I Thought They Would
Choose for Themselves

There is an uncomfortable truth I have had to face since returning to the Catholic Church.

My mother planted the faith in me.

I did not do the same for my own children.

I have four children.

None of them were baptized as children.

I did not take them to Mass.

My wife and I loved each other, built a family, raised our children, and stayed together for more than thirty years before our marriage was finally brought into the Church.

For most of those years, I did not think I was doing something terribly wrong.

I told myself something that probably sounded reasonable at the time:

They can make their own decisions about religion when they are older.

I thought I was giving them freedom.

I thought faith was something each person eventually had to choose for himself anyway.

And underneath all of that was the same belief that followed me through much of my adult life:

We were good people.

We loved each other.

We were a family.

We worked hard.

We tried to teach our children right from wrong.

Surely that was enough.

But good was not enough.

When my children were little, much of my life was consumed by work.

I was building a business.

Trying to make money.

Trying to succeed.

Trying to create security for my family.

And I worked constantly.

Long days.

Late nights.

Weekends.

Seven days a week more often than I care to remember.

At the time, I told myself I was doing it for them.

And in many ways, I was.

I wanted my children to have things I did not have.

I wanted them to be comfortable.

I wanted them to experience the world.

I wanted them to have opportunities.

And so I worked.

And worked.

And worked.

If there was a new video game they wanted, I could buy it.

The newest technology.

Phones.

Tablets.

Laptops.

Toys.

Whatever the latest thing was.

We took wonderful trips.

We went on vacations.

We created memories.

I wanted my family to enjoy the fruits of all those hours I spent working.

And there is nothing wrong with wanting to provide for your children.

A father should work.

A father should provide.

A father should want his family to be secure.

But looking back now, I can see how easily something good became disordered in my life.

Providing became consuming.
Success became consuming.
Building the business became consuming.

There were countless days when their mother was with them while I was somewhere else working.

There were Sundays when I treated Sunday like another workday.

There were Sundays when I should have stopped.

I should have rested.

I should have taken my family to Mass.

Instead, I kept working.

I told myself there was always something that needed to be done.

Another customer.

Another problem.

Another opportunity.

Another dollar.

Another project.

There was always tomorrow for the other things.

The problem is that children do not stay children until tomorrow.

Those years disappear.

There is something especially difficult for me to admit now.

I was very concerned about giving my children a good life.

But I had not yet learned the difference between giving them a good life and teaching them where the Good itself comes from.

I could buy them a computer.

But I did not teach them to kneel beside me and pray.

I could give them the newest phone.

But I did not put a rosary in their hands.

I could take them on an amazing vacation.

But I did not regularly take them to Mass.

I could make sure they had every opportunity I could afford.

But I did not make sure they received the sacraments.

I was successful at providing many things.

And yet I neglected something far more important.

That is painful to write.

Because I cannot honestly say I did not have time.

I made time for the things I believed were important.

We all do.

The truth is that during those years, faith was not important enough to me.

Not yet.

Business was.

Success was.

Providing was.

Building was.

Making money was.

And because those things were important to me, they received my time.

You can usually discover what a man truly values by looking at where he gives his time.

I gave enormous amounts of mine to work.

And much of that work produced good things.

It supported my family.

It created jobs.

It built businesses.

It provided opportunities.

I am grateful for that.

But I also know now that I did not have to choose between being successful and being faithful.

That was a false choice.

I sometimes wonder what those years would have looked like if Christ had been at the center of them.

What if Sunday really had been Sunday?

What if no matter how busy the week became, my children knew that on Sunday morning Dad stopped working because we were going to Mass?

What if they had watched me kneel?

What if they had seen me receive the Eucharist?

What if they had heard me pray?

What if they had known from childhood that there was something greater than business, greater than money, greater than success, and greater than anything we could buy?

Would I have accomplished less?

I do not believe so.

In fact, I sometimes think I might have accomplished more.

Not necessarily more money.

Not necessarily a larger business.

But more of what actually mattered.

And perhaps even in business, I would have done just as well—or better—because my life would have had its priorities in the proper order.

I spent many years believing that success came almost entirely from effort.

Work harder.

Stay later.

Never stop.

Solve every problem yourself.

Push.

Build.

Produce.

Accomplish.

There is pride hidden inside that way of living.

The belief that everything depends on me.

I recognize that now because it is the same illusion I carried into my spiritual life.

I thought I could build a good life by myself.

I thought if I worked hard enough, loved my family enough, provided enough, and stayed out of serious trouble, everything important was covered.

