The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Help! My Children Left the Church

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

One of the greatest pains many people suffer is the pain of watching one's children leave the Catholic Church. In this episode, Jeff explains four common reasons why people leave, how to address the factors that drew them away, and why you should never give up hope that they might return.

You're listening to the Jeff Kavana show. Episode 18, Help, My Children Left the Church. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show.

Welcome to the show, my friend. Good to have you with us again. and we're going to be talking about a topic today that, wow, I think it's probably one of the two most common questions that I get on the road. And I understand, especially if you have children, people are asking the question all the time, my children left the church. What do I do? What can I do? And we're going to talk about that today. By the way, I really appreciate all of the feedback that you've been giving, just a ton of it. and I really, really appreciate it.

We've got people writing in about all of these topics that we are talking about. In fact, we've got Mary wrote in and said that she takes her grandchildren to church because her children don't. And she has found that she can have an impact on the next generation, which is part of what we're going to be talking about a little today. Anne wrote in and said that her daughter has fallen away from the faith. What do I do? Patricia wrote in.

so that all three of their children have been divorced and have since been remarried, which, of course, closes them off to the sacraments. How can we help them come back to Christ without overstepping ourselves and pushing them further away? I could go on and on. By the way, thanks, Norman. Norman, you've been writing in and giving us a lot of good feedback. I appreciate that so much.

But that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about our children have left the church. What do we do? What can we possibly do? you have ideas for future shows, you have comments on this show. You can always go to iTunes and you can rate the show and give some comments. And you can also give us comments at ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts. And if you want to get in touch with me, I'd love to hear from you. The email's real easy to remember. It's the name of the show. The Jeff Kaven show

at ascensionpress.com. That's the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com. Well, the the reason that this this whole topic came up to be honest with you is uh is i remembered the other day a man came up to me in a minnesota church and i'll never forget it as long as i live he came up to me with tears in his eyes and he said can i talk to you and i said sure and then he started telling me that he had he had 12 children 12 children i asked him are you catholic he knew he was catholic but he said had 12 children and then he began to explain to me how all of them, I think except for two, had left the Catholic Church and he and his wife were broken. He and his wife were sad. They were crying that day wondering, did I fail? Did I do something wrong? How do I get them back?

Can I have any influence over my children? My friend, this is one of the most common questions I get at conferences. and I want to address that today. And what I've done is I kind of have put the reasons that people leave into four categories. And I'll talk a little bit about each one of them. The purpose of the show today is just to touch briefly on these four areas of why our kids leave the church. And what you might do to help bring them back or have some kind of influence in their life, along with a number of books that I'm going to give you and some resources. that will help you in this area.

Once again, I know you might be driving to work or you're coming home from work. Do not try to write all of this down. Marisa, my wonderful producer, has put all of this together and the show notes are waiting for you. We've got all of these connections, all of these books that I'm going to be mentioning.

So you drive safe, you soak it in and ask the Lord what he can do to help you in winning back your family. Let me start off by saying this. When it comes to the good things you did as mom, dad in raising your children. You got to remember what Paul said. He said, one man plants, another waters, but God causes the increase. And that's important because as a mom, as a dad, you planted seed, you watered seed, and we cannot take credit for the victory. So our children,

you know, say you have eight kids and seven grow up and became priests and the other one's a sister, you can't take credit. You can't say, well, that's all of my work. No, God, is the one that was working in the human hearts. Yep, you planted, you watered, but God caused the increase. On the other side of that coin, there's a lot of parents who beat themselves up. They have eight kids, and two of them they think are going to be saints. And there's two more that are just wonderful, wonderful representatives in society and working at the church.

And there's two in prison for heinous crimes. Well, you can't beat yourself up about that. you can't take the credit for that fully as you cannot take the credit for the success. You watered and you planted, but it's God that causes the increase. So I want to start off right away by just encouraging you that if you have kids that have left the Catholic Church, whether they're at an evangelical church or non-denominational church or whether they're not going to church at all, or they've become atheists for some reason, you always have hope and prayer is very, very powerful.

In fact, I'll tell you a personal story about that just a little bit later on. So let's look at these major categories. Why do people end up leaving the Catholic Church, which statistics show us that at the college level, about 50% of them wander off in one way or another. Some come back, some don't. But why do they? Well, number one, a number of people,

leave the Catholic Church as they grow older because they just drifted away. They just drifted away. They had nothing that really caught their attention in the church. It wasn't really a super conscious decision. I'm not going to go to church anymore. They're not particularly affiliated with any church. They are cleaning the garage on Sunday. They're going to, you know, to tailgating parties during football season on Sunday.

