A number of Catholic commentators on the web are talking about why they love their gay or lesbian or transgendered son or daughter, as if somehow they need to prove that such inclinations make them any less a son or daughter, or any less worthy of the love of a mother or father. In the past ten years, my twenty-nine year old son has gone from being a high-school senior with an avid interest in the work of Thomas Aquinas, to being an avowed atheist. I barely have the slightest idea what has gone through his head in that time (okay, I have some idea, and at least one priest of our mutual acquaintance probably has some explaining to do come the hour of judgment), and he has made no great effort to adequately explain it. And yet, he is my son, my own flesh and blood, and I love him more than I love my own life. Occasionally I will make a remark about his choice. Youre an idiot, you know that, dont you? And so it begins. He thinks he wins most of our arguments just because I do not always have an answer for him. Most of the time I have questions, questions that he cannot quite answer. That is not a sign that he is winning anything, so much as leaving it unfinished. I never hesitate to explain some things to him as though the Faith has never left him (as it was a gift, and never forced on him), and I remember from time to time (not often enough, perhaps) to storm heaven with prayers for his re-conversion. I know that he will eventually, because he is a very smart and astute young man, has at least some spark of virtue from within his heart, and that, eventually, he will grow tired of being an idiot, and realize that there is more to this life than … this life (not to mention impressing his desperately hip friends). It is out of my hands, and in those of the Almighty. I have faith, that *he* will have faith. Why do I love my atheist son? Because he is my son. What the hell else do people expect me to say?
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:43:08 +0000
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