Nails in the Door

Most Sundays, a small group of us goes to the 9:00 “Children’s Mass” at the parish down the street: Santíssima Trinidad (Most Holy Trinity). All of the neighborhood kids come, and the church is always packed, which means that the Mass often turns into unmitigated chaos. Imagine – dozens of kids of all ages, many unaccompanied by their parents, some accompanied by their pets, older siblings dragging younger ones by the hand, babies crying, little boys picking their noses and punching each other in the arm, little girls playing with each other’s hair and chattering incessantly… It drives some of the missionaries crazy, but I love it! True, it’s not exactly an environment conducive to contemplation, but Fr. Erminio always gives spectacular homilies, and something about that Mass (chaotic as it is) always leaves me feeling like I’m exactly where God wants me to be at that moment. I usually see the little girls from my discipleship class, and they remind me of how God has charged me with the responsibility of being a good example for them. Yesterday, 8-year-old María Concepción came to sit with me, and when she wasn’t holding my hand or playing with the buttons on my jean jacket, she was imitating everything I did. Everything – even the way I had my hands folded!

Providentially, yesterday morning Fr. Erminio preached about the effectiveness of a good example, especially in regard to the conversion of our families. As he has many times before, he emphasized the great need in our society for parents who teach their children by example to love the things of God and not the things of the world. If parents want to be able to provide a better life for their families, he counseled, they must begin by being faithful to prayer and the Sacraments. Of course, he added, a good example only goes so far. Sometimes even the most devout parents find themselves unable to keep their children on the right path – and yet there is never cause to lose hope. To illustrate this point, he related the following story:

“Once, a father came to me who was very distressed by the behavior of his only son. He and his wife had done their best to teach him by their example to love the things of God and not the things of the world, but during his teenage years he rebelled against them by declaring himself an atheist and refusing to attend Mass. He joined the neighborhood gang, began abusing alcohol and drugs, and became frighteningly violent. Some nights when he came home drunk, the boy would hit his mother, and if his father so much as raised a finger in protest, the son threatened him with his machete. Because the father knew it was within his son’s power to kill him, he always backed down, and for this he felt ashamed. He had lived in this sort of fear for years before coming to me for help. Not knowing any way out of this seemingly impossible situation, I encouraged him to continue to pray that somehow his son would be converted, and promised to pray with him.

“The man went home, and while he prayed that evening, he was inspired with an idea. The next day, he began to hammer nails into a wooden door in their home, one nail for each of his son’s misdeeds. Each time his son boasted of some terrible thing he’d done, each time he beat his mother, each time he threatened to kill his father, his father hammered another nail into the door. Soon, there wasn’t space left for even one more nail.

“One morning, as the boy was walking to the kitchen for breakfast, he noticed the door covered in nails and stopped in front of it. ‘What are all the nails for?’ he asked his father.

“‘For each of your misdeeds,’ his father answered, with great sorrow in his voice. ‘And this isn’t all of them – I only began doing this some time ago, and soon I saw that the door wasn’t big enough.’

“His son stared at the door for a while, and looked at his father as if he were still in need of an explanation. ‘I used nails,’ his father said, ‘because each terrible thing you did felt like a nail driven into my heart.’

“The boy began to weep, and asked quietly if he could remove the nails from the door. There were so many, and he was ashamed. ‘You can begin to remove the nails,’ his father said gently, ‘if you begin doing good deeds in reparation for all of the hurt you’ve caused – not only to me and your mother, but to God.’

“His son promised to begin doing good, and after several months, he was able to remove the last nail from the door. ‘Well done, my son!’ exclaimed his father, embracing him. ‘Now, we must celebrate!’

“Much to the man’s surprise, his son began to cry – deep, heavy sobs, the way he had cried as a small child. ‘Father,’ he said through tears, ‘the nails may be gone, but their marks are still in the door.’

“‘Don’t let that trouble you,’ his father said. ‘We will fill the holes made by the nails, not with putty or clay, but with the love we have for one another.’”

Prayer to St. Joseph for Families

Gracious St. Joseph, protect me and my family from all evil as you did the Holy Family. Kindly keep us ever united in the love of Christ, ever fervent in imitation of the virtue of our Blessed Lady, your sinless spouse, and always faithful in devotion to you. Amen.