Parenting Your Catholic Teen (Part 3)

According to acclaimed parenting author Jim Stenson, growth from birth to adulthood can be summarized in three distinct stages. Let’s take a look at the first two:

Childhood: “What can you do for me?”

A child’s world completely revolves around itself. The child himself is the centre of the universe. She believes that others exist to serve her needs and cater to her whims – whether that be “feed me”, “play with me”, or “entertain me”. We have all known young people who have, tragically, never advanced to the next stage, which is…

Adolescence: “I can do it for myself.”

This is the journey from dependence to independence. Unfortunately, many people have confused this with the final step, thinking this is the goal. It’s somewhat like my dad used to say to me (and maybe you heard this growing up, too): “My goal is to have you out of the house at 18 and on your own!” These days some parents are lucky if their kids move out by age 35, it seems.

But we still haven’t arrived at the goal because this 2nd stage, like the childhood stage, is still ultimately concerned with self. Childhood says, “What can you do for me?” while Adolescence says, “I can do it for – who? For myself”. Either way, the focus is still concern for self.

Many people, even as adults, remain trapped somewhere between these two stages. Tiger Woods is a great example of such a narcissistic soul. Professionally, he exhibits all the character traits in his job that one would want to see in his personal life: Determination. Hard work. Never quits. Perseverance. In this sense, Tiger is a lot like many adults we work with, who are our neighbors. Essentially, they are highly skilled barbarians. Professionally: mature, competent. Ethically: immature and incompetent. Monetarily: wealthy. Morally: bankrupt.

As a person Tiger is still not mature. At his press conference, one of the things he said was that he felt “entitled” to do the things he did. In other words, “The laws of morality don’t apply to me. Why? Because I’m me! I’m Tiger Woods!”

It may be easy to dismiss Tiger as an extreme case, but believe me, your kids, your Catholic teens, are prone to the same self-deception that befell Tiger. It may not manifest itself the same way, but trust me, it’s there.

Recently a Catholic school (which shall remain nameless) realized they had a bit of a problem on their hands. Teachers noticed that many students were exhibiting attitudes and behaviors that many found questionable – just the kinds of things you don’t want to see in the lives of your own kids.

Interviews were done with all of the families of these kids to find out what the problem was. They found that none of these kids’ problems were due to their family situations. In other words, the kids didn’t pick these vices up from home – they got it from the culture that we live in. They imbibed it from the society around their homes – TV, the internet, music, movies, media of all kinds – and from their friends.

They also found out that every single kid, every single case, had one thing in common. Do you know what it is? It surprised the heck out of the researchers. No matter whether the student was involved with violence, alcohol, drugs, sexual sins, materialism, you name it – all of them had one thing in common: a rejection of the created order. What? What does that mean? The root of all these kids’ problems was a rejection of creation.

Think about it. If I reject the created order, that means that I am rejecting the fact that there is a reality, there is an order – outside of myself – and that the only approach to life that makes sense is to try and find out what this reality is all about and try to conform my life to the way things actually are, not the way I want them to be.

To reject the created order of reality also means to reject the fact that there is a creator who came up with all of this creation – and that I am responsible to this creator. And this creator we call God.

But I don’t want to do that, because that would mean admitting that I’m not the center of the universe; that the universe really doesn’t revolve around me after all. That would involve me actually growing up. But grow up we must if we are to arrive at the final stage of growth from childhood, the goal of all parenting: adulthood. Because, again, we’re raising adults, not children.

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Parenting Your Catholic Teen (Part 2)

Teens are like lawyers. They get to those years and all of a sudden, “Because we said so” is not a good enough reason for them to obey you. They want to know the reason why you said so. The key question is “Why?” “But why, Mom?” “Why, Dad, do I have to do that?” “Why can’t I do this?” That’s not necessarily a bad thing for you as a parent. That can actually work in your favor – as long as you have answers for that question, “Why?”

Yes, teens are like lawyers. They will badger you, harass the witness, cross-examine the rules and values, beliefs and behaviors you have decreed for them to live. I know, because I used to do it to my poor Mom every day as a teen. Teens, like lawyers, will look for loopholes, some weakness in the system that they can exploit for their client (that is, themselves). That’s their job.

