Why Being a Parent Helps You Understand Catholicism

I watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ last night. I know some people may think this was a very unwise decision, while some people may get it. For me, it was a way of entering into my faith, especially Our Lady’s experience of suffering through every single step of her Son’s Passion. It was a way of gaining perspective on my own suffering and wanting to strengthen my belief that one day, I have a chance of seeing Lizzy again.

My rosary today was particularly thoughtful and heartbreaking, and I intentionally said the Sorrowful Mysteries to meditate on what I had just seen. The thing about prayer is that it brings you to places of self-reflection and understanding that you otherwise might not get to. And I realized today that there is a very concrete way in which becoming or being a parent makes Catholicism just click.

I have known from the time Lizzy entered the hospital that, without question, if I had any real suspicion, knowledge, or guarantee that I could bring Lizzy back by undertaking her suffering or by dying myself, I would do it in a heartbeat. And I thought of that again today, that if my suffering and death could in any way prevent her death or restore her life, or alternately to guarantee the life, freedom, and joy of both Lizzy and Cecilia, then I know that without hesitation or doubt, I would undertake that suffering and I would die at the end of it.

And I thought about the concept of God as Father–Abba, Jesus calls Him, which literally translates to “Daddy” or “Papa” in Aramaic. This was one of many blasphemies to the Jews, as the name of God in Jewish tradition is so sacred that it is literally unspeakable and unpronounceable. Yahweh, as He is known, reveals Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO AM” or “I AM THAT AM”–that is, the foundation of being itself. The Hebrew is ehyeh-asher-ehyeh and is represented by the four Hebrew letters Yod, Hey, Vav, and Hey, or YHVH, which, through multiple language translations sometimes becomes Yahweh (although there is no “w” sound in Hebrew). It is referred to in biblical scholasticism as the “Tetragrammaton,” which means “the four letters.” Jewish tradition most often holds that you substitute Adonai (Hebrew for “Lord”) when reading the Tanakh.

But the salient point here is that God, for the Hebrews, was so far beyond human conception and understanding that He completely transcended language. He is ineffable, unimaginable, sacred beyond speech. Jesus, a Jew himself, simultaneously acknowledges this reality of God while radically challenging (and seemingly contradicting it) by claiming that God is instead (or also) “Father” first and foremost in how He relates to us. He is so much Father that Jesus, His Son, can call Him Abba. You can see why the Jews were so upset at this.

Christianity is first and foremost about becoming “sons through the Son.” It loudly and fearlessly proclaims us as children of God. And this critical notion–that we are children of God–is one that has always resonated deeply with me. After all, reason supports this. When I taught high school theology, I used to say that God had three options in what He could create: 1) slaves, 2) robots, or 3) children. That is, He could have forced us to love Him, programmed us to love Him, or allowed us to choose to love Him. In the end, there is only one choice; for love to be love, it must be free.

If God is Father, then God is a parent. Thus, God becomes understandable in a twofold way; 1) from the perspective of a child and 2) from the perspective of a parent. And that is where I found myself today, strung out and teetering between these two perspectives. I thought of the excruciating and interminable length of the 12-18 hours during which Jesus suffered, and I thought about what it must be like to endure that level of physical suffering. Since I am a mother, I mentally defaulted to what it’s like to give birth without medication and how the seconds seem to stretch out like eternity, the pain is so severe. And yet that pain is as nothing to the physical torment that Christ endured. And I thought about what would cause me to willingly undertake such pain. And, without blinking, the answer came: if it could bring Lizzy back.

And with a rush of profound understanding, I came to the realization that only such love–the love of a parent–could cause a human being to willingly enter into such indescribable suffering. Arguably, love itself is the reason, whether it be love of an ideal, a spouse, or a child–love is the reason we, as humans, will endure suffering. But there is something different about a parent’s love and about the length to which a parent will go to prevent his or her child from encountering pain. There is something so ringingly obvious about understanding God as parent–God as Father–that helps us believe in the story of Jesus, which so many of us feel to be the Greatest Story Ever Told.

In Jesus, we have God become human, Father become Son, through whom all men and women become children again, healing the rift begun by Adam and Eve at the beginning of time. Jesus the person is Son first–yes–but He is also the fullness of God, inseparable and incomprehensible except in conjunction with the Father and the Spirit. Trinitarian theology can get very complicated very fast, but the essence of the matter is this:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

– John 3:16

And this:

“Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

– Philippians 2:5-8

This is where the wonder of God breaks apart your mind. We are children, and God would do anything for us, so God becomes human to die for us to save us from ourselves. But God is also willing to sacrifice His only begotten Son (who is an inextricable part of Himself) for the hope of the salvation of all of His creatures. God the Son originates within God the Father. God the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; there has never been a time when the Father was without the Son, because the Father has always been Father and the Son has always been Son. The Spirit, very simply, is the eternal love between Father and Son. The Spirit is literally love personified. This is where we stop being able to understand. Because I, though first a child and then a parent, am still only human and my brain simply folds in on itself, trying to contemplate Father within Son, mystery within mystery, and love within love.

There is no greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

But the truth stays with me. If someone asked me tomorrow: “What would you die for?” my answer would be: “I would die for my daughters.” Similarly: “What is worth your life?” My daughters.

I see this as an infinitesimal glimpse into the mind and heart of God. For just a second, I can sit with this feeling, and understand–just a little bit–what could have convinced Jesus to die for us. To die for us without uttering a single word in protest. To die for us while forgiving the people hammering nails into his flesh and driving thorns into his skull.

But the willingness to die for another is not a feeling reserved only for parents. I know this because both of my sisters told me afterwards that they independently tried to bargain with God to take their lives instead of Lizzy’s. My older sister is a mother, but my younger sister isn’t. And not being a parent didn’t stop her from feeling that if she could have given her life to spare Lizzy’s, she would have.

For it is love, you see, that is at the very heart of this. Being a parent wakens us to the stark reality that there are people more important than our own lives. People so infinitely worth the sacrifice that you don’t need to think or blink before offering yourself.

Lizzy was one of those people.