My dear parishioners, more and more people comment that America has become a nation of children in grown-up bodies. We watch children grow, but we don't see them grow up. Instead of maturing over the years as a child at heart, many sons and daughters languish in childishness long into their adult years.

Over-ripe children message by words and behavior, my parents will cave in, they will support me, they’ll rescue me, they have to love me. But deep in your hearts, you young people know this doesn't work as a way of life. Deep down, you don't admire indecisive, vacillating parents doing your life’s work. You don't want to be young but dependent, confined in assisted living in the very house you grew up in. You don't want suffocating pity and deference. You want your parents to be parents, boundaries to be boundaries. You may push your parents, but there must be something to push against. Rock-solid values. Family and community responsibility. Unselfish sensitivity and commitment to the good of others.
 
The human faculty of choosing is not validated by being self-referential. Personal freedom oriented to selfish desires leads a human being straight to corruption and predation. American individualism certainly is not a closed value. It too can be twisted to justify almost anything. You parents get tired of pushing against or upsetting your kids. This is true and totally understandable. Yet deep down, you beg God with inexpressible love to watch over your dear children and protect them always. You celebrate every word and action giving evidence that your children intend to become real adults not children in grown-up bodies.
 
Holy Mother Church offers a very important teaching regarding disappointment and failure. God triumphs over evil by helping us to draw a greater good out of it than would have existed in the first place. Contemplate our Lord’s glorious resurrection! For our part, we have to face life honestly and responsibly not surrendering to the word of the world. Our Catholic religion speaks clearly. You can’t live life as if evil doesn’t exist. You have no power to grant rights and privileges to evil . You may never do evil intending that good will come from it.
 
Often what you have to face is a personal choice, a hard and complex choice, saturated with courage or cowardice on all levels. You may doubt yourself or the outcome of a personal crisis, even for a time hating the sound of your own name on other people’s lips. Almost always, however, the terrible predictions that haunt your imagination never come true. In fact, the first step to confronting a challenge with unfailing resolution is to ask our good God for the very first grace!  [St. Therese of Lisieux] 
 
You may show great courage and still be afraid. In fact, to be afraid is not necessarily a bad thing. Fear, perceived wisely, can summon a fountain of wisdom. The truth is that all human beings have experienced the same things as you have at one time or another, in slow ways or fast ways, fear, uncertainty, anxiety. Of course mindless rules and the threat of punishment cannot guide effectively the lives of either children or adults. Neither can benign neglect cloaked by a banner of love suffice. Both children and adults alike want mutual love, mutual self-respect and good order in their lives. St. Augustine’s “love and do what you will” is the hallmark of spiritual and temporal maturity not elitist promiscuity. First pray, Lord I take ownership of my entire life and second, I give you back Lord all that you have given me.
 
The greatest gift that you as husband and wife can give to your children is to show your love for one another. Your family should witness throughout your lives the living and loving intimacy you have for one another and for God. If you truly want your family to be blessed and embraced by God, you will have to help and teach them spiritually throughout their lives. Often, it will not be easy to build up a habit of firm spiritual parenting. Or maintain it. It means that you must be spiritual yourself. You must learn who Jesus Christ is through the Holy Spirit’s fire blazing in your own hearts. You must teach who Jesus Christ is. The rest will be in the hands of God in whom all good things are possible. Sincerely in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Your pastor, Reverend Richard Barker.