A Parent’s Perspective If you were to believe some of our popular media, you could be convinced that Confirmation is just a mere rite of passage, a cultural or ceremonial ritual that marks the passage of childhood into adulthood. It’s often presented as a Sacrament involving a decision to embrace or choose the Catholic faith,…
A Parent’s Perspective The words “New year, new me” can ring a bit hollow for us and for our families if we know that so many resolutions and plans that we made in other years were quickly forgotten or abandoned. Left to ourselves, we human beings can often find life a struggle or, even if…
A Parent’s perspective My 11-year-old son has been asking me for ages “When are we getting the chocolate calendar?” For a small child the promise of a treat every day right up to Christmas seems very appealing. Even adults can see Advent as a time to stock up early on sweets and goodies, anticipate all…
A Parent’s Perspective A young woman I was talking to thought it would be difficult to ask her four friends, who are atheists, to accompany her into the church to light a candle. She’s Catholic, while they don’t believe in God; the presumption might be that such an invitation would be rejected. It’s a pretty…
A Parent’s Perspective I was suffering from laryngitis recently and needed to rest my voice for a few days to give my vocal cords a break. It was an unusual occurrence for me which I found quite challenging. In my family, we’re all very talkative and love to chat at length about every topic under the…
A Parent’s Perspective I’m definitely not the only mother who feels a bit sad and weepy at the prospect of a return to some semblance of pre-Covid normality. It’s not that I don’t relish a return to normal life but I’m really going to miss having my two eldest daughters at home all the time.…
A parent’s perspective How many of us have made the mistake of comparing our family and children with some other family down the road or someone else’s children? My own late mother did it, I’ve done it and I’d say most parents have engaged in comparisons at some stage or another. When I was young,…
A Parent’s Perspective I love the C.S. Lewis quote about friendship: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” In his book The Four Loves, he examines the four types of human love-affection, friendship (philia), romantic/sexual desire (eros) and charity/God’s…
A Parent’s Perspective I found an old book on the bookshelf recently that had been a present from my mother to my two eldest sons. In the inside of the publication, Yes! The Life of Blessed Josemaría for Young Readers, I discovered a lovely inscription. It said “To Adam and David, with love from Grandma…
A Parent’s Perspective One of my childhood Catholic children’s books, The Seven Deadly Sins, always attracted my interest with its dramatic depictions of errant children. There was Eileen who was envious, Clare the covetous and a range of other boys and girls who had failed in one area or another. I remember feeling a bit…