They're mowing the lawn, whatever it might be. but they're just not in it the way you would hope they would be. We'll talk about that. Number two, atheism. There are a number of people who have left the Catholic Church who are avowed atheists. They've come to the conclusion, I don't believe in God. And I think it's ridiculous. And I have reasons for it, scientific and all this, you know, astronomy or whatever they're going to draw from, Dawkins and all, you know, the whole group.

I'll talk just briefly about that. I've got a couple books. I would recommend that you give them if they're interested in really taking a look at atheism versus deism or versus Catholicism, this idea that there is a God, there is a creator, first cause, final end. Number three, they were simply loved out of the Catholic Church by evangelical friends or friends who went to a church like Joel Osteen, you know, pastors, a non-denominational church that does a good job of just trying to address where people are at in everyday life. They were simply loved out by an evangelical friend. That was actually

my case. Mine was a case of number three and then the fourth one, which I'm going to give you in a minute. I left the Catholic Church at about 21 years of age, and it wasn't because of a theological conclusion, to be honest with you. It was, I just found a bunch of people who seemed to love God more than me, and they seem to have answers, you know, simple answers to difficult questions. And I saw the joy on their face. I saw them with their Bibles. I saw them worship. I thought, I want that in my own life. We'll talk a little bit about that. And then the fourth one is anger and bitterness. Yep, there are some of our kids that have left the Catholic Church because, just to be honest

with you, they're teed off at you. They're angry. They're bitter. They've been hurt, whatever it might be, and they don't want anything to do with the church. It might have been a priest scandal. It might have been a financial scandal. It might have been the way they were treated one Sunday or something that a teacher said to them, or it might be the own hypocrisy.

of you could be you know i'm just being honest i mean these are these are reasons why or could be a sibling rivalry or a fight that they're angry they're bitter so those are the those are the four categories i would say they just drifted away atheism loved out anger and bitterness before we look at the first one drifting away and i'll give you some some books that you might want to to uh to get your loved ones i would like to say this in the process of helping people come back to the Catholic Church. There are a number of reasons why they left. Their emotions and their backgrounds, their experiences are very complex, all of that. I would say this. It is not up to you totally to convince people to come back to the church. It's not upon you alone. And you can't put

that type of responsibility upon yourself and that weight is that it's all yours now. It's not. You can contribute by prayer and get them some good material. You can reason with them and talk with them and you can let the light shine in your own life. But it's probably going to be a group effort. It's probably going to be some people at work or an acquaintance that they run into that they have respect for combined with maybe a change in your own life or some things that you've said or some wisdom that you gave them when they were younger that's going to come back and speak to them. But I would say this. when it comes to our children coming back to the church if we are a part of it as parents our demeanor our language matters how we speak to them the kindness that we show

the respect that we extend to them the ability to listen to them our demeanor on our face all of this is important and must be a welcome an overwhelming welcome and an acceptance of the condition that they're in and the questions that they have. And so things, statements like, well, that's a stupid question, or how could you ask that after we put you through 12 years of Catholic school? Those types of statements don't typically work out very well. And it might just add to the reason that they left that nobody was listening to me.

Nobody listened. Nobody seemed to care. They just wanted to shove the faith down my throat. And so I want to start off by saying the demeanor, the language, everything about listening skills, this is all really, really important and about prayer. It's really, really important. So let's look into the first area right away. They drifted away. I know of a lot of people that are like this.

They'll tell me that they have four kids, two of them aren't in the church anymore, and they'll say, well, what happened to them? I mean, do they go to an evangelical church? And I say, no, they just stopped going. to church. And then what I usually find on the other end of that is that, yes, they stop going to church, but they still listen to Dr. Phil. And they listen to Ellen, and they listen to Dr. Oz, and they listen to Rush Limbaugh. In other words, they're still searching. They're still looking for answers. They're still looking for insight into living. And some people have drifted away because they didn't find what they heard in the church, at least at the

