Grace awakened in parenting my three sons

    "Hi, Dad!” is the cry that greets me every evening when I step through the doors into my home. My three sons, filled with pent-up energy, are ready to pounce and play. They have been waiting for me to get home, waiting to tell me about their adventures of the day and waiting to share in one last one before the sun goes down.
    Even though I’m tired, I try my best to let them talk as they follow me to the bedroom while I change out of my work clothes into shorts and a T-shirt. I know these moments won’t last forever. At some point, they’ll be more concerned with their friends than with their mom and me, and eventually they’ll be off to college. Parenthood is a gift.
    In the very real sense of the word, we are “stewards” of souls. My sons do not belong to me; they belong to their heavenly Father. My job is to be a sign for that reality and then be an aid to help them get to heaven. Along the way, we will have our bumps, but we strive to love one another.
    “Certainly, sons are a gift from the LORD, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man who has filled his quiver with them. He will never be shamed for he will destroy his foes at the gate” (Psalm 127: 3-5).
    I love this psalm. Notice that it says, “Blessed is the man who has a full quiver,” not blessed the man “who has 1.8 arrows in his quiver.”
    Nowadays, we no longer value large families. Rather, we view people who have more than two kids as being irresponsible or unable to control their urges. We meet large families with suspicion because we cannot fathom why anyone would purposefully undertake that challenge. We must be careful not to think of our children as burdens.
    Furthermore, it reminds us of the purpose of parenthood. There used to be very practical reasons to have kids – more children meant more hands for the farm and for battle. While, I’m not milking cows or waging wars with the Philistines, this psalm reminds me that there is a purpose to parenthood. The purpose is to raise our children to become productive members of society and, hopefully, saints.
    The mystery of parenthood is primarily that I fully invest myself in the betterment of another individual, without counting the cost. Along the way, I get to share in the joys of watching these “little ones” grow. You can’t put a price on watching your own child run around the house in a cowboy costume that’s falling off his waist while the other one tries to join in the fray.
    This is not the same thing as buying a 50-inch flat-screen TV, because children are not a commodity. Yes, they can be demanding, but it is precisely those demands that teach us how to love.
    And this type of love is what leads to joy and happiness. It is simply an amazing gift we have as parents.
    Mario A. Sacasa, Ed.S., is assistant director of the archdiocesan Family Life Apostolate and director of the Catholic Counseling Service. He can be reached by email: msacasa@archdiocese-no.org.