Family Gatherings

     I’m the lone Catholic in a family otherwise composed of secularized Jews. My wife, her daughters, and all her other relatives have left faith entirely behind. That’s not all: a hefty fraction of those relatives – though not my wife, thanks be to God – hold all religions, including mine, in contempt, and take delight in showing it.

     I, too, was secular when we married, decades ago. Though I was raised Catholic, I fell away as a young adult. I returned to the Faith only after my wife and I had been together for a number of years.

     You can imagine the stresses that have accumulated since that momentous decision.

     I don’t know if it would be better or worse were my wife and in-laws Christians of some other denomination. I know tensions exist between Catholics and some of the Protestant sects. Somehow I doubt they’re quite as intense as these

     I bear some of the blame for it. At least, that’s what my in-laws would say. I reproved them for cracking anti-Catholic jokes at a Thanksgiving dinner under my roof. The resulting rift has never been bridged. I have no idea how to go about it...or whether I should try.

     The consequences include family gatherings: we don’t have any. As my family is entirely deceased, it makes holidays something of a strain.

     But faith, like everything else worth having, bears a price. That price varies from one person to the next. Like all good things, either you pay the price, or you do without.

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     The Sunday Mass I attend is populated mainly by older persons – don’t get the wrong idea; I’m an older person too – and they tend to come and go in twos: husband and wife. But there are always a few younger congregants who come and go alone. This morning I found myself thinking about those others, whether they’re isolated as am I, and if so, how they cope.

     Family can be a source of sustenance and comfort, but religious tensions can turn it into a battlefield. The wounds can be especially painful when one is among families not riven by such divisions. It’s a terrible irony that that should be the case at Mass.

     This morning I pray for the comfort of all such isolated Catholics, but especially for the younger ones: the young adults who have embraced the Faith and have found that part of the price is the astonishment, the cynicism, and perhaps the open derision of those who share their blood. Theirs is a hard road to travel, much harder than mine, for I am inured to it. I pray that He who spilled His blood for our sakes will grant them the grace they need to remain strong, especially in remaining staunch before the urgings of the secular world.