Mother and daughter
The February 9 issue of The Tablet has a beautiful article by Carolyn Butler, daughter of the late novelist and journalist Angela Lambert. It describes the spiritual reconciliation that took place over the last months of her mother’s life as the daughter took care of the mother and they embarked upon conversations impossible before, especially since Carolyn converted to Catholicism. Upon her mother’s death, she found a long essay by her mother, never published, “My daughter the Roman Catholic,” which ended: “I believe that the Roman Catholic Church has repaired the harm done to her as a child and a teenager–much of it done by me. I believe that without it, she might have spent her life in the hands of shrinks or charlatans or worse. It believe it confers upon her an identity and even a kind of peace which this difficult, beautiful, forgiving child of mine otherwise might never have found.”
And there’s a lovely tribute to the enduring power of the Psalms. As her mother lay dying, Carolyn writes, “I began to read the Psalms to her, which I found painfully consoling. Those ancient voices reaching out across the centuries in their anguish and praise seemed to do justice to someone at the end of their life–and to me in my own extremis.”
Wonderful story and it confirms the need to have authentic representatives of Jesus to convey his message. We know that some Roman Catholic messngers do not do this. Thankfully, she found a genuine one.
Joe:
What a great post. Thanks.
Not to distract attention from what you wrote, but rather to alert people to more good writing on the subject of parent-child reconciliations, let me recommend two books. I’ll include brief blurbs about each one.
“Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son,” by Christopher Dickey, Newsweek’s Middle East regional editor. His father, novelist and poet James Dickey, was the author of “Deliverance” and the winner of a National Book Award. Boston Globe: “As unsentimental a father-son memoir as one can imagine. James Dickey may have died a broken man, but he fixed something important before he died. He was given a tremendous opportunity to get at least one thing right. By the evidence of this book, he succeeded, too.” N.Y. Times: “A father-son conflict worthy of the pen of Sophocles.”
“An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us,” by novelist James Carroll. His father was an Air Force general and the founding director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. N.Y. Times: “…[T]he book is about how Vietnam came between the author and God on the one hand and between the author and his father on the other. . . . [I]n writing this bleak, tortured confession Mr. Carroll finally achieves a degree of reconciliation. And in telling the story of the sundering he cuts to the bone of our troubled times.” Washington Post: “I cannot recall being more touched by a book about a real family since John Gunther’s ‘Death Be Not Proud.’”. Kirkus: “An ex-priest’s confessional attempt to make peace with his dead father. … and a memoir that may help put more demons to rest for others of the ’60s generation.”
Hello All,
This is indeed a wonderful post! It raises once again questions I’ve had and I would appreciate any answers participants here might have for me.
The woman I plan to marry converted to the Roman Catholic faith as an adult ten years ago. She seems to have had an experience quite similar to the experience of the daughter described in this post. Among other things her faith seems to have helped her heal her relationship with her parents, who did not treat her well when she was younger. She is also exceptionally faithful to the institutional Roman Catholic Church and is very happy to be so faithful. And her experience is typical of the adult converts I know. They all seem so happy and so loyal to the institutional Roman Catholic Church.
I on the other hand was raised in the Catholic Church from infancy. And forgive me for being so rude, but to plagiarize Winston Churchill, many times I think that the Roman Catholic Church is the worst of all the Christian churches, except for the other ones. And most of those I know who were cradle Catholics have even more negative attitudes towards the Roman Catholic Church. For example, when my Mom dies last year one of my brothers refused to attend the rosary in her memory the night before the funeral, so great is his antipathy towards the church of his childhood and early youth.
Do you think I am right in generalizing that cradle Catholics tend to have serious problems with the Catholic Church while adult converts tend to be well adjusted in the Catholic Church? And if this generalization is right, does this mean that the Catholic Church is a good church to join as an adult, but perhaps not as a child?