… would not be beautiful enough …
In the past few days I had an experience that I want to verify with you, and I also want to ask you a question. My father got sick, apparently with the flu, then as the days went by, strange, worrisome symptoms appeared, to the point that on Saturday I booked a flight and hurried to go and spend Sunday and Monday giving my sister a hand. I left with three wishes. The first was to convince my father to go to the hospital. (We had already advised him to go, but he did not want to.) The second was to convince him to hire somebody, at least while he was sick, to help my mother who is not very self-sufficient. (This was also something we had proposed to him, but he had said no.) The third desire, great and hidden, was to invite him to make peace with Jesus, because he has not had a relationship with Him for the longest time, at least not in the form of an adhesion to the Church. When I was at my parents’ house I took my chance: “I came to tell you three things,” and I told him all three of them. He answered no to my first request (but I understood right away that it was a matter of waiting a bit, being patient, and I would win that point). He accepted the second. The third was a bit like giving birth, because it was actually the first time I was revealing to him this secret desire of my heart. I don’t know if it is a heresy, but I think that even Heaven without that hard-headed man who is my father would not be beautiful enough, neither for me nor for my mother and my sisters. He asked me to explain myself better, and I said, “Allow others to pray for you, maybe agree to meet with a priest, to go to Confession,” and he answered me with a maybe. I also added that it was what I cared about the most, and I stopped right there; then I went in a hidden corner and I cried, for the time being happy that I had talked to him, and praying to the Lord to embrace him ever more strongly. During the day I realized that he was very sick; he needed to go to the hospital right away, and so I went to him and told him he had to go, no discussion. As I was doing this I understood one thing: my three desires were not different. Agreeing to go to the hospital, that is, to stay in front of reality, was the first way to make peace with Jesus. The judgment is that saying yes to Jesus and saying yes to the circumstances is the same thing. If my dad had said, “Yes, I am going to Confession,” and then he had refused to take care of himself… I wanted to ask you if this judgment is true. My question is, is it human to say, “Make peace with Christ because you love me,” that is, “I will not be happy if you do not make peace with Him,” which is the same thing I told him, “Let yourself be cared for because you love me, and I will not be happy if you don’t let people take care of you”?
Julian Carron: The attempt in itself is not evil. The point is that it has to pass through your father’s freedom. The question is, what did you witness to him, what move did you make to make the issue easier? This is the question. (Carron School of Community Nov 3, 2010)