Sam didn't know how to react. His eldest son, Peter, whom he loved dearly, had just told him that he and his wife, Jane, were going to have a baby. Peter went on to say, "Dad, would you help me tell Mom that we're not going to have our child baptized? The Church just doesn't mean as much to Jane and I as it does to you and Mom."

Your reaction to your child's decision is going to vary depending on the situation. The following is meant to help you sort out some of your feelings, thoughts and actions.

Whether your child is a High School Student, a College Student living at home, or a grown child living his or her own life, the realization they have turned away from their church is a cause for grief. It is a loss which you experience as a parent. If your child was in a car accident and broke their back, you would grieve. They would have lost something precious: their health. In a similar way, one who has "given up on the church" has lost something precious and so you grieve.

Grief is the process of trying to put one's life back together in the face of loss. It is important to identify the common feelings associated with the grieving process. These are: anger, guilt, sadness, bargaining, resignation, acceptance. To name how one feels does not take away the pain, but it makes dealing with loss more manageable.

When children turn away from the practice of their religion, parents grieve. In one respect, grief is like the incoming waves of the ocean which pile up one on another. When a person grieves a particular loss, one also grieves past losses and potential future losses. If one is grieving it helps to name past and future losses one also might be thinking about.

It's also important to remember there is a difference between Faith and Religion.

Faith is a way of seeing life (understanding and trusting life), celebrating that life and living accordingly. Religion is the concrete way one expresses what is seen, celebrated and lived. When a person says, "I'm not religious", they usually mean they don't express their faith in the way that one who belongs to a Church would.

But everyone is religious in the sense that they struggle to answer the ultimate questions of life. Clifford Geertz, a cultural anthropologist, concludes that every society, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to modern day societies, try to explain the meaning of life by answering the following six questions:

• Does Life really triumph over the grave or is the grave the end?
  
  
• Will Good finally overcome Evil or Evil overcome Good?
  
  
• Can people ever find a way to live in Peace with one another?
  
  
• Why do terrible things happen to cause such suffering?
  
  
• Is our life determined simply by random chance or is there some purpose and meaning to it at all?
  
  
• Can we make contact with the Ultimate Force in the universe?
  
  

For instance, we all experience the conflict between Good and Evil, but which will triumph? Secular society gives us Batman (a symbol of Good) triumphing over the Joker (a symbol of Evil).But Batman is fiction and our own experience of Good triumphing over Evil is, more often than not, rather transitory. When confronted with the conflict between Good and Evil, we struggle to decide what we really believe.

Each one must struggle with answering these six basic questions. Everyone is religious or spiritual in the sense that they develop an answer to these questions. The answer can be more or less explicit. Formal and explicit answers shape the nature of one's religion.

Depending on the answers given, a person also knows what kind of God he or she believes in, for the word GOD is shorthand for the ULTIMATE.

Faith governs one's relationship to God, people and the world. At its deepest level, faith (the ability to see life in a certain way), is a gift from God. It is also a virtue that grows and develops in a person's heart. In this sense it is nurtured by others. James Fowler says that the stages of Faith Development are:

Religion is the formal expression, in word and action, of a person's Faith. Religion helps a person express their way of understanding life through celebration and guidance in living life. Thus religion consists of a specific

CREED - what is believed, a

CULT - how life is celebrated, and a

CODE - a guide for living life.

A person who stops practicing their religion might be in a transition stage with regard to their faith development, or they may be a person of deep faith and great spirituality but feel and think that practicing the Catholic Religion no longer makes sense or supports their Faith.

Very few people choose to abandon the religion of their heritage based on a philosophical basis. Most often a person makes a choice to leave the religion of their childhood and join another church or stop practicing all together for one of four major reasons:

1. They have found a Church which satisfies their spiritual needs or to which they feel they belong in a intimate way.
   
   
2. They found a Church which provides greater clarity about how to live, usually a Church which interprets the Bible in a more literal or fundamental way.
   
