The words of a loving father
“All I can do is journey with my son in suffering”
The older I get and the more I experience being with people who truly take their roles as a father and mother seriously, the more humbled I am. I would think that if there is a royal road to becoming truly ‘holy’ and by that I mean truly more ‘human’, it is living out fully one’s marriage vows. I once read that parental love is the only love that moves towards separation, something that starts from birth and gets more pronounced as the child moves towards adulthood. This letting go I would think can be an arduous journey. The teenage year’s show how that is often played out; it can be quite a struggle for all involved.
Children move away from their parents, become individuals in their own right and I have no doubt that is a painful journey for both the mother and the father, who are capable of being loving and caring parents. No human being can be owned; we are all wild in our own way and can only be tamed by a love that is not manipulative. Fear and domination lead to entanglements that are detrimental to both parent and child. Or any relationship for that matter, for once jealousy or manipulation enters the picture it will disintegrate into something else that masquerades as love.
I was talking to a father one day who shared about his children. I could tell he was a good man, a Godly man who loved his children very much. His love for his children who were now adults was central to his life. Yet, he knew that they were not his anymore, yet he was still their father. As he talked I saw what a price parenting is, for it would seem that the real struggle can begin after the children grow up and the parents have to watch them make choices and get involved in situations that have serious consequences. Yet he had to allow them to do so and as he told me, “All I can do is journey with my son in suffering”. He had three children and I would think he did that with all of them, as well as did his wife.
I would think that because of that understanding of both he and his wife’s place in the lives of their children that they still had a good relationship with them. For they have both learned that they can’t be parents with their children the way it was before adulthood, but relate to their children as adults and actually as friends. For they communicate with their father on a deep level, because he knows what his role is now. To love, accompany, listen and yes to suffer. Perhaps the way we show love, or express it, is how much we are willing to suffer with them and for them. Love does have its price.
I believe that Jesus tried to express the profundity of the Father’s love by using the metaphor of ‘Father’ in the story of the ‘Prodigal Son’. The father was actually very maternal towards his wayward child. Waiting every day for his return and when he came, running up and embracing him. When I was speaking to the father, I did relate that as he aged, he was in his mid-50’s; that his heart was becoming more maternal, instead of paternal. Though of course, they are similar in any case, yet one is more nurturing than the other.
Being a monk is something that I love, yet, I have not experienced the joy or the pain that comes with parenthood. Marriage is a holy union, showing us the relationship that Christ has with his church. One that is intimate, passionate, loving and long-suffering, for I believe that a loving father and mother are revelation of God’s love for us, though in a limited way, yet it can open the door to an ever expanding relationship both with God and other human beings when we experience the true love that comes from parenthood.
When the idea of marriage is lost as a commitment that is grounded in Christ Jesus (for Christians of course), then something deep is lost, both for the parents as well as for the children and it has a destructive effect on society. One of the things lost in the so-called sexual revolution is the sense that the sexual act is something holy, healing and based on a deep commitment to the other. It is not a form of play and frolicking with no sense of real commitment. For what comes out of the sexual act is more life that must be nurtured and loved, guided and allowed to grow apart.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