level they were at in the church they were attending. They didn't find in the church any answers that particularly caught their attention or made sense to them. Or they didn't hear someone answering their questions. They just kind of drifted away. Now what's interesting about this group of people who just kind of drift away, we think, well, how do we get them back? How do we get our sons and daughters back? In one way is by giving them some good material. And what I mean by good material is there are a number of books out there or CDs or DVDs about other people's stories who drifted away or made a decision that they just weren't Catholic anymore. And then something happened in their life that got them thinking. And before you knew it, they were

on their way back into the Catholic Church. One of those books that really spoke to me in my journey back to the Catholic Church. And let me preface this by saying that I did grow up Catholic. And at 18, I had a powerful, powerful, powerful conversion to the Lord at 18. I went to Bible College in Dallas, Texas after that. And by the time I was 21, I left formally. I left the Catholic Church. I left the Catholic Church. And my reason was I was loved out, but I was angry as purgatory with my parents and my family. And I had anger issues. I was bitter. And I had to deal. to deal with that. So as I'm sharing this with you, you have to realize I was where your kids are at. I was there, and I was going to a church. In fact, I was a pastor, but I also had an anger issue

and bitterness issue, and I was crosswise with my parents, I guess, and my sisters at the same time. So a couple of these books really did speak to me before I came back to the Catholic Church because I heard stories that were interesting to me, and they reminded me in some aspects of my own journey and my own attitude. One of them was a book that Patrick Madrid, and these are in the show notes, once again, don't pull over, don't pull over. These are in the show notes, and I'm going to give you a full list of them. Patrick Madrid edited a book of 11 converts who came into the Catholic Church, some back, some came into the Catholic Church, and it's called Surprised by Truth. Very effective. to read some of these stories.

And that presupposes, by the way, that your child is one of these, child, which is probably an adult by now, is somewhat interested, you know, and they're an interesting reading. You know, I'll look at that. That was a good book. Rome's Sweet Home, Scott Hahn's story,

for those who are more thinking, theological, they're into philosophy and so forth. That was a good book. And it talks about the journey of Scott. Ann Kimberleys coming into the Catholic Church as converts. Crossing the Tiber by Stephen Ray was a very good book. A lot of people comment on that and how that really spoke to them. I wrote a book My Life on the Rock, and it was my story about leaving and why I came back to the Catholic Church. Any one of those are good books to just kind of feed those adult children who have left

and say, you might find this interesting. You might find it interesting. But I want to emphasize this again it's not as easy as just throwing a book at someone it's the full package of your love your openness to listen your your your lack of insistence i should say lack of insistence on that you did everything right and you don't understand why they did this and we put a lot of money into their education and your brothers and sisters didn't leave none of that works you got to be mom you got to be dad you got to be a nurture. You've got to pray for them. You've got to listen to them. They're adults now. And you have to listen as a friend and your mom and dad, but you're also a friend and you have to listen respectfully. And one of the big mistakes I have seen and people trying to win

their children back is that they, after their own conversion, are now just insistent on talking and giving all the apologetic reasons why someone should come back rather than listening to the objections of those people. There's a couple more good books. Curtis Martin came out with a great argument for God, a book called Made for More, kind of the basis of his focus ministry. And then there's the classic C.S. Lewis, mere Christianity. That's kind of the general, wow, that's cool. That's a neat book, you know, C.S. Lewis's mere Christianity. But I'd also mention this, and I'll take a break after this, but you've heard this famous phrase, I think St. Thomas came up with a grace building on nature. Grace building on nature. What interests your adult children that have left

the church? What are they interested in? Because if you come at them with topics that they're not even interested in, after a while, they're going to wish you didn't come over. Because they're not interested in that. But what are they interested in? You see, the Catholic Church is so broad and so big and so expansive in in touching the world that there's got to be topics that we can bring up that they might naturally be interested in like the poor what about border control down by Mexico is it something you hear them talking about see that's the listening skill what are they talking about what do they bring up at dinner what are they complaining about on the evening news what did they say about trump what did they say about Hillary what did they think about

about some of the other candidates that during the election period a while ago. If you listen to people, you start to realize that they're interested in certain things in life, and that's natural. And we can come along and say, you know what? Church speaks about these things. And so this whole idea of grace building on nature, I think, is really important. I'll give you an example. I know some guys that don't particularly get into, quote-unquote, God,

but they're really into guns. and I started talking to them about guns and self-defense and these types of things. And all of a sudden, I had their attention and I was able to talk about the responsibility of a man to provide, protect, and lead his family. And all of a sudden they were listening. They were like, oh, wow, that's neat. That's neat. Well, I might have been the answer to some mother's prayer out there that was wondering and talking to her parish priest about how to bring her son back into the Catholic Church. She had no idea that some guy in the other side of the country was talking to her son about guns.

