Fortifying for the Season: Cultivating Confident Rather Than Tough Love

Today, hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of faithful parents are walking on egg shells around their children because of the intensely intrusive, tyrannical anti-Christian culture that ever more attempts to poison the Holy Trinity’s foundational governance.  Even “thinking” prayer, peacefully and silently standing within walking distance of an infant “death camp,” can lead to State persecution and prosecution.  (Indeed, in some countries, I could be criminally charged for calling abortion facilities death camps.).  From massive international abortion, though, the inherent rights of God ordained family formation was bound to be the next domino, as vice-oriented zealots constructed government to displace God and mother and father.  The latter have become increasingly anxious and confused, reactive more than responsive, and somewhat floundering despite faithfulness.   As we approach the season of heightened tension, October, the month of the Holy Rosary and some great saints offers us a golden opportunity to recollect, reflect, and spiritually rearm with ethereal confidence.

 
Recently, this need was most pronounced in The Free Press article, “Tough Love: My Daughter Hasn’t Grown Out of Being Trans.”  Penned by a daily Mass attendee, professing a solid, conservative Catholic family, the letter content reeked of deep frustration, even helplessness, against clearly worldly (demonic) forces permeating hers but also many other similarly prayerful homes.  Of course satan is hunting for the most devout!  In one haunting line, the mother discloses that her 18-year-old daughter (by conception), “chose a gap year at home (with us, imagine?) Instead of college.”  Simple deduction:  The Accuser craves close proximity to his targets.   The mother pleaded for guidance but ping-ponged between easily defendable expectations, that her daughter superficially heeds, and an undercurrent of indecision based on this same young lady’s special qualities and talents.  The mother came across as a typical grieving mother in a familial nightmarish vortex she never envisioned, yet wanting her daughter to know she is loved, and all those good gifts are recognized.  Riddled throughout is a sense of unwarranted guilt that stifles both expression of authentic love and confidently built and laid safety boundaries.  The apologetics are present but maybe overshadowed by unspoken apology often present in genuinely Catholic families that fear they failed somehow.  Daily mainstream media pounds this into the national conversation.  Andrew Comiskey, who is known for his work with the sexually and relationally broken, redirects parents to view their trial within the context of fully living their faith, not self recrimination over something they have no control over.  (Clear Love for Confused Parents).  He—and numerous others— encourages parents to surrender to Divine Mercy, cultivating internal peace and a spirit of suffering for their sons and daughters, while standing confident in their response to children in the throes of this confusion. In the aforementioned case, the young lady is an adult and accountable for her own actions.  I pray genuine peace for this and all mothers and fathers and that they discover trustworthy guides such as Father Jacques Philippe’s (and others, like the Venerable Fulton Sheen) liberating works on peace and true freedom even as we must spiritually combat an imprisoning—at best—darkening world.  

 
As it were, I had just attended a Courage-EnCourage conference that addressed this and other parents’ angst.  Two gave personal testimony stories.  Other speakers addressed head-on the very dilemma this mother and father are suffering.  The bottom line is that there is a stabilizing, loving way to heal the wounds of our children—or at least endeavor towards that—which empathizes with the sexually deluded but stands firmly in the Truth (the Person of Jesus Christ.)  Space here obviously cannot encapsulate all that was presented in a day’s event, but for those parents so sorrowed but experiencing the enormous pressure of a progressive—actually regressive culture—repackaged in timeless lies—I invite them to visit that Apostolate online and its immense treasury of resources.  (Note: CourageRC is strictly an invitational outreach.)

 
Moreover, its mission envelops the overall sexualization of our society.  I would even venture to say that such catastrophic events like COVID 19, companioned with secular—at best—but growing atheistic government schools, a contaminated health field, and corrupted work environments, are ancillary to the root causes of myriad evils attacking the Church..  This has always been about the tension between the world and the City of God; the devil and his minions and the angles, saints, and holy ones. We must avoid going inward with continuous doubt and punishing self flagellation which may be an expression of pride, ironically.  (We are not that powerful).   Moreover, we will not change society per se, but we most certainly can renew ourselves and focus on that which will establish a strong home that gives no entry to any evil.  Can such unequivocal rejection of deadly sin be accomplished in actualized love?  Absolutely, but this is not about tough love that tends to reduce the eternal to physical and emotional correctiveness only in the here and now.  Rather daily relations should convey a peaceful, confident love, one that knows and stands hopefully in the Truth while outstretching arms on our crosses of suffering to embrace our children.

 
Some might be now protesting, “But I tried that, and my child has not spoken to me in years.” (Or more punishingly, torments me online with support from other family and former friends.) That may well occur.  In fact if your children obstinately persist in their unfortunate choices, then you can only turn to God while always keeping unlocked the doorway to your heart.  Painful? Yes.  Isolating?  Yes.  Humiliating? Yes.  Hurtful when our loved ones taunt or reject us?  Yes.  Excruciatingly trying as years pass, but nothing seems to “budge.”  Yes.  On seeming inexplicable tragedy and fruitlessness, Deacon Patrick Lappert, MD, a conference speaker, shared the hope-filled story of his own disabled dog, cruelly missing a lower jaw from an attack as a puppy, that carried close a plush little squirrel toy, as the only object of affection he could maneuver. In turn, numerous years later, this same dog rescued an actual baby squirrel that fell from a tree.  This moving tale prompted reflection on how only God sees and foresees all.  What we simply cannot understand or “fix” presently, He has already fit into His perfect plan for (our) tomorrow’s wonder.  In the end, the only “Yes” that matters for our children and one that will lead to an assured course of action is that calm, confident “YES” to God.  And who better as our model than Our Blessed Mother Mary, along with that indestructible fortress against  anxiety and self defeatism, the Rosary (after the Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration)?