«We are not made to be the parents of a handicapped child.»
I heard that sentence twice this week. The first time, a father spoke it—desperate, having just learned that his two-day-old daughter had a brain lesion. The second time, a couple said it. Their son, Guglielmo, eight years old, has behavioral problems that shatter the family's peace entirely. Overwhelmed, crushed by the expertise of the psychologists at the center where the boy is being treated, they had lost all hope.
We do not learn to suffer
I hardly dare say it. We learn almost everything—but we do not learn to suffer. And we do not learn to raise our children either. So when your child is handicapped, you must usually improvise both things at once. You must learn to educate, to help your child grow, and you must do this without stopping to suffer. And yet there are those who have found their way. They give us their testimony—unmistakable testimony. They shine like lighthouses. In their light, a fragile flame of hope can be born in the hearts of those asked to bear so much.
If our heart condemns us
I want to tell Guglielmo's parents, shaken by their own feelings of rejection and rage toward their child, how normal their reaction is. When guilt crushes us—the heaviness of our own hearts—there is a verse from St. John that can bring us peace: «If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything» (Jn. 3:20). And often, when we humbly recognize our inner «hardness,» that becomes the first step toward a glimmer of light. Recognizing our weakness can turn us toward the One who can heal us. When we dare to entrust him with what is most precious to us—our child, in whom he finds his joy—God does not abandon us. He knows suffering. He accepted it on the Cross.
We educate through who we are
He does not ask whether we have degrees in pedagogy or psychology. What does he ask? We all know: we educate partly through what we say, much through what we do, but essentially through who we are.
When I told Guglielmo's parents these things, they broke down. That is their problem exactly: they feel so inadequate. What matters is not what we feel, but what we desire. We already are, in some measure, what we desire. To desire to love is already to love. «Only infinite desire is omnipotent,» St. Catherine of Siena said.
The child senses who we truly are
And if our hearts no longer dare to desire, the Lord is content with our desire to desire. His love is there, flowing like rivers of living water, the moment a contrite and thirsting heart opens to his mercy. We cannot help a child grow by hiding our mistakes. The child senses what we actually are through everything that escapes us and betrays us. He takes shape not from what we appear to be, not from what we believe ourselves to be, but from what we desire.
Being true with him
This is why it matters so much to be real with him—to ask his forgiveness simply for our failures, and so to become his companions on the road, with all its shades and seasons of growth. More than that, to help our child grow, we need a grace of communion with him, with his sufferings, his wounds, his lacks, and above all his hidden gifts. In the mother's womb, the small child grows through communion—communion that becomes ever more conscious, and continues in another form after birth.
Accept ourselves
To educate a child is to accept ourselves—to recognize who we are while desiring to become as God would have us, and will make us, if he finds us humble and trusting. To educate is to take the child as he is. More than that: it is to welcome him, listen to him, help him grow not by our will, but with the desire to lead him where God awaits him.
- O. et L. n. 92