But that's what he was interested in. And that's what caught his attention. I would pray for those who have drifted away, mom, dad, pray that God would continue to draw them. You know, Jesus talks about pray that God would, pray that the father would send more laborers into the vineyard. Pray that God would bring to your adult children who have left. pray that God would bring people that they respect, people they would be interested in, that can articulate the beauty of the faith. I have found many times that people are more open to others than they are in their own family. Jesus found that out to be true in Nazareth.

He found out that coming from that town, a prophet is without honor in his hometown. Other towns, he's a superstar at home. And sometimes that's the case. You know, one of the hardest to win is your family in many cases. Your sisters, your brothers. They know you as the, you're the runt in the family. You are the caboose. You are that little one, you know.

They don't think of you as theologian necessarily. Another way that you can talk to people who have drifted away is to expose them to fantastic Christian music too. Sometimes people, their guard goes down. when they hear amazing music, just a thought. Hillsong is a great company, Australia or New Zealand, I can't remember, that has a lot of beautiful praise music, and there's a lot of wonderful praise music in the Catholic Church. I've talked before about this young lady, Ali Ali Alia,

and how good she is at singing and catching the hearts of young people. Very, very important. Hey, we're going to take a break. When we come back, I want to talk about atheism. a little bit. And then those that are loved out of the church by evangelical Christians and non-denominational Christians, and then finally a little bit about anger and bitterness. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Father Mike Schmitz. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic

faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Leodero, Jackie, Poppy Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents. That's YouTube.com slash ascension presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. Welcome back, my friend. I assume that you're listening in part because you might have a family member that

left the church or you know of somebody who has a family member that has left the church. By the way, if you know of someone, pass this show onto them, it just might be the thing that they've been praying for and looking for. A little bit of guidance on what to do. in these situations. Before the break, we are talking about what to do with family members who have drifted away from the Catholic Church. What are they interested in now? What might bring them back? That's very, very, very important. Hey, I want to add this before we get into the atheism question. And I probably should have done this at the top of the show, but this is fine, too.

a couple of the things that that is true for all of us is that if we're going to be effective and we're going to be a part of bringing loved ones back we need to start to learn the language of the Bible this is true with those who have been loved out of the church by evangelical Christians and non-denominational Christians is that now they speak a different language they speak the language of scripture. And I often get a kick out of how so many Catholic parents will try to convince their adult children who are at, you know, resurrection, evangelical church. They'll try to get them back by telling them what's happening at Magigori. But you don't understand. That actually can push them in the opposite direction. It's like, Mom, no, you don't

understand. I'm studying God's word. I don't care what happened to Magigory. You might. In fact, that might have been part of your own conversion, but they don't speak that language. They don't speak the language of the catechism. They don't speak the language of the saints. They don't speak the language of Garabendal, or they don't speak the language of some of the approved sites, you know, of lords and Our Lady of Guadalupe. They don't speak the language. And so we've got to learn the language that they are using, which is scripture. A little bit more. I'll say a little bit more about that a little bit later. So what about atheism? I know I've got several letters from people who have said, my kid went to college, we paid for it, $120,000

for all those years. And after graduating, he informed us that he doesn't believe in God anymore. My guess is he had a philosophy teacher at some point or another that kind of threw him off the rails there. But this is becoming more and more common where people are not saying that they are agnostic, and that is that they believe in God. There's not sure who he is. But they're actually saying, no, I'm an atheist. I don't believe. believe that there is a God. Now, you and I would look at that and say, well, that's, that's unreasonable. And it might seem unreasonable. But to them, they really believe that. Now, a lot of the atheists that I've talked to before, I've also found out that there's some

woundedness in their background as well and some pain. And I'm aware of that, you know, when I'm, when I'm talking to them. One of the greatest things that I've been able to give people who have questions about the existence of God is the material that was produced and the conclusions that others came to that were wrestling with this issue. And so I'll give you a couple of books that I would recommend if you have a son or a daughter who's struggling with this atheism. One of them is a book by Anthony Flew, Anthony Flew. Anthony Flew. Well, Anthony Flew was a committed atheist. He was the world's preeminent atheists in Europe. And he wrote a book called There Is No God.

