Train Up a Child

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

April 13^th was a fairly inspirational day for me. I spend quite a bit of time on Facebook and other sites chatting with Catholics. Mostly I help them deal with how to respond to certain questions about the Faith from non-Catholics and sometimes their own queries as well. Both this article and the one that immediately preceded it, “Who Was That Masked Man?” came from some things that the Holy Spirit brought to my mind while either answering or just talking about general Catholic life.

As some of you who have read my personal story that compose the first 4 articles in my archive (here and here) know, I am a revert to the Church of some 4 years or so. I was a cradle Catholic and in my teens became an Evangelical Christian… eventually spending 40+ years in ministry of various forms. I was a teacher, preacher, pastor, evangelist and, most of all, an Apologetics writer and teacher. While some of what led to my reversion is detailed in those articles, recently I’ve been thinking about some aspects not dealt with in them. There were roots to my eventual return that I never realized were there. They were the anchors placed there in my childhood by our loving Father that He used one day to call me home.

The Rosary

As I mentioned a little bit in my other articles, my maternal Grandmother was a strong Catholic who prayed the Rosary every day. I was taught in Catholic School to pray it, but it was with Grandma Dykeman that I prayed it the most. When Grandma passed away in 1963, I didn’t really continue that on my own very much and as I moved away from the Church to agnosticism and eventually to Protestantism, not at all. But the seed was planted.

Later in life, I found that when I got in tricky situations and I was afraid I would pray the Hail Mary. Now, as an Evangelical Christian who didn’t believe in praying to Mary or the Saints, I couldn’t understand why doing so brought me peace… only that it did. These things played on my heart when the time came to take a new look at the Church some time later.

The Movies About the Saints of the Church

As I mentioned in another article (It Will Be Spectacular!), I grew up at a time when religious movies were a regular part of theater and television viewing and not the exception. “King of Kings”, “Ben Hur”, “The Ten Commandments” along with others that I mentioned there, all either came out in my childhood or were regular staples of TV movie programs. As I grew up and became an Evangelical Christian a couple of interesting things resulted from this.

My favorite movies of the genre were films about Saints and about Marian Appearances. “Saint Francis of Assisi” starring Bradford Dillman particularly interested me. “Song of Bernadette” and “Miracle at Fatima” were about two of the most famous appearances of Mama Mary and their effect upon all present. But two things confused me during that time. One was the emotional effect on me at every appearance in the film of the “Marian Apparition”. As an Evangelical Christian, I didn’t believe in the Assumption and Mary being anything other than another believer in Christ no different than you or me. So why did my heart leap every time that happened? The other aspect was how I felt about the saints involved. I loved them and honored them as servants of God and their passing in the films made me sad. What was that all about??

The Songs of the Faith

When I was a child, our parish was large enough that we had a real impact in the community. Now that’s not the case anymore. Annunciation School that I attended from Kindergarten through 6^th Grade is no longer open. The Church is still there, but not as well attended as it was back then. During my formative years, however, we made an impact there.

Processions are still very common here in the Philippines, but not so much in the States (that is changing however, thank you Lord!!). When I was young each May we had a procession to honor the Blessed Mother in my hometown of Ilion, NY. We would parade around the block with an image of Mama Mary going in front of us and sing songs. “Immaculate Mary”, “Bring Flowers the Fairest” and “Ave Maria” were the hymns most often used.

They were the chief anchors tying me to Mother Church and the source of some confusion on my part during my EC days. Every time I heard the songs they tugged at my heart. But why? They were about aspects of Mary that I no longer believed in. Mary as the Queen of Heaven?? Mary ever Virgin?? I didn’t believe any of those doctrines at the time and would have resisted them with the same fervor as our resident Protestants here on our site possess. So why did they affect me emotionally? Of course, what I know now is that, although my mind was away, my heart was still anchored to home. Eventually, the Father used them and the other things to draw me back home.

Conclusion

I share these things as an encouragement to Catholic parents and grandparents. Continue to plant those seeds of the Faith in the hearts of your young people and never cease to pray for them. The promise of God’s Word is that when they are old they won’t depart from it, not that they might not along the way from cradle to old age. Lord willing, they never will, but even if they do what you plant now will be the anchors like mine that will one day call them home to the True Church. God bless you in your ministry of the home.