Not long before he died, I was complaining to my father I couldn’t persuade any of my kids to go to a Catholic college. I said I knew they were getting decent educations at the places they chose, but still, I was sure my plan was better than theirs. Half jokingly, half dead serious, I groaned, “How will they ever find a nice Catholic to marry?”
My father said, “Well, I found one at Brooklyn Public College!” He was half joking, half serious, too: the joke being that, when he met my mother, they were both about as far from Catholic as anyone could be.
They had both been raised as non-practicing Jews, met at college when they were both cutting class, got married in secret in a hurry, had a second public ceremony to appease the parents, dabbled in Buddhism, moved to a kibbutz in Israel, came home, briefly joined a cult, found the Lord, and then eventually became Catholic — my mother and older sister first, and my father and the rest of us a year later, when they had already been married for about 20 years. They ended up as a happy old married Catholic couple, but they certainly didn’t start that way.
I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage and God’s will and who belongs together and how and why marriages work… Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
Image by Darkmoon_Art from Pixabay
Two of my daughters found their future husbands in college and those two men then became Catholic. So who knows what will happen? Also, one daughter went to a very big public university and had a wonderful experience with the Catholic center there, however, she ended up marrying a Muslim man in Africa! Oldest daughter appears to be a non believer but her partner (a man) behaves in the most Christian way of almost anyone I’ve met. Hang on for the ride! For me it’s all about abandoning expectations.
This was lovely.
Oh my goodness, this passage…
“Let the sun shine on them. Let the rain fall on them. Let people take their leaps, and let the Holy Spirit do what he does when they land. It really is the only way.
At least that’s what I’m telling myself.”
You have no idea how apropos this was for my husband and I tonight. This! This is the Serenity Prayer for Parenting Young Adults!