Witnessing Parents
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
In 1940, Tom Brown’s School Days, a famous British novel published in 1857 was first made into a movie starring child actor Freddie Bartholomew. Tom Brown, a popular boy who attended a conservative boarding school in Victorian England, lived with about a dozen other boys in one of the school’s dormitories. Whatever Tom, a natural born leader, said or did influenced the other boys. One day a new boy arrived. When it came time for bed that first night, the new boy innocently knelt down beside his bed to say his prayers. A few of the boys began to snicker. A couple others began to laugh and mock him. One even threw a shoe at the kneeling boy. That night Tom didn’t go to sleep right away. He lay awake, thinking about what had happened to the newcomer. He also began to think about his mother and the prayers she had taught him to say each night before bed – prayers he had not said since coming to school. The next night several of the boys in the dormitory were looking forward to poking fun at the new boy again. When bedtime came, however, something totally unexpected happened. When the new boy knelt down to say his night prayers, Tom knelt down too. When the other boys saw Tom kneeling and praying, they didn’t carry out their plans. The whole atmosphere of the dormitory room changed.
That simple episode from Tom Brown’s School Days illustrates in a dramatic and poignant way what Jesus has in mind in today’s gospel when he says: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” It also illustrates the primary reason Jesus makes this statement -- because bearing witness or not bearing witness to God can have a profound impact on those around us. Perhaps the most important place where this happens is in the home. The example of Tom Brown’s mother witnessing to her faith surely was the determining factor that led Tom to bear witness to his in front of his peers, despite their hostile reaction.
Someone once said that every Christian occupies some kind of pulpit and preaches some kind of sermon everyday. St. Francis of Assisi used to instruct his newly ordained friars: “Go out and preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words.” Behaving the gospel has always gone hand-in-hand with believing it; and living the gospel has always been a more effective method for evangelization than speaking it. Obviously, this is especially true when it comes to parents and their children. Down through the ages, it’s been primarily parents who have handed down the faith from one generation to another.
Experts tell us that we are deeply molded by our experiences as children in family. Children raised in a loving environment, for example, begin, over time, to define love in terms of what they’re experiencing. The more clearly and consistently love is modeled, the more naturally and effortlessly it becomes a part of their lives. Children learn best from observing those closest to them, those they admire most. They learn how to treat people by watching how their parents treat them and others. Every moment of every day is a “living laboratory” where children form moral underpinnings as they model themselves after the people most influential in their lives.
My dad wasn’t a particularly religious man. Unlike my mom, who is a frequent subject of my homilies, he didn’t pray the rosary, attend mass regularly, recite novenas to favorite saints, or go on pilgrimages to area shrines, but he was a good parent nonetheless. Born in 1896 into a dirt poor Sicilian peasant family with no formal schooling beyond the 3rd grade, he was among the wisest men I ever knew. In other words, he didn’t let lack of schooling interfere with his education.
Pa immigrated with his family to America as a teenager in 1912. Because his father died early on, my dad growing up didn’t have a male role model in the home which, no doubt, impacted the way he raised us kids. He was a strict disciplinarian who insisted that household rules be followed; rules like -- don’t be wasteful; don’t be extravagant; be on time for meals; don’t stay out late; do your chores; study hard in school; don’t dishonor the family; and be respectful of others, especially your elders and most especially your mother. Some of the discipline for misbehavior he meted out seems a bit excessive by today’s standards, but in those days “time out” and “removal of privileges” techniques hadn’t yet come into vogue. His philosophy of child rearing - spare the rod and spoil the child, on the other hand, was very much in vogue.
He never told us kids he loved us, but we knew he did. In fact, he followed this bit of Italian folk wisdom: “ama i tuoi figli quando sono addormentati” which translates -- love your children when they are sleep, so we never got hugs and kisses from him -- that was Ma’s department. But Pa took great pride in his children’s accomplishments. For example, despite being only 5 feet tall, at both my law school graduation and swearing in ceremony as a newly elected judge, he, busting with pride, walked particularly tall. As an aside, after my swearing in ceremony in 1986, my dad, age 90 at the time, asked if he should now call me “judge,” instead of “Tony.” “Pa,” I replied, “you’re my father; you only have to call me “judge” in public!” He obviously didn’t teach me humility!
Among the many lessons he did teach, however, was conservation of resources, which is an aspect of stewardship. Having struggled mightily to make ends meet during the Great Depression when jobs were scarce, he was always turning off lights when a room wasn’t occupied and closing doors to unused rooms in the winter to save fuel. To this day I still can’t get my 23 year old daughter Kate to turn off the lights in her bedroom and hallway when she’s not there!
My three brothers and one sister are fond of telling stories about how the family survived during hard economic times before yours truly, the youngest, in 1945 was born into the lap of luxury, as my sister Mary loves to remind me. One favorite story is about bath-time. On Saturday night everyone in the family had to take a bath… whether they needed one or not. The catch, however, was that the tub was only filled once. You could have planted a garden in the ring around the bathtub by the time my brother Joe, the youngest before me, had his turn. Kate who showers three times a day has no idea how lucky she is.
And speaking of gardens, ours was always the best on the block – flowers, vegetables, herbs; even stakes put in the ground to support growing plants sprang to life. My mom always had the freshest ingredients for preparing meals. (No I’m not going to launch into another food homily, for those of you who are wondering.) All of us took turns at weeding and cultivating, but the planting, watering, and pruning was painstakingly and lovingly performed by my dad. We always had fruit trees of every variety in our yard, grape vines, and his particular favorite – a fig tree, a reminder of the old country, which in our climate required extra special care like being buried in the ground before the first frost. I can still taste the figs which grew every September to plump, juicy, sweet perfection. For the last 9 years I’ve struggled unsuccessfully to grow figs on my own tree in Pittsford, but this year, in frustration, I gave up, dug it out of the ground, and consigned it to the curb for pick-up. Obviously, I didn’t inherit his green thumb.
A shoemaker by trade, Pa worked for a number of shoe factories in Rochester early on, which locally were once as plentiful as tailor shops. Later on he set up a shoe repair shop in half of the two car garage behind the house I grew up in where he earned extra money by fixing shoes, making them look better than brand new. The pot bellied stove that warmed his shop and the metal stand with a shoe form on top that he used for shaping and repairing shoes are now proudly displayed in the side entryway of my home.
My dad certainly had his share of flaws, but he was always there for us. Married to my mom for 54 years, he was a hard worker, a good provider, and completely devoted to our family. Growing up without a father himself, he took his role as parent most seriously because, sharing in every immigrant’s dream, he wanted his kids to have a better life than he did. My dad understood well the power of example to influence behavior. In his own way, he knew that God didn’t call us all to be lawyers, for which many of you would, no doubt, respond “Amen,” but God did call us all to be witnesses.
Happy Fathers’ Day, Pa.
Anthony J. Sciolino
Father’s Day. June 19, 2005. (Cycle A)
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Jeremiah 20:10-13/94
Romans 5:12-15
Matthew 10:26-33.