I had a fascinating conversation with a Catholic in a "mixed marriage" this week. This Mom is a strong cradle Catholic with five kids. She's happily married to a man who isn't baptized and is pretty "anti-church." I've talked to people who were in this situation before. This lady was unique in the degree of her loving acceptance of her husband and her calm trust in God.
This woman is a missionary in her heart. She calmly takes all five children alone to Mass each and every Sunday. She goes to Confession when she makes mistakes. She teaches religion to her kids at home. She models her faith in her actions and her words.
Her prayer is to convert the heart of her husband.
She has patience. She appreciates that he didn't get the gift of infant baptism. She knows that he was harmed by some religious hypocracy in his youth. She appreciates that he's not going to covert just for "show". She's waiting for him to catch on to the Source of all Truth that she has the privilege of seeing clearly every day.
How beautiful to spend your whole life working as a missionary for the one person in the world that you hold most dear, your spouse.
God bless the Catholic missionaries in India and Ukraine. God bless the hidden Catholic missionaries in our own parish.
