By Patrick B. Craine
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, December 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This Christmas is certain to be the most special I have had. My wife and I, married in the summer of 2008, were overjoyed to welcome our first on April 15th – Noah, our little “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). While last year was my first Christmas as a father, this year will be the first I can truly share with my son.
Since becoming parents, my wife and I have remarked often how the transition into marriage, while a major life change, pales in comparison with the transition to parenthood. Entering the sacramental union of marriage vastly transforms a relationship, in both deep and, perhaps, superficial ways, but we've come to see that a couple cannot begin to realize the full depth of their new relationship until their love bears fruit. Then the total self-gift made in marriage is demanded of you, whether you like it or not.
Suddenly, nothing is your own. Prayer, study, recreation, eating times, everything, is at the mercy of this little guy who depends on you for everything, and won't hesitate to remind you. As a father, I am much more accountable and it has become very clear, in concrete ways, that my actions have consequences.
If I stay up late, it doesn't mean Noah will be sleeping in, and so it's likely he'll have a tired father the next day. Looking around at my cluttered home, I'm painfully aware that my untidiness prevents our baby from roaming about on the floor as he'd like.
These are perhaps more outward examples, but clearly my habits also have direct moral consequences for Noah, as my wife and I are his principal educators, charged especially with teaching him virtue and saintliness. But how am I to teach my son saintliness if I have not yet become a saint myself? Becoming a parent has shown me how weak and sinful I am, but also inspires me to greater virtue.
My weaknesses, failings, and vices have become even more obvious to me as I've written for LifeSiteNews these last seven months, faced daily with the enormity of the world's evils. As I am immersed in these daily threats to life and family, I find in them the actualization of the same sinfulness that debilitates me, the same sin that prevents me from being the father I need to be.
I must find in the immense evils I encounter a reminder of the real ugliness and inherent danger that my own sins represent – I must see ever more clearly how I have succumbed to the culture of death, even if only in subtle ways. While I do profess the inherent dignity of each and every person, I too frequently write people off if they don't share my beliefs or values. While I insist on the importance and value of the family, I too easily forget fully to appreciate my own.
By showing me more and more clearly the logical and dangerous outcomes of my own sinful practices and attitudes, my work with LifeSite has convicted me of the need to be a better husband, a better father, a better man. I can't control the future of our society, or how our nation's children are raised, but I can reform myself, and I can control, to a large extent, the future of my own family and how I raise my children.
While I cannot conquer the world's problems on my own, at this time of year I am reminded of the importance of my simple call to bring the light of Christ to my small sphere of influence. At Christmas time we celebrate the coming of God as a little baby, born of a poor family, in a meagre stable, reminding us that God accomplishes the greatest of works through the simplest of means. Any effort, no matter how small or unworthy, takes on cosmic significance when offered for the Lord.