   
3. They choose to live a lifestyle which is in conflict with the Church's moral guidelines.
   
   
4. They have been hurt in some way - by Life or a Church representative.
   
   

Whatever the reason for your child's leaving the Church, it is important that you understand them. It is unlikely that either an emotional approach or a logical approach will convince your child to return. What is important is an acknowledgment of their perspective or the value that they are pointing to along with an affirmation that the Catholic Church has much more to offer them if they would care to take a second look.

Children from homes in which Religion is a dominant force or in which it is taken casually, often abandon the practice of their religion when they grow up. Excessive zeal as well as a careless approach to religion "turn off" a child and cause a reaction of rejection.

If you recognize these or other family-rooted causes for your son's or daughter's falling away do not continue to reproach yourself. Remember this is only part of the cause. You are not responsible for your children's decisions.

We usually don't think of failure as a gift. It can be. It's helpful to remember that Jesus Christ was a failure. One of his disciples betrayed him, the rest deserted him. He died as a criminal. Yet because he trusted totally in God, he rose in glory.

Failure can turn us toward God in a way that nothing else can. When we are empty, God can fill us, but we must open our lives and our hearts to God. If you feel that you have failed in raising your child, entrust both yourself and your child to God and you will experience a peace that no one can take from you.

Part of growing up is making one's own the values one experienced as a youth. Sometimes a child will distance himself or herself from those values for a time before accepting them as their own. Whatever the reason for your child's ceasing to practice their religion, it is important to treat them as an adult not a child. A healthy relationship between parent and an adult child is not based on dependency, flattery, fear or guilt. Rather be understanding and tolerant of your grown child as you would an adult friend or neighbor with similar views.

You are called to be a witness of the Good News of Jesus Christ by what you say and do. Share your faith, your deepest values, and practice your religion in a consistent manner.

When your son or daughter ceases to practice their religion it is a test of both your faith and your religion. In letting your son or daughter make up their mind, you are shifting responsibility to them. This is a painful process, but it is the only way they can freely embrace their faith and religion.

St. Monica is the model parent who prayed for her children's conversion. Her famous son, Augustine finally found Christ. God frequently uses life troubles - unemployment, failure, loss, sickness and death - as moments to capture the heart that is straying. Mid-life questions about meaning and values can also restore God's importance and renewed religious practice to life.

At such times, God can awaken the faith you first planted in your children. Times of vulnerability may indeed be times of conversion. While "trouble" in a person's life is inevitable, a return to religious practices is not. Regardless of the outcome, you should be assured that God never abandons anyone. The poet Francis Thompson - a lifelong opium addict - described God as the "HOUND OF HEAVEN" who relentlessly pursues one and all down the alleys and labyrinthine ways of life.

Whatever the reason your son or daughter has left the Church, God continues to call them by name and hold them in the palm of His Hand. Throughout their life he will invite them to respond to His love. Pray that they may do so and manifest that love through love of neighbor. If they do this all will be well.

Eternal and Merciful Father,
I give you thanks for the gift of your
Divine Son, who died and rose for all.

I thank you for my Catholic Faith, and
ask for Your help that I may grow in fidelity, by prayer,
by works of charity and penance,
by reflection on your Word,
and by regular participation in the Sacraments
of Penance and Holy Eucharist.

You gave St. Monica a spirit of selfless love
manifested in her constant prayer
for the conversion her son, Augustine.

Inspired by boundless confidence in
Your power to move hearts, and by the success of her prayer, I ask the grace to imitate her constancy in my prayer for
_________________________________
who no longer share(s) in the intimate life
of your Catholic Family.

Grant through my prayers and witness. That _____________ may be open to the
promptings of the Holy Spirit,
to return to loving union with your Church.

Grant that in my prayer,
I may ever be hopeful, and that
I may never judge another,
for you alone can read hearts.

I ask this in the name of Jesus,
who died and rose to save all. Amen.