Honouring your Parents
Posted on 11. Apr, 2019, in Christian Values, Community, Faith and Justice, Family, Gospel ValuesComments Off on Honouring your Parents
“If you think you owe your parents nothing, prepare to learn they were right all along,” writes David Quinn in the Irish Catholic. Drawing on a tweet from a Jewish academic, Yoram Hazony, “Honour your Father and Mother or learn the hard way”, he explains how life lessons are most easily learned from our parents, who can teach us with more love and care than life can.
He also links this life lesson to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, saying that today’s equivalent might be a drug addict or someone who has dropped out of society. He looks at the lessons we can learn from that Parable about the difficulties of tying to cope with a child who is reckless or troublesome. Should you do what the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son does and give them their inheritance or would that only lead to resentment from the rest of the family? Quinn says that there are no easy answers and that, in the end, every person has to learn their own way. However knowing that your parents have real wisdom to offer can allow you avoid some of the pitfalls as he explains to Miriam Gormally.