One of the biggest loopholes they will look for is any inconsistencies between the way that you, the parent, are telling them to live, and the way that you as parents actually live. What they want to know is: do you practice what you preach? When I say that they badger “the witness” – that is exactly what I meant. For they are looking for a witness. They want to see a lived example of Catholicism before their eyes, so they know that it’s not merely a nice theory, but a credible way of life.

Do you really live according to the values and beliefs you are teaching your kids, or is it some variation of “Do as I say, not as I do?” That will not work with a teen. Teens, like a good lawyer, know how to expose a weak witness. They have very good noses – they can smell baloney a mile away. What they are looking for is something called integrity – a walk that matches the talk.

Perhaps Tiger Woods didn’t see enough of that in his father, Earl. When he made his nationally televised “Mea Culpa” in that staged press conference he held on national TV, he said that he did not act in accordance with the values with which he had been raised. Well, maybe that isn’t quite true. Maybe he did act in accordance with his dad’s values – not the ones that his dad talked about, but the ones his dad actually lived by.

As a result, Tiger hasn’t seemed to have fully arrived at adulthood. And adulthood is the goal – parents have to constantly be reminded of this. You are not raising a child. You are raising an adult. Every parenting decision from birth onward has to be made in light of this fact. It’s hard to remember when the kids are so young and cute, but what you have entrusted to your care is an adult in the making. These young people must become free, responsible, giving people of good judgment and tough-minded character.

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Parenting Your Catholic Teen (Part One)

Note: This is part one of my latest article in October’s Catholic Insight magazine. On a personal note, I’m a great fan of Tiger Woods, the golfer – and I pray for Tiger Woods, the man.

Earl Woods was once thought of as one of America’s greatest dads – maybe even the world’s. Who could forget the scene that ensued just off the 18th green at Augusta National Golf Club after Earl’s son, Tiger Woods, had won his first Masters tournament going away in 1997. Father and son met in a tearful embrace that seemed to last forever.

Tiger, of course, became not only the world’s most famous and successful athlete, but seemed to have the ultimate family life in his own right, what with his gorgeous wife Elin, and their two beautiful kids, daughter Sam Alexis and son Charlie. To complete the idyllic picture, they were often photographed playing with the family dogs, Taz and Yogi. Tiger – as a husband, a father, as a man – seemed to be following in his father’s footsteps.

In fact he was, but in a way that no one could have imagined.

Of course, we now know that Tiger’s carefully constructed family image was a fraud. Amid the myriad sordid revelations of Tiger Woods’ adulterous affairs with women of ill repute, one woman emerged from Tiger’s past whose relationship with Tiger by far antedated any of the rest: his high school sweetheart. She told of how the teenaged Tiger would call her on the phone and just weep, dissolving into tears. You see, Tiger had discovered that his dad was having an affair, cheating on his mom.

Earl Woods had already left one wife and another family before he had met and married Tiger’s mom. It is also not so well-known that as soon as Tiger, who was Earl and Kultida Woods’ only child, turned professional in 1996, his parents separated and no longer lived together, although they would often both show up to cheer their son on in tournaments. Tiger knew that, amidst the revelations of his own father’s secret life, the only reason his parents stayed together was because of him. As if his life didn’t already have enough pressure, what with his dad making pronouncements to the effect of, “Tiger will be more important for the world than Ghandi – you’ll see”.

Perhaps the way that Tiger will become so important is as a cautionary tale for parents. For the words of a parent are not nearly as important as their actions, as their example. Children may not always seem to be listening to what you say as a parent. But, trust me, they are all ears – and all eyes – when it comes to what you do.

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St Raphael on Marriage

Today is the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. In the Old Testament book of Tobit, St Raphael encourages Tobias to marry Sarah: “But do not be afraid, for she was set apart for you before the world existed” (Tobit 6:18).

This beautiful verse reminds us that it is not only priests and consecrated religious who have a special vocation in the Church. Although marriage is by far the more common vocation, it is no less a specific call that requires help from above to discern. And the reason it’s specific is that one called to marriage is never called to marriage in general, but in particular.

