My dear friends, dear mother, is it possible for your teenage child to be any different from the way you described in the email you sent me a few days ago?

Your child is normal. What do I mean by normal? You say your child keeps to himself, is gloomy at times, has his phone like an extension of his hand, is hard to talk to, cannot put up with much, and does not know what he wants. In other words, he is an ordinary child.

Dear friends of Unseen Passages, dear listeners of the Church of Piraeus radio station, the station that speaks to our souls, on 91.2 in Greece and around the world: wherever you are, I greet you. I also greet and warmly thank Vasilis Hatzinikolaou, who travels with us again today to every corner of the earth through his beautiful music.

And I greet you, my dear friend, sitting there listening to us and bearing with us despite all the troubles you are going through. Like the woman who wrote to me: she is a mother, and she loves her child. I am sure of that. She cares about what is best for her child. What parent does not love their child? What father or mother does not ache for their own flesh and blood? A parent would give anything for a child.

But sometimes a child needs you to give without making so many frantic moves. Sometimes giving means stepping back. Sometimes helping means becoming still. We seem to have confused these things. This mother is very worried about her child. She wants to help, to offer something, to change the child, and she asks me, “Is there a way? Is there a book?” There are books. Read them; they all help. Spiritual books, writings of the Fathers, books about the Church, books on psychology and education, lives of the saints: anything that offers advice about children can help. But what do we do afterward? It is like someone asking me, “Is there a good recipe book so I can make wonderful meals?” Is the book enough? It takes skill and repetition,

practice, close attention to what the book says, and the willingness to follow it consistently. After all, what does this program do? It repeats things we already know. Don’t you know that love is the answer to everything? That a gentle manner matters? That unity in the family, prayer, humility, dialogue, and a good, honest conversation matter? You know these things. But when the hour of temptation comes, when something takes hold of you that you cannot control, and you do not know where this wave of panic, confusion, and turmoil is coming from,

you forget everything, sermons and talks alike. Perhaps you have just come home from a fine talk at a parenting class, or heard something at the Divine Liturgy. On the way home you are glad and say, “How wonderful that was to hear.” Then you walk through your door, and your whole mood changes. You say, “But I can’t put any of that into practice here. That priest speaks well, but if he came to my house,” a mother says, “he would see that it doesn’t work.” I know it can be put into practice anywhere. We simply do not keep reminding ourselves of it. We forget; it slips away. Our hearts fill with the grace of God and the sweetness of good intentions. But that richness, that fragrance from God which enters our hearts, can soon be spent along the roads of life if we do not take care of it,

until it is gone and we have forgotten it.

I see this in myself too. I think I am in a good spiritual state, until something unexpected happens and irritates me beyond measure. My nerves fray, the peace I thought I had suddenly disappears, and a wave of irritation, anger, resentment, and bitterness takes its place.

Once, someone went to wash my car for me. I was calm and happy. My errands were done, someone had helped me, and he brought the car back. “Wonderful, thank you,” I said. We were about to go to a church. I got into the car, pleased that it was clean. We had been driving for five minutes when, in the sixth minute, I noticed something missing from above the steering wheel. I had put a little cross there from Jerusalem, with a tiny, discreet vial of water from the Jordan River. It was a lovely ornament, and I was very fond of it. I had attached it with something temporary, so it could be taken off and put back. Well, at the car wash, they had taken it off and...

it was lost, or broken, or they had simply forgotten to put it back. In any case, in that sixth minute I realized it was gone. A moment earlier I had been calm and thanking the man who had helped me. Suddenly I saw a different person inside myself. I could hardly bear it. I stopped talking and did not want to say another word. Anger can come out in what you say, but it can also come out as sulking: “I won’t speak to you. I’ll punish you with silence.” That too is a kind of warfare, isn’t it? Warfare is not only breaking dishes, hitting someone, or insulting them. Refusing to speak to someone is warfare too. It says, “As far as I’m concerned, you do not exist.”

