Additional Columns by Sherry Antonetti: Celebrating the Song of Songs on Saint Valentine's Day Forty Lenten Resolutions

Delighting in the Unexpected Immediate Intimacy of Answered Prayers

“Knock and the door will be opened. Ask and you shall be heard.”

Such wonderful comforting words Christ speaks, we so seldom stop to recognize how powerful they are, or to use them until we feel desperate.

Case in point: My son goes to a high school in Washington DC. As such, I do not know his friends except by their names on his cell phone. I do not know his teachers except by email. It’s not that I haven’t been to the campus to meet them; it’s that they are not so commonly seen that I could easily identify them by sight. His father often takes him to school, and as such, has a much greater connection to the place than I do. This did not seem at first as if it were a problem, but I had come to question allowing our oldest to be so far from our home every day, to question if this were the best place for him and for our family because of the long morning and afternoon commute. I felt no special connection to this high school or its people, and that disconnect ate at my spirit. I did not like the school that took my son away and did not seem to think I mattered much except on tuition payment due day.

The Freshman retreat held last Friday changed all those feelings in an instant. There was a parent/teen round table, where adults were paired with teens in a room of twelve with a leader, and asked to answer questions. We did not know these boys and they did not know us. The result was a frank and open interaction where I came to know the community my son had experience the past seven months. Their faith lives were on display in the answers they gave and the questions they asked. And it wasn’t just me, the reception afterwards revealed that nearly everyone was touched and shocked by the depth of thought and feeling expressed by mere 14 year old boys. Everyone was talking about having their eyes opened to the “men” their sons would become at this place.

Then, there was a mass. I went. It was a small chapel as the mass was optional. There were maybe 60 people in attendance that Friday night. In the process of the mass, I felt connected to all these other parents who had sacrificed and let their sons travel to come to this place. We were united in our faith and in our commitment to this high school and these boys. I felt a part of the broader community. When the final song ended, I still whispered to God, “It would be nice to know someone here though, to be connected to another adult here, who would recognize me and know my son.”

Turning to leave, I said to the lady behind me in a green coat, “You know, it’s the first time I’ve felt like part of this school.” She gave me a wide smile and agreed. We began to talk. Her son was in the band. My son was in the band. Her son was in my son’s religion class. They were both on the traveling symphony headed to Florida for Spring break. They were slated to be roommates. Providential? Absolutely! Only God can answer a split second heartfelt desire with such alarming accuracy and immediacy.

Maybe next time, I’ll think to ask sooner.

 

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at Smwbmpfjm@netzero.com. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.