Transcript

Edmund: Growing up and becoming an adult can be a difficult thing to pull off successfully. Okay, but one of the most sensitive areas of growing up and even being an adult is the relationship you have with your parents. But, it turns out, that this relationship being difficult might tell you a little more about yourself than anyone else. So today, let’s talk about this AND talk about the Fourth Commandment and honoring our father and mother. 

Okay. It turns out parents today are very involved in their children’s lives. There was a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2023 where young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 were interviewed about the relationship they had with their parents. More than 70% say they talk or text with their child—whose an adult now—multiple times a week. And a majority of adults who were surveyed said their relationship with their adult child is pretty good. However, in another study, it was found that one quarter of young adults are estranged from one or both parents. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898) 

Joshua Coleman, author of Rules of Estrangement, theorizes that social media has fed this estrangement trend. One phenomenon, Coleman points out, is social media influencers—who are armed with therapists and self-help books—who view cutting off ties with their parents as a way of finding healing; pinpointing their parents as the source of a lot of trauma that they’re struggling with. And you’ll find these people promoting a view that says things like “You don’t owe your parents anything” and “Your obligation is to yourself and your own happiness.” Which is chipping away at more traditional views of the primacy of parental relationships. 

However, Karl Pillemer, a Cornell University sociologist and author of Fault Lines, explained that even though one in four adults today will decide to cut ties or limit communication with their parents, of the adults that he worked with, he said this: “Even after 10 or 20 years, virtually everyone who reconciled after a long estrangement was very glad they did, and almost all of them found it was a very powerful engine for growth.” And even if the resulting relationship wasn’t perfect, these people were still glad that they reconciled with their parents. 

Now it’s interesting that one of the 10 Commandments—this one here; the Fourth—  is to “Honor your father and mother.” Come here, let’s talk about this. To be honest, I used to think this Commandment just meant “Ah, be respectful to your mom and dad.” Like call them “Sir” or “Ma’am” or “Mrs.” But this Commandment teaches us so much more. It teaches us that this relationship is special because it is a God-given relationship. 

For example, in paragraph 2248 it says this: “According to the fourth commandment, God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents and those whom he has vested with authority for our good.”

Our parents have been vested with authority over us by God. This means that our ability to honor and respect the authority that God has given our parents says a lot about our ability to honor and respect the authority God has over us. The Catechism also says in paragraph 2251 “Children owe their parents respect, gratitude, just obedience, and assistance. Filial respect fosters harmony in all of family life.”

Now I know we don’t all have “perfect” parents and we all have families that look different. And as long as your parents aren’t forcing you to commit sin, you still have to follow this Commandment and honor and respect your parents’ authority, even after you’ve left the house. 

There’s this really interesting story in Scripture of Jesus as a child; it’s one of the only stories we have of Him as a kid living with Mary and Joseph as His parents. Jesus wanders off and, as you might imagine, Mary and Joseph are a little concerned. They find Jesus in the Temple and they say they’ve been worried sick. And it’s really fascinating. It says in Scripture that Jesus “went back to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” 

There’s a saying that my old pastor used to say, which is that it’s not really obedience until it’s something you don’t want to do. And in the story, Jesus wanted to just be in the Temple. But His parents asked Him to go somewhere else, and He was obedient to them. Jesus, who is God; who has all authority, when He became man, He honored and respected the authority that His parents had over Him. 

So, I have a story I want to tell you. This is too formal, here we go. Okay, this is kind of a vulnerable thing here. When I was growing up, my Dad and I liked to… argue a lot. We could argue about something for HOURS. Then I went off to college. I really grew in my relationship with Jesus and I remember there was a priest who gave a homily on honoring your mother and father. And one of the things that he had said that really stuck with me was that God was trying to teach us how to follow His authority by submitting ourselves to the authority of our parents, even if it doesn’t make sense to us. As long as it’s not sin, you should submit to that and practice obedience as a way of growing in obedience to the Lord. 

There was this one particular day when my Dad and I were kinda having this heated discussion. And I thought “Oh, this is one of those moments.” And in the middle of arguing, I just stopped and said “Okay, Dad. I’ve told you what I think about this. And if you really think that this is the right decision, I will be obedient to your decision out of respect and honor for you as my father and as my parent.” And my Dad just kinda like stopped in his tracks; he was really hesitant and didn’t really believe it at first. And I was just like “No. I told you how I feel and I will do this. I will do this because you’re telling me to do this.” And I remember my Dad saying years later—because he’s like a humble, amazing person—he knew that something had really changed in me when this moment happened; that I was different; that there was something different about me. 

And I will say that there were times later in my life where I felt like things were happening that I would just argue with God and just tell Him “NO! This should NOT happen this way. I don’t understand it.” But being in those situations felt familiar because I had been practicing that with my Mom and Dad. This trained me in a different way. I was trying to get closer to Jesus by honoring and respecting my parents’ authority when it was difficult. 

Honoring our mother and father trains us to be sensitive to God’s plan for our lives and to follow it and act even when it’s difficult. Because truly, we honor God when we honor our father and mother.