And then after some serious study, some discussions with believers, his entire worldview changed. And the foreword on his book says, there is a God, one of the world's preeminent atheist discloses how his commitment to, quote, follow the argument wherever it leads, unquote, led him to a belief in God as creator. This is a compelling and refreshingly open-minded argument that will forever change the atheism debate. The book is called There Is a God. Imagine that he wrote a book,

There is no God, and his new one is, there is, and you can see where the no is crossed out, and it says, a God. He completely, this isn't a guy that was just talking about this, the local pub. This was the preeminent atheist in Europe. And he changed. And he writes about it. And so I'm not that smart in this area, to be honest with you. And I know my limitations. So I just give that book to people and say, I'm going to let Anthony Flew tell his story and his conclusions in a way that I would sound silly, trying to act like I knew all of that. You know, all the issues related to atheism. Another book I can throw your way,

and these are in the show notes, both of them, is by Francis Collins. He's got a fantastic book called The Language of God. A scientist presents evidence for belief. So these are books that are at a little bit different level that I think oftentimes will speak to someone who has categories of thinking and experiences that are not common to many of us,

and probably are not common to you as mom and dad, you know, and you don't have the time to investigate all of that. So that's how I want to touch on the atheism issue there. And perhaps in the future shows, we'll go deeper into the whole issue of atheism, provided I learn all about it. I'm kidding. We'll have somebody on to talk about it. Now, the third one is simply loved out of the church by some evangelical believer

or non-denominational believer. These are people who are loved out, and here's how it usually goes. You know, they're at work, and maybe your son or daughter was struggling. with an issue of maybe it was addiction, maybe it was infidelity, maybe it was rowdy children, maybe it was just life is not the way it used to be and everything is kind of stale. And they met someone at work who said, hey, why don't you come on over to victory outreach this weekend? Well, what's that? Well, that's the church we go to. Oh, no, no, that's okay. I'm Catholic. Well, that's all right. You can come. Just come on over.

then afterwards we'll take you and you and Helen out to lunch and the kids. We just have a great time. We've always wanted you to come on over and visit our church. Okay. All right. So, so you go and you have this amazing experience when you walk in, when they love you, and they remember your name. And it's a lively, lively worship service. Actually, it makes you a little uncomfortable, you know. These people are pretty lively and call me brother, call me sister. This is different than the Catholic Church that I was used to. And they have a couple of testimonies and just fantastic music and the kids went off in their area you know and they came back and said wow that was different a lot of cool kids I met with and you go for you know off and on for a couple of months and

before you know it you're taking the new believers course there and you're not Catholic after a while that's what happens to your sons and daughters I know I was a pastor I orchestrated this we built our programs around around bringing people in not to be sneaky or anything but we wanted people to know Jesus. And we felt that Catholics didn't at the time. You see? We loved people out of the church. And they were not particularly apologetic in terms of going deep into, you know, theology and Greek and Latin and Aramaic and everything else. It was more feelings oriented. You know, a lot of your children left not for theological reasons. They didn't come to you and say at Christmas, mom, dad, I've got to tell you, I left because I'm struggling with transubstantiation.

No, they left because they found new friends that loved them. And so feelings became very important. And that's something to remember when we talk about hospitality in our own church. And this is what I was talking about earlier. Right, we came back from the break. You've got to learn their language, which is the Bible. That's why I really recommend going through unlocking the mystery of the Bible. It's our eight-week program of becoming familiar with the basic

storyline. Go deeper, if you'd like, 24 weeks, our Bible timeline. Start to talk to your children using the language that they are familiar with, which is the language of Scripture. You see, one of the things that we, it's a positive, but it's also a detriment in communication, and that is this, Catholicism is heavily a meta-language religion. In other words, we have language that the people in the pews may understand, but the people outside of the church, they don't understand our language. We can talk about original justice. We talk about the Holy Father. We talk about transubstantiation, all of this. And most people don't even know what we're talking about. But we talk as though they did. If I wanted to bring back my children to the Catholic

Church if they had left, I'd drop the meta language. And I would speak to them with the same language that wooed them right out. And that is that Jesus loves you. It's got a plan for your life. He's got an amazing family. He brings comfort when we are down. He gives us direction when we're lost. It's just regular language. You don't have to fly. it up with Latin and Greek to try to get them back, probably going to drive them a little bit more away. So learn their theological language. I'm actually planning a show right now. Just keep your iPod peeled. We got a show coming up on meta language. It is funny, and you're going to like it. It's really eye-opening. We're going to talk about everything, a bunch of issues from

both sides, evangelical and Catholic, and I'm going to describe them both with both languages. You see, I've got the advantage in that I'm a revert, came back to the church, but I'm bilingual. I can speak evangelical and Catholic with no accent on either one. And that's an advantage. And I would say this about those who have been loved out of the church and you want them to come back. You've got to learn the basics of Catholicism. And you've got to learn how to communicate them in a way that people can understand. Now, that might seem really daunting at first, but it's not.

