The Process of Maturing

It seems natural to me that we detach from our parents as we grow into adulthood. It seems to me that God designed the human person to do just that. It also seems that the process of maturing is taking longer these days. Nor does it enjoy the success it once did.

It also seems natural for a child to move from saying, "I believe in God because my parents do," to saying, "I believe in God, because I do." And if that child is ever to become a mature Catholic of deep faith, that transition is also necessary. This always interests me: the human experience of moving from worshipping our parents to worshipping God.

I mean no disrespect by the expression, "worshipping our parents." I did it too. We all did. All children do. That's how God designed us. That's how life begins: we are formed by our parents. But when we begin to think for ourselves, we begin also to understand that our parents are not gods, and that they themselves are imperfect. Nor can they save us.

The emotional mourning that often accompanies the discovery of our parents' limitations, easily masked by the excuse to rebel, is made all the more painful these days by a cultural storm clamoring for our attention at every turn. Growing in the Faith is treacherous.

As a priest, acquainted with the hearts of so many parents, all I want for Christmas this year is for more young people to find some way to take hold of the Mystery, and there to find for themselves the God who formed us in our mothers' wombs when He gave us life in the first place. +