabees today, Fr. Mike highlights the severe persecution against the Jews and the desecration of the Temple led by Antiochus Epiphanes. We also begin our journey in the book of Sirach today and learn about the fear of the Lord, clinging to the Lord in trials, and the importance of honoring our parents. Today’s readings are 1 Maccabees 1, Sirach 1-3, and Proverbs 21:29-31.