That is, if you are called to marriage, God’s design from all eternity is for you to marry a specific person – and for that person to marry you! If you are married, thank God for how he arranged your first meeting with your spouse, no doubt with the help of your guardian angels. Who knows? You may have even had the assistance of that heavenly matchmaker, St Raphael himself.


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New Mass Seminar Tonight!

For all of you in the GTA, part one of a three-part series on The New Mass – the new English translation of the Roman Missal – starts tonight! It all takes place at St Justin Martyr Parish in Unionville at 7:30 PM. See you there!

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On the Feast of Saint Matthew

The readings for today’s Feast of the Apostle Matthew remind us of what the Church is (a hospital for sinners), and what it does (mission).  As to the former, in the Gospel from Matt 9, Jesus reminds us of  “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do...I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” So, once we’ve been healed by the Great Physician, what happens next? We are sent out ourselves to seek the spiritually sick, and bring them to Jesus. That’s where the latter, the call to mission, comes in.

And whose responsibility is this mission? The first reading, from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, tells us: “But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4). The role of the hierarchy (bishops, priests, and deacons) is to “equip the holy ones (the laity) for the work of ministry”. The hierarchy sanctifies the people, who then go forth to sanctify the world.

That is, we can’t expect Father to go out and evangelize the world, although no doubt he will do more than his fair share of faith-sharing. Evangelization is our job – and we must “preach the Gospel at all times, and, if necessary, use words”, as St Francis of Assisi urged. Undoubtedly, we must use words to explain our faith, and we must know something about it to communicate it to others – you can’t give what you don’t have. But to gain a hearing, the “salt” of our Catholic Christian way of life must first cause others “to thirst” for what we have.  Come to think of it, just like a certain carpenter-rabbi from Galilee once did with a house full of spiritual seekers, friends of a tax collector named Matthew.

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Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman

Today Pope Benedict capped his monumental visit to the UK by beatifying Cardinal Newman, who has been a hero of mine since I discovered him around the time of my re-version in 2004. Back then, I was a cradle Catholic who had become a Protestant pastor, and was being convinced (against my will!) of the truth of Catholicism. At first I thought that it would be possible to remain where I was, and simply attempt to educate Protestants about Catholic beliefs through my preaching and teaching. I didn’t think it was necessary for me to actually return to the Catholic Church – until I met Newman. He made me realize that it was not enough to recognize, and even promote to others, the veracity of the Catholic faith. I actually had to be in corporate union with the Church Jesus founded if I hoped to attain salvation, once I knew it to be the true Church. As Lumen Gentium 14 put it: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved”. That’s the dangerous thing about truth – once we recognize it, we are obliged to act on it. It’s something Newman knew full well.

So, how did I get to know Newman? By divine providence, I was at a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I visited the famous Eerdmans discount theological bookstore. It was there, of all places, that I found a book on Cardinal Newman by a Catholic priest, Stanley L. Jaki, called Newman’s Challenge. Reading about Newman’s courageous conversion gave me the strength I needed to return home myself. Fr. Jaki relates in the book that on the occasion of his reception into the Catholic Church, the most famous Anglican in the world wrote personal letters to several of his friends and family members, outlining his reasons for embracing the Church of Rome. Newman also spoke of why he couldn’t keep silent about what he had discovered:

Newman revealed the innermost recesses of his powerful mind by repeating that he was about to be received “into the One True Fold”. On October 9, 1845…he assured his own sister…that “if I thought that any other body than that which I recognize to be Catholic were to be recognized by the Saviour of the world, I would not have left that body”. Five days later he wrote to her that it would have been a betrayal of Truth (writ large) had he kept from others his most considered conviction that the Church of Rome was the Catholic Church. He told her that he could not live with a conscience guilty of dissimulation, with the guilt that he had deprived others of the Truth: “What a doom would have been mine, if I had kept the Truth a secret in my bosom, and when I knew which the One Church was, and which was not part of the One Church, I had suffered friends and strangers to die in an ignorance from which I might have relieved them.” He knew which was the pain to be dreaded more: the temporal pain he would feel because he had to pain others, or the eternal pain he would eventually suffer by choosing not to pain them and thereby not to inspire others to convert as he did (Newman’s Challenge, p. 81).

