This is a true account of how God adopts us into the family of faith (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5) by way of a personal analogy. On the first day of my first parish assignment as a transitional deacon, I met a single foster mom who had adopted three very troubled older children. She told me their story:
The children were two brothers and a sister, 6, 9 and 11 years old, who over time had been in and out of literally hundreds of foster homes – spending a week here, a few days there, perhaps just an hour over yonder. Foster parents who lasted a full week with them were incomparably more patient than the rest, but then they too gave up. No one wanted them.
As you might imagine, these two brothers and their sister had become hardened cynics even at their young ages, and more familiar with the streets than with any "family." They were convinced that no one would love them, which had been proved to them time and again as so many doors were slammed behind them. Distrusting anyone, they became proficient in showing their worst behavior to everyone.
The single mother who now wanted to adopt these children had come to the parish to ask that they be baptized, which was also their desire. "You are a very strong, charitable woman to want to adopt children of this age," I told her, "since they would surely have been through so many miserable experiences of being rejected in foster homes."
This great woman of faith then recounted that her love for them was also expressed with a firm and consistent correction of them when needed. She said that the predictability gave them a sense of security. They had now been living with her for six months. She hadn't thrown them out on the street.
She told me that the first three months with them seemed scripted by hell. The children showed their worst – breaking the windows, breaking the dishes, taking razors to the carpets and furniture and curtains, and destroying everything they could. They nearly succeeded in burning down her house five times.
Three months into living there, for no particular reason, the children realized that this woman really did love them, that she wasn't going to throw them out on the street, even though they had done their best to show their worst. From that day onward, she told me, they were angels. They were eager to help, wanting to do the dishes, sweep the floor, wash the windows – whatever they could do to show their filial respect and love for her, who they now considered their mom.
Their cynicism had been answered with love. They now knew what it was to be in a family, perhaps for the first time in their lives. More than this, they wanted what this woman had: the faith lived within the family of faith. They couldn't get enough of what it means to be in a family, and in God's family.
This is a good lesson for us all: Always be there for the most vulnerable, and never compromise anyone for the sake of self-congratulatory expedience. The Lord will have this lesson put to the test even daily in our own lives, with others testing God-given faith and love, wanting to see that such faith and love is true within us when tried in this way and that. It's not that people want to be aggravating; it's that they want to be encouraged by seeing the strength of this faith and love in difficult circumstances. Haven't we ourselves done this? Cynicism is cured with the prompt mercy of steadfast friendship with Jesus. We have all had good people in our lives.
When our faith and love are tested, we will surely fail unless we realize that we ourselves have tested the Lord in our sin, showing our worst to Him. He has shown us firm, consistent correction and mercy, giving us a sense of security with the very wounds which we inflicted on His hands and feet and side, in His Heart. We are lost in cynicism until we have an attitude of humble thanksgiving, like that in which the three children of this woman learned to rejoice.
So what is the most awesome adoption story ever? That of the great Woman, clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet, crowned with 12 stars, and the Church who have adopted us, bringing us right into the family of faith with great joy.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Parish in Andrews.
As a little girl there were many times I could not fully comprehend the gravity and intricacies of a given situation. Youth and lack of experience kept me in the dark. However, in some instances I simply looked at my mother's response and seeing her sorrow, I became serious and sad. I may not have understood the complete reason for her tears, but watching her grieve brought pain to my heart and made me sympathetic to the troubling situation.
The Church gives us a similar opportunity to walk with our heavenly Mother under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows, with the feast day of Sept. 15. But no matter what time of the year, it is always good to ponder the spiritual martyrdom of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to learn from her example of suffering, to apply that example in bearing with our own crosses, and to become compassionate to the sufferings of our neighbors.
As Mother of the Redeemer, Mary possessed a unique role in the drama of mankind's salvation. Far from playing the part of a passive bystander, she experienced Christ's Passion in a way no saint ever could.
The prophet Simeon foretold Mary's spiritual martyrdom when he told her, "Your own soul will be pierced by a sword" (Luke 2:35). Traditionally, Catholic devotion honors seven distinct sorrows of our Lady: the Presentation in the Temple, the Flight into Egypt, the Loss of Jesus for Three Days, the Way to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the Descent from the Cross, and the Burial of Jesus.
While each sorrow played a valuable role in salvation history, each was fulfilled by the climax of Christ's death on the cross. Many of Jesus' acquaintances and friends ran from Calvary in fear, but St. John tells us that Mary stayed with her Son on the cross (John 19:25). She knew her place, and she held it firmly.
From this position near the cross of Christ, the Blessed Mother shows us specifically how to suffer. First, she remained next to Christ – not off in a corner wallowing in her own grief. Secondly, she stood; she did not swoon or make a scene. She courageously bore the crushing blow of watching her Son die in agony, and her tranquility flowed from a docile spirit. Her directive from the Annunciation reverberated in the consummation of her Son's sacrifice on Calvary, "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46).
St. Bernard explained Mary's spiritual and emotional anguish poignantly when he wrote, "Perhaps someone will say: 'Had she not known before that He would die? Undoubtedly. 'Did she not expect Him to rise again at once?' Surely. 'And still she grieved over her crucified Son?' Intensely. Who are you and what is the source of your wisdom that you are more surprised at the compassion of Mary than at the passion of Mary's Son? For if He could die in body, could she not die with Him in spirit? He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since His."
Why was her love unlike any other since Christ's love? St. Teresa of Avila once said that to be a woman means to love and to suffer, and St. Gianna Beretta Molla pointed out that a person "cannot love without suffering or suffer without loving." Mary was the perfect woman. Her capacity for loving was greater than any other person's, and her capacity for suffering reached beyond our comprehension.
However, hers was not a suffering of despair. Even in her pain, though, our Blessed Mother remained sensitive to those around her. Jesus told her to take John as her son (John 19:26). What sacrifice it must have been to offer her perfect Son in exchange for broken humanity! Yet, she wholeheartedly embraced all of us and intercedes for us daily.
In our spiritual lives there may be times, when in our weakness and helplessness, we struggle to carry our crosses. Maybe we fail to understand the depth of Christ's sufferings, or the sufferings of our neighbors. If we look to the sorrowful heart of Our Lady, though, she will enlarge the capacity and sympathy of our own hearts to love at all cost.
Sister Mary Raphael is a member of the Daughters of the Virgin Mother, a community dedicated to serving the spiritual and practical needs of the sacred priesthood and of seminarians in the Diocese of Charlotte.