Going It Alone

#2 went to Mass alone this morning. He overslept and then chose to read instead of getting ready, so we left him here. (We’ve been late waiting for him before. This is not a first time problem.) When we got home from Mass, he was dressed and waiting to go to the next Mass when we walked in the door..

“Will you come with me?” he asked in the car.

“No,” I told him. “You chose to not join us this morning which means you get to go without us.”

He hung his head a little and sighed. He reached out at picked up my rosary from the cup holder in front seat. “I’m going to be early, can I take your rosary with me?” He asked. I nodded and fought back the urge to join him.

I sat in the car and watched him walk slowly into the church, his shoulders hunched against the cold morning air. I whispered a prayer for him and then slowly left the parking lot.

An hour or so later, a boy with a different attitude walked out of the church. He had a bit of a bounce in his step and a settled air about him.

“How was it?” I asked him.

“Scary at first. I kept waiting for someone to ask me where my parents were. I thought I’d get in trouble for being there alone.”

“And did anyone say anything?”

“No. I just walked in like I belonged there and I knelt and prayed. No one said a thing.”

“How was it to be in Mass alone?”

“It started off lonely, but then I noticed that it was easier to pray without my siblings poking and climbing on each other.”

We rode in silence for a bit, my son who dreams of the priesthood and I.

“Is that why priests don’t marry?” He asked. “Is it because all those other people to take care of makes it harder to listen to God?”

“Yes.” I told him. “That’s exactly why. You don’t get the joy of family, but you get a closer relationship with God.”

“I think it might be worth it.” He said before turning to look out the window.

We rode in silence for the rest of the drive home. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I was sitting in wonder that what I had written off as disobedience had become, with God’s perfect timing, a heart to heart conversation between my son and his Creator.

A future priest? A mom can hope…right?

*He didn’t wear that shirt to Mass. I promise.