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On the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

One of the optional Gospel readings for today’s feast comes from the Fourth Gospel – John 19:25-27:

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother.”
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

In the Gospel accounts of the Passion, Jesus only spoke seven times from the cross – and these were not throwaway comments. What was he doing on the cross? Accomplishing our salvation. And so, everything he said from the cross has to do with exactly that. We should pay close attention to his words. When Jesus entrusts his mother into John’ care, he’s not simply making domestic arrangements, but making a powerful point about life in God’s family, the Church: We can’t claim to have God as our Father, or Jesus as our divine elder brother, without having Mary as our mother.

Interpreters of John’s Gospel often point out that John, the son of Zebedee, although in all likelihood the author of this Gospel, never identifies himself by name in the book. Instead, he refers to himself as the “beloved disciple”, or “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. This is more than mere humility on John’s part; he is making a profound theological point: he (and his conduct) represents the model disciple of Jesus. It is John, who, unlike the others, doesn’t desert Jesus, remaining by the cross to comfort the Blessed Mother. And it is the “beloved’ disciple” who takes Mary into his home. Like him, all of us “beloved disciples” of our Lord must invite Mary into our “homes” – our very lives – and learn from her how to love Jesus more and more each day.

Postscript: For those of you in the GTA, my Bible study on The Gospel of John begins this Thursday! For more information, please email me using the “Contact” tab on this site.

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Pope Benedict on the Nativity of Mary

Today we celebrate the Nativity of our Blessed Mother, nine months after the Feast of her Immaculate Conception on December 8. There are only three persons whose births are celebrated with a liturgical feast in the Catholic Church: Jesus himself (of course), Mary, and John the Baptist.  Today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 1 about the genealogy  of Jesus can seem to some as exciting as reading through the local phone book. But Pope Benedict, preaching on a Marian pilgrimage to Austria on the Nativity of Mary back in 2007, sheds some light on the deeper meaning of this text:

The Gospel passage we have just heard broadens our view. It presents the history of Israel from Abraham onwards as a pilgrimage, which, with its ups and downs, its paths and detours, leads us finally to Christ. The genealogy with its light and dark figures, its successes and failures, shows us that God can write straight even on the crooked lines of our history. God allows us our freedom, and yet in our failures he can always find new paths for his love. God does not fail. Hence this genealogy is a guarantee of God’s faithfulness; a guarantee that God does not allow us to fall, and an invitation to direct our lives ever anew towards him, to walk ever anew towards Jesus Christ.

Making a pilgrimage means setting out in a particular direction, travelling towards a destination. This gives a beauty of its own even to the journey and to the effort involved. Among the pilgrims of Jesus’s genealogy there were many who forgot the goal and wanted to make themselves the goal. Again and again, though, the Lord called forth people whose longing for the goal drove them forward, people who directed their whole lives towards it. The awakening of the Christian faith, the dawning of the Church of Jesus Christ was made possible, because there were people in Israel whose hearts were searching – people who did not rest content with custom, but who looked further ahead, in search of something greater: Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph, the Twelve and many others. Because their hearts were expectant, they were able to recognize in Jesus the one whom God had sent, and thus they could become the beginning of his worldwide family. The Church of the Gentiles was made possible, because both in the Mediterranean area and in those parts of Asia to which the messengers of Jesus travelled, there were expectant people who were not satisfied by what everyone around them was doing and thinking, but who were seeking the star which could show them the way towards Truth itself, towards the living God.

A brief note on the icon, The Nativity of the Theotokos (Greek: “God-bearer”): you may notice that Mary’s crib resembles a temple. Fitting, for in carrying our Lord in utero years later, she was indeed a true temple, the living God existing within.

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The New Mass App “Registers” in the Papers Again!

The latest edition of the Catholic Register has a new story about how apps are impacting faith – and yours truly was cited in the article! Here’s the quote:

Cale Clarke, co-creator of The New Mass app, believes these faith apps are good for the future of the Church. “I think we have to use every means available to us in order to spread the Gospel…These apps are just a platform to reach people who otherwise might not be interested… We’ve got to take advantage of the means that we have.”

Read the rest here – and, no, that’s not me in the picture…that guy has some cool facial hair my wife would never allow me to grow, much to my chagrin.

Thanks again for all your support, guys!

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