It's really not. you can do it because almost everything that we talk about as Catholics, evangelicals have another word for it or they have another way of expressing it. If you walked into the average assembly of God and said, does anybody wish they could just spend time with the Holy Father? No one in there is thinking you're talking about the Pope. They're thinking about God in heaven. So what are some of the main basics of Catholicism that you should become more familiar with and learn how to communicate? Well, One, the papacy. Here's a book for you.

Patrick Madrid. He wrote a good book called Pope Fiction. Pope Fiction. Learn about the papacy. Learn how biblical it is. How important it is. Number two, Blessed Virgin Mary. Oh, this is very, very important.

But many Catholics don't know how to convey this to their sons and daughters who have left. But we can communicate this. Here's a good book related to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that is one by Scott Hahn. And Dr. Scott Hahn has a tremendous book called Hail Holy Queen. I was looking through my library. Hail Holy Queen, the mother of God in the Word of God. Now, see, what Scott does there is that he's brilliant at it.

Scott is absolutely brilliant at this, and that is he can talk about Mary, but he can do it from a biblical perspective, which is their new language. The third one is the Eucharist. The Eucharist, it's really the center of our faith. Again, Scott has another book there, and there's a lot of good books out there. I'm just kind of throwing these out, you know, looking through the library here. Scott Hahn is what called the Lamb's Supper, one of the most effective out there at really explaining

the biblical roots of the Eucharist. That's right. Dr. Brant Petrie has a great book. about the Eucharist and the Jewish sources. We'll put that in the show notes. Fourth, Scripture and Tradition. Scripture and Tradition, that we believe that the Word of God is not just Scripture, but it's also sacred tradition.

Mark Shea has a really good book called By What Authority. That'll be in the show notes, too. By What Authority? Authority is very important here. And then fifth, another topic is the Communion of the Saints. and my friend Patrick Madrid has a good book there called Any Friend of Gods is a friend of mine, a biblical and historical explanation of the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints. Patrick, shorten your titles a little bit, but it's good. It's a fantastic book.

So those will all be in the show notes, for those that have been loved out of the Catholic Church. What about those who are angry and filled with unforgiveness? They've got bitterness issues. They've got issues. they left for a specific reason. They might be mad. They might be hurt. My friends, this is the difficult one.

Many people have left because they were hurt. They were deceived. They were let down. They were forgotten. And their attitude towards the Catholic Church has nothing to do with theology. It has nothing to do with the papacy, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, sacred tradition, sacred script,

or the communion of saints. It has everything to do with what happened to me. Or what you said at Thanksgiving. Or what my sister did. There's all kinds of reasons that people can come up with. And I don't have the time to get into every single angle about this, but I'd like you to think for a moment. Is the reason that your son or daughter left the church?

Does it have anything to do with a personal, interpersonal relationship? Is there something that you and dad might have said? They just rocked the boat for them. They said, you know what? I'm out of here. Was it something that happened when they were growing up? This is the most difficult of all because many people have left because of this hurt and the response that we must give them is one of humility.

We have to humble ourselves and in some situations we have to ask for forgiveness. Now I know a lot of people who are grandparents now and their adult children have left and they wish they could get a second chance. Maybe they had the conversion at 45. The kids were already out of the house. They were just finishing college. And man, they wish they could get all those years back. And they are praying for their children now to come back. They're handing them books and CDs and programming their DVR to EWTN and all that. But none of that's going to do much good because of the pain in their life. And what they might need is a reconciliation, a time of coming together to say, look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I went through

those 10 years of struggling with alcohol when you were a teenager. I wish I could change that. but I am deeply sorry please forgive me or whatever the situation might be I mean that's one there's dozens of situations but I would ask you to pray and ask the Lord to give you wisdom

and insight about the hurt that your kids might have and what your response is going to be and I have found in case after case when I was counseling as a pastor and since coming back into the Catholic Church for over 20 years now, I have found that transparency and honesty post hurt can go a long way. And it's something that your adult kids might be crying out for, is that I wish there

could be that reconciliation. And it might have been something that was said that was very seemingly trivial years ago. And it might have been something like the 10 years of an alcoholic mother or father that tainted them, and they didn't want anything to do with this anymore. It might have been an abuse situation, unfortunately, but there's healing that needs to take place. I would encourage you to begin to pray for them, search your own heart, and have an honest communication with them, and also to make sure that you and your own life, that you go to confession, that anything that might have happened in the past, clear that away, and be free. before the Lord.

