Just yesterday I returned home from school for the summer after completing my first year of college. It has been an exciting, frightening and tremendous year for me, and I wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe the chemistry grade, but I digress. I knew it was going to be difficult to come home after a year at school in a vastly more exciting place than the one I come from, but also because of what the transition would mean for my faith. I would be leaving a place where I was surrounded by dozens of faithful Catholics who encouraged me to grow in holiness to a place where very few people at all would understand or support what was happening in my faith life.
In particular, I knew that my home life would become very difficult because my parents have taken the transition the hardest. This probably sounds strange, given that I've mentioned having a couple of fallings-out with friends from home, but they didn't have to remain friends with me, which they didn't. My parents are annoyed by my new-found adherence to the Church that my faith has brought me, but they certainly weren't willing to kick me out over it, so they're going to live with it for the summer. This is in no way saying that I'm going to flaunt any of this faith, because I'm not. That would be extremely foolish and would only serve to make the existing issues worse.
It certainly didn't help matters that today was my little cousin's First Holy Communion. My mother and I have gotten into a few tense spots already, and it was not going to help matters any that our family was going to see my cousin's mother and grandmother, neither of whom any of them like remotely. It also didn't help matters that I was the first person to interact with his mother after the Mass was over, since as a little boy with only one cousin (who had been away for the past eight months), I was the first person he wanted to see. So I walked over to hug my cousin and congratulate him on what he had just accomplished, and the great blessing he had just received, and when I was done, I happened to turn toward his mother.
You may have guessed from the way I referred to her that my cousin's mother is divorced from my uncle, and as I have already said, my family does not like her at all. But as she greeted me, I could tell that she was nervous, although she was perfectly kind in inquiring how I was and how my first year of college had gone, and I was moved for her because I couldn't imagine what would cause a forty-six year old woman to be afraid or nervous around a nineteen year old girl. It was funny how at that moment, I could not feel any ill will toward her, and nor did I want to. I smiled at her and told I was fine, the year had gone well, and asked how she was. I could instantly feel her loosen up, and I felt bad for her, because even though I know what transpired between her and my uncle, I also know the cruelty and ridicule she has faced at the hands of my family trying to protect my uncle, the youngest member of that generation.
I heard later all the things that were said about her, and I almost wanted to stand up and ask my relatives to give her a break because it's not as if her life is tremendously easier than my uncle's is. I know I can't say that to my family, but I couldn't and still can't help wanting to pray for her because I remember feeling so moved that she seemed so frightened of me, the only other child in the family (who could do her no harm).
This incident has proven to me that although my family and I still love each other very much, there is a widening gulf between us which I suppose it was naive of me not to expect. I want to see them experience conversion and an encounter with Christ so much, but I'm beginning to notice that I (unfortunately, but also somewhat fortunately I guess) am not the one called to be Christ to them. Somebody else will have that job, but I'm seeing that God is calling me to show Him to other people, people to whom I would not even expect God to show Himself, like my cousin's mother. So tonight I pray for my family and the people who show them Christ, but also for my cousin's mother in whom I saw Christ today.
If I thought it would mean anything at all, I would reach out and thank her as kindly as possible for showing me the face of God.
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