5 Things I Learned About Loving My Parents As an ACOD During Lent
Maria auf der Mondsichel - Bamberg State Library, Germany - CC BY-SA.
On a crisp Tuesday morning, I groggily turned on one of my favorite Catholic podcasts while searching for the missing piece of my Lent. I had my fasts, prayer plan, and almsgiving planned out, but it felt like the Lord was calling me to something more. My prayers up until that point had not revealed what He wanted and Ash Wednesday was tomorrow! Suddenly, the host started talking about how we should choose to love someone better for Lent. That’s when it dawned on me.
“How about you try loving your parents better,” Jesus asked as I focused my eyes on the road. I pretended not to hear Him in my head, but His voice got louder. And suddenly, it was not even 9 AM yet and I was screaming in my car asking God why He would ask this of me. Surely, there was someone else I could love better, not the two people whose dissolved marriage took so much from me. But, the day continued. I knew I was at a place in my healing journey where I was capable of doing this despite dragging my feet. Frankly, it would be easier for me to write about how much they have hurt me.
However, the whole point of Lent is to do things that bring us closer to the heart of Jesus. And, if I want to be free to love someone in the vocation of marriage one day, how will I be able to do that if I am still carrying around resentful anger towards my parents? Do they deserve this reaction? Probably, but God loves them just the same as He loves me. So I embarked on a forty plus day journey of loving my parents through the eyes of Jesus Christ, whose love was so big that He died on the Cross for sins that He did not commit (cf CCC 598).
Here are five takeaways from the Easter present I gave both of my parents:
Love covers a multitude of sin
When I first told my therapist about my plan for Lent, I said I was going to use Good Friday to write down a list of how much they have hurt me to go along with the kind things I was writing about their impact in my life. Surely, that list would be easier to write and quite cathartic. The plan was to then burn the list to show that the things of death do not win against the Eternal Life that God promises us.
However, Good Friday did not go the way I thought it would. As I got through almost half of my grievances/wounds/trauma from each parent, I stopped. Not because I could not remember anything else, but because it suddenly dawned on me that their sins paled in comparison to the love that I had for them: because the love I had for them came from above. That love quite literally had the power to overcome a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).
It’s okay - and can be deeply healing - to take to the Lord the specific ways that others have hurt us, going with Jesus into that grief and pain. We should always seek repentance for our sins because our sins can severely wound others. For me, on that Good Friday, it was beautiful to have a tangible reminder that where sin runs deep, God’s Love is always more (cf CCC 218-221).
2. His mercy is sweeter
Divine Mercy Sunday is one of my favorite days of the liturgical calendar, probably because I am incredibly drawn to the idea that someone as flawed as me is so abundantly loved by a perfect God. One of the things that I learned while putting together my Easter gift for each parent is that God loves both of them as much as He loves me. Where they fall short, the Lord understands and chooses not to immediately judge them because He knows their hearts best, loves them and always offers his mercy, desiring their full conversion, as he does for us.
In John 20, when the resurrected Jesus makes an appearance to the disciples, all but one who had turned their backs on Him during His darkest hour, He says, “Peace be with you” three times to reinforce that He has forgiven them and that He loves them. This is true not because they deserve it, but because His mercy for them is sweeter than the bitterness of being left to die alone on the Cross without His friends.
Whether or not we like it, we are called to love as Jesus did. We are called to release people who have hurt us from their “debts” toward us, even if they never say sorry or ask to be forgiven. A priest in Confession once told me to pray in imitation of Christ on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Forgiving my parents will be well worth it because His mercy is always sweeter.
3. Though I cannot save or change my parents, I can choose to love them
A common theme I see amongst ACODs is feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders. Depending on the dynamic of our family, some of us feel the pressure of being the savior of our families. I have learned that it is not my responsibility to save my family, and that I should not be guilty of having human reactions to some of the things they have done. You are not the savior of your family: Jesus is.
