This article by David Wells appered in The Tablet, 3 May 2008
Parents whose relationship with the Church is erratic or complicated present a special challenge for priests and catechists, but welcoming them offers real rewards for all
Programmes to prepare children to receive the sacraments are reaching their conclusion, and many parishes are gathering parents for what is a brief and occasionally awkward encounter. Priests tell me that the First Communion is increasingly the last, and that if some families don't disappear altogether then it is likely that the next time the child walks through the door will be on Christmas morning. The experience can leave the priest perplexed and wondering if he has discharged his responsibility properly; similarly his catechists are left feeling disillusioned.
Meeting with these parents is an incredibly important - if artificial - experience, especially if there is a three-line whip for them to come to the meeting. At one or two evening meetings with parents, we can look into the face of a stressed, over-mortgaged generation and see what James Hanvey SJ, in his report for the Catholic Education Service, "On the Way to Life" describes as distracted people in search of meaning. During this encounter we have an opportunity to reach out to a restless culture with its confused priorities. Yet, we hosts are the ones facing the greater challenge; what are we to say to that rarest and most precious butterfly, a group that has gathered at church that consists largely of twenty or thirty somethings?
Here are three suggestions as to what we might communicate to parents who do not give us the confidence to believe we will see them again. This is not an expert parent writing, but one who has listened to parents' groups for many years. As a basis for meaningful connection and possible evangelisation, I suggest that what we communicate is gratitude, generosity and grace. There is more of course, but what follows is the bait.
Our first action should be gratitude; that is, to bless and give thanks for Creation. Parenthood is itself a holy act. Most parents don't make this connection. Parents often separate the struggle to be loving parents from the nature of God, believing that what is holy is something entirely divorced from nurturing; perceiving holiness to be a displaced activity. It is this separation which compels parents to come to our meetings while at the same time harbouring reluctance to be there. The expression of love and sacrifice for children is God's purpose lived out in parents' lives. Sitting in a hall at a first meeting, many parents do not anticipate affirmation. Parents need our blessing for the love and commitment that they have shown for their children, a love that has a divine origin even if they don't see it. Jesus indicates that this very practical connection between love and action will win people their salvation, even though in his parable, they don't see it either; "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?" (Matthew 25). Women seem to make this connection more easily than men. In Motherhood: a spiritual journey, Ellyn Sanna writes powerfully of the way in which giving birth breaks open more than a mother's body. All parents have joined with God in this wonderful and awe-inspiring enterprise, and the Church should bless and give thanks for them. First, then, let parents be blessed at our meetings. Let them hear the words “Thank you”, no matter how poorly parents regard themselves, because where there is love, frail or imperfect, there is God also.
Our second action is to be generous. Some people's relationship with the Church may be a haphazard one. We don't stand at that place in condemnation but in love. A parent's decision to come to our meeting is a sufficient sign to us that whatever their motives, the Spirit is stirring in them. We must greet them with care, communicating that without them, we too have been incomplete. Ironically, what seems to do this most effectively is humour. The last thing needed is a reprimand: "You have been away how long?" Rather, as hosts, we do well to express our own failure, and to challenge the perception that we gather as respectable, distinguished parents; we come to church as sinners not saints. I often recall my young son who waited until the congregation was in silence before sighing heavily and asking loudly, “How many songs till the end?” You can feel the relief among parents on hearing this story. “I didn't think the meeting would be like this;” I recall one parent saying, as he discovered that his private anxieties were shared.
The third action is grace, not our action of course but God's. We await grace, we request it, trust and hope in it, but it is not ours to dispense. To receive this grace is a problem for transitory groups, particularly in mid-life when parents are working at their most pressured. They are focused on earning their living to meet unprecedented debt. To be offered something freely in this moment is confusing. We don't trust gifts; we look for the catch. To be offered something precious which is also free is almost beyond our comprehension. The more expensive something is, the more we believe in it. It is only grace which can begin to open up this mystery for us, so that which is freely given becomes precious to us. Simply telling people won't work on its own. We need to pray that, as people's hearts are opened, they will catch a glimpse of what is on offer; and realise that they too are worth more than all their ambition and hard work can earn them. To some extent, failure teaches us this more than success. “Parenting”, James Dobson reminds us, “is not for cowards.” As hosts to parents, let us be grateful to them for bringing their children to the sacraments. Let us also be generous to them, especially when they appear to have little idea about what they are doing. And, in our efforts, let us rely on God's grace and resist the temptation to feel personally offended when people walk away after they have ticked the first sacraments box. As Victor Hugo put it, when you have done what needs to be done, “Go to sleep in peace. God is awake!”
Davis Wells is a diocesan adviser in the Plymouth Diocese and created the DVD You, Your Children and Their Catholic Faith available from CaFE Resources.