There's so much that we could talk about when it comes to that. But maybe later on we're going to do another podcast on that. So whatever your situation is, of all these five that I have mentioned, you know, or the four that just drifted away, atheism, loved out by evangelical church members, anger and bitterness, whatever it is. There's something that is true for all in terms of a response. Number one, pray.

pray for your adult children, pray that their heart would be softened, pray that God would woo them and draw them in closer and closer. Pray. Let me tell you a little, quick little story, and that is this. I left when I was about 21, and I didn't just leave. I became a Protestant pastor, and a happy Protestant pastor with a growing, thriving church. But then 10 years into my pastor, something began to change in my heart, and I started having a drawing to the Eucharist. And I can't explain it, but I found out later the reason why. It started by just simply visiting a Catholic church in Dayton, Ohio, called Bergamo Retreat Center, where we were looking to house our evangelical church

while we were looking for more property. we were going to use their sanctuary, and they lit us, and I walked in, and I smelled incense. And it brought back my childhood. It brought back those formative years of getting to know God. And after I finally came back to the Catholic Church, a bishop, Bishop Paul Dudley, came to my parents' house, and we met. We met, and he celebrated Mass, and at the part where, you know, we give the peace to each other, my mother came over to me with tears in her eyes and she said, I'm so sorry.

She said, I just thought all that time you were growing up that you were getting it. See, my parents believed and we did two and eight sacraments. You know they're seven, but the eighth is the sacrament of holy osmosis. You just bring kids to church, they get it, you know? They don't. They don't, and I didn't. And my mother said, we just thought you were getting it.

and then she told me something that made sense. She said all those years that I was gone, those 15 years that I was gone, she said every time she would receive the Eucharist, she would ask God, bring back my boy, bring back my son. I think those are the prayers of a mother. St. Augustine had a mom like that, St. Monica, who prayed and would not let go of the robe of heaven

and just beg God to bring her son back. mom, dad, there's nothing as powerful as prayer. Don't, don't ever give up on prayer when it comes to your adult children. Pray, pray for their heart, pray for your discernment if you have a part to play in this in terms of humility and repentance and that, but also pray that God would bring people into their lives that they would respect. And remember grace building on nature what they're interested in, and watch your demeanor, watch your listening skills, watch your attitude in the way you come across.

Be Jesus to them in every way. Learn the language of scripture and speak to them about life. I'd like to hear your response. I'd like to know what you're going through. Go ahead and write me the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this topic as well as topics that you might want to hear about in the future. So just you hang in there, okay? You keep praying, and I will pray for you. In fact, I want to end this show by lifting up all of you who have situations like this,

and we're going to pray together, and I'm going to ask you to mention your child's name when we pause, and you just say that name. If you're driving, wherever you're at right now, I want you to join me in prayer. Let's pray together. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, we thank you for your grace and we thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your prevenient grace, that grace that draws us and woos us into a deeper relationship with you. I pray, Lord, for all of my friends who are listening right now who have children who have left. We lift them up to you right now. We lift up, and go ahead, my friend, just mention their name right now. we lift them up to you Lord and ask you to move on their hearts to soften their heart to draw them to yourself

to bring people into their life that they will respect and listen to that there will be divine appointments that we could not have arranged ourselves but only you can pray Lord you would help us in discerning our own hearts and if there's anything that we need to do in terms of loving and repentance, apologizing, whatever it might be. Lord, bring that to our attention and give us opportunities too, Lord, to give them good sources at the appropriate time that might aid in their coming back to the fullness of all that you have. We thank you for all of this, and we pray it in the name of Jesus,

and we ask for the intercession of our mother who knows so well, a relationship between a mother and a son, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Remember, my friend, give me an email. I'd like to hear your story. I'll afford to talking to you next time.