However, even though I am not the savior of my family, I can choose to love them. In Scripture, we see stories all the time about how someone’s love for another person can ensure that Jesus gets to them. One such story is the story of the paralytic in Mark 2. We see a man who had four friends who broke a roof to get him to Jesus. Praying for my parents and letting them know that God loves them is what God calls me to do in this life. I am not responsible for their feelings, as my therapist always says, but I am called to love as Jesus did.
4. Love that is given is never wasted
One of my favorite quotes is attributed to C.S. Lewis which says, “Love is never wasted for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.” Sometimes the people in our lives can make us feel like we have to earn their love and it makes us think that anytime we give love, it has to be given back to us. While reciprocity is important in relationships, therapy has made me realize that there are many people in my life who do love me, but lack the skills to be able to love me in the way that I need. But you know who does love me perfectly? God.
I am lucky enough that the Christ-centered friendships I have speak life into me because each person who loves me is a reflection of the perfect Love that Christ has for me. Once I realized that Love ultimately comes from above, I stopped being obsessed with being loved back by everyone. Jesus’ Love from above is what has the power to heal us. So it is possible to find healing, even if the people around us are not completely healed. Who knew?
The love that we give to others is never wasted because the Lord takes the love that we extend to others, doubles it and gives it back to us. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain when we choose to lead with love and light in our earthly lives.
5. On this side of Heaven, mini-resurrection is possible
Last spring, I met with Fr. John Baptist Hoang to get specific advice from a priest who is also an ACOD. In our conversation, he talked about how we are called to mini-resurrections in our earthly lives and that this can apply to how I feel about my parents in the present. At the time, I did not quite understand what he was talking about (as all great stories start, see John 13:7), but after nearly two years of therapy and experiencing healing in my relationships with others, I have realized that my story does not end on my personal Good Friday (when my parents split up).
If I am called to the vocation of marriage, that is another way that the Lord will seek to heal me: through the person I choose to be with until death. Even now, as a single woman, I am constantly seeing how resurrection from some of the worst days of my life is possible. 2023 was the best year of my life because God answered years worth of prayers. There finally seemed some relief to the depression that plagued me for the last six years. I never thought I could ever be as happy as I was before my parents split up, but that year surpasses any joy and happiness I had ever felt in my life. We do not have to wait until Heaven to experience little tastes of Heaven in our earthly lives.
As I continue to walk with the Lord, I open my heart to be able to receive the good gifts that He has in store for me, trusting that life is constantly full of mini-resurrections until it is time for me to experience resurrection in the next life.
While my relationship with my earthly parents is far from perfect, this experience has shown me that where my earthly parents fall short, my Heavenly parents (God the Father, Mary and Saint Joseph) are here to fill in the missing gaps. Eventually, my hope is to experience union with someone on Earth in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and to have a second chance at having a complete and whole family that is rooted in Christ and the Holy Family.
Intercessory Prayer
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,
you have given the world its true light,
Jesus, your Son – the Son of God.
You abandoned yourself completely
to God's call
and thus became a wellspring
of the goodness which flows forth from him.
Show us Jesus. Lead us to him.
Teach us to know and love him,
so that we too can become
capable of true love
and be fountains of living water
in the midst of a thirsting world.”
(The above prayer can be found at the end of the encyclical Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI.)
About the Author
Patricia Valderrama hails from the big state of Texas with a degree in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (hook 'em horns). When she was a freshman in college, she started her own personal blog, All Things Patricia. It has since grown as a way for her to connect with others and share the Catholic faith from the perspective of a college student and now a young professional. She often calls herself the "biggest liturgical year B fan" and when she's not working, she's planning her next trip. She credits the friendships she made in college as the anchor for her growing deeper in her faith, especially their emphasis on the Holy Hour/Eucharistic Adoration.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
Have you taken active steps to love your parents? If so, what are they? If not, what steps could you imagine taking?
What is a moment when you have experienced a mini-resurrection?
How does this article make you think about your own healing journey?
If you were to give an Easter gift to your parents, with this article in mind, what would you include?