It was another version of the same lie:

Good is enough.

It was not.

Since returning to the faith, I have also begun thinking differently about the phrase:

They should choose for themselves.

Of course they should.

Eventually every human being must choose.

My mother could not choose Christ for me.

I cannot choose Christ for my children.

No parent can manufacture faith inside another person's heart.

But parents make thousands of choices before a child is old enough to choose for himself.

We choose what food they eat.

We choose where they go to school.

We teach them to brush their teeth.

We teach them manners.

We teach them how to cross a street.

We teach them what is dangerous.

We teach them what is valuable.

We expose them to books.

Music.

Sports.

Education.

Family traditions.

We do all of those things because we understand that children need formation before they are mature enough to make good choices on their own.

So why did I think faith should be different?

Why did I treat the most important question in human existence as though giving my children no particular direction was somehow neutrality?

I see now that there really is no neutral formation.

If I do not teach my children what Christianity says about the meaning of life, the world will gladly teach them something else.

If I do not teach them what God says about love, sexuality, marriage, money, suffering, success, and human dignity, the culture will.

If I do not show them where the altar is, something else will become their altar.

If I do not teach them what is worthy of worship, the world will provide plenty of substitutes.

Career.

Money.

Status.

Pleasure.

Politics.

Celebrity.

Self.

The world catechizes too.

I learned that in my own life.

And unfortunately, for many years, I allowed that same world to do much of the catechizing of my children.

I do not say any of this to blame them.

Quite the opposite.

They did not fail to receive something I faithfully gave them.

I failed to give it.

I needed Christ then just as much as I need Him now.

My marriage needed Christ.

My children needed Christ.

My business needed Christ.

My decisions needed Christ.

My Sundays needed Christ.

And I regret that I did not understand that sooner.

I regret the Sundays I worked when I should have stopped.

I regret the Masses we did not attend.

I regret that my children were not baptized when they were little.

I regret the years when I thought providing material things was enough.

I regret the moments when their mother carried more of the burden at home because I believed there was always something at work that could not wait.

Those are my choices.

I own them.

But I do not write about them so I can spend the rest of my life punishing myself for them.

I write about them because I finally understand them.

And understanding them changes what I do now.

I cannot go backward.

I cannot take my children by the hand and make them five years old again.

I cannot go back to Sunday mornings and say:

Get dressed. We're going to Mass.

I cannot go back and have them baptized as babies.

I cannot recreate years that have already passed.

And I have had to accept that.

But regret is only useful if it teaches us what to do next.

So I refuse to believe the story ends there.

Because my own story did not end when I walked away from the Church.

For nearly thirty years, the seeds my mother planted seemed to be doing nothing.

Then one day they began to grow again.

That gives me hope.

Maybe I cannot give my children the childhood in the Church that I failed to give them.

But I can give them something now.

I can tell them the truth about my own life.

I can tell them what I got wrong.

I can tell them why I came back.

I can invite them to Mass.

I can pray for them.

I can answer their questions.

I can live my faith openly instead of keeping it in the background.

I can make sure my grandchildren know why their Nonno goes to church.

I can leave books.

Letters.

Rosaries.

Bibles.

Stories.

I can leave a trail.

If I could speak to the younger version of myself—the man rushing out the door, answering one more call, solving one more problem, working through another Sunday—I would tell him:

The business will still be there Monday.


Your children will not always be five.

Or eight.

Or twelve.


Stop.


Go home.


Take them to Mass.


Sit beside them.


Let them be bored sometimes.


Let them stare at the crucifix.


Let them hear the music.


Let them smell the incense.


Let them watch you kneel.


You may not understand what is being planted.


Neither will they.


Plant it anyway.

Because thirty or forty years from now, that seed may be worth more than everything you spent your life trying to buy for them.

Perhaps this is one reason I am writing *Letters from Nonno* at all.

I missed years I cannot recover.

So I am writing down what I wish I had understood then.

For my children.

For my grandchildren.

For the grandchildren I may never meet.

And for another parent who may be thinking:

I'll let them decide when they're older.

They will decide.

But before they decide, give them something worth choosing.

Take them to Mass.

Teach them to pray.

Baptize them.

Bring them to the sacraments.

Let them see you kneel.

Let them hear you ask God for forgiveness.

Let them know that Jesus Christ is not simply one option among many.

Give them roots.

Then when the day comes that they must choose for themselves, at least they will know where home is.

My mother gave me that.

I wish I had understood sooner how important it was to give the same gift to my own children.

I understand it now.

And while I still have breath, it is not too late to start planting.