As I sat there silent, suddenly angry, I asked myself, “How did I become like this in a single minute?” And I had to answer, “But I did.” I kept thinking, “Where is that beautiful sacred ornament, the cross with water from the Jordan? It was so lovely. Where did it go? Why didn’t he notice it and put it back? How could he bring me the car like this?” Then I began to think, “What are you saying? What if the car had been in an accident, or something serious had happened to you? So many people face serious troubles, and you are sitting here fretting over this little thing. And you claim to care about the water from the Jordan and that little cross. What does the cross mean? Doesn’t it teach humility, love, and unity? What is the point of putting a little cross in your car when you have torn its meaning out of your soul? Your brother is sitting beside you, and you will not speak to him. You have suddenly become angry and sullen. And now you are going to a church,

where, in a little while, you will preach and speak so sweetly about all these things.” That is the difference. Whether you are a parent with a family and children, someone without children, or someone living alone, at the office or anywhere else, you will struggle with the same things, the same passions. Each passion will simply take a different form for you. Your passions surface through your children; your irritation arises because of them. Mine arose because of a loss like this. For someone else, it may arise because of a missing document they lost, or a mistake you make in a text. There are always occasions to learn the same lessons from God: the lesson of maturity in life, the lesson of humility, the lesson of love,

and what truly comes first, second, third, and last in life. Through setbacks, your mistakes, and your passions, you begin to understand your priorities. You can learn, if you want to. If you do not learn, something else will come along. You will be hurt again, feel pain again, clash and quarrel again, and what is inside you will be revealed again. This is how life passes and how a person matures. So when this mother wrote that she was worried because her children were withdrawn and gloomy, I wondered whether she might be putting a little too much pressure on them. Perhaps she is not giving them what they need or respecting their individuality and freedom. A child, after all, is a person distinct from you.

You do not have to enter every corner of your child’s soul and manage every step and every breath. Give your child some room. Do not press so hard or worry so much. It is not a bad thing for a child to be a little withdrawn or gloomy at times. Who said it was bad? It may show that the child is looking within, trying to understand what is happening, to find a footing and an identity. The child is growing, struggling through life, and cannot tell you everything.

I once saw a film on television about a child who had moved to a new place and was being mocked and beaten at school. The child came home withdrawn, and the mother kept asking, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

The child could not tell the parents exactly what was wrong. Some things are hard to say. To open your heart, you need to feel trust and closeness. So the child kept saying, “Nothing’s wrong.” The mother, who really was perceptive, said, “I can tell something is wrong.” Yes, but simply seeing that something is wrong is not the point. That much is plain. Can you find the root of it? Finding the root takes care. If you want to reach the root of a little flower, you do not take a hoe and strike the ground wherever you please. You would destroy the whole plant. Instead, you gently work the soil until you reach the problem. And if the other person wants to speak, and it is the right moment for them to open up,

they will tell you. If they are not ready, respect that. But to respect it, I too must have a life that sustains me. My child cannot be my source of nourishment. I must not draw the life out of my child just so I can be happy; that would leave the child withered. I must have another source. That source is God, love, and my relationship with my husband or wife. Sustained there, I can let that happiness overflow into a loving home for my child. People often say, “You didn’t marry your child. You married your husband.” Or, as one child once said to his father, “You married my mother. Stop hovering over me all the time. You two are the couple.”

But sometimes the couple is not finding happiness, understanding, mutual support, and meaning in their own life together. Instead, they keep turning to the child and making the child the whole meaning of their lives. One evening I was due to give a talk at a parenting class in Athens. The topic was “Parents, the Ascetics of the Cities.” Parents are ascetics within the cities. They undertake ascesis, ascetic discipline: like monks, they struggle, train themselves, endure, and make sacrifices. Before I left for the talk, I checked my email and found a message so closely connected to the topic that I printed it out. I asked the sender, “May I quote a few lines from your message anonymously?” He replied, “Say whatever you want. I don’t mind. But,” he added, “it won’t change anything.”

“The way things are with parents today won’t change easily.” He went on to tell me about a friend who had met a young woman, but whose relationship ended sadly and without dignity. The young man’s spiritual father said that, unfortunately, the parents were to blame: they had interfered in the wrong way, confused the young couple, and the couple broke up. The parents had interfered. Then the person writing to me said, “My parents do the same thing, especially my mother.” In other words, his parents meddle in his life and put pressure on him too. “Often,” he continued, “we sit down to eat. I put food on my plate, and she comes over to add more because she says I need to eat more. At that moment I feel like hitting her or killing her.”

So much anger over something silly, over a spoonful of food. But this keeps happening, and it all builds up. “Of course I don’t hit her. In the end, I hit myself.”

“Another time”—I’m reading his words now; I have the printed page in front of me—“we were eating somewhere, and she told me to take off my jacket because she was hot. Can you imagine? I took it off, but I thought: even if I do nothing else good in my life, the fact that I’m not picking up this table and bringing it down on her head ought to get me into Paradise. This woman will make saints of us before our time.” He goes on: “Anyway, everyone is in a world of their own, at home and everywhere else. Sometimes I’ve thought I’d like to leave, go far away, sleep on a bench, and play the flute in the street for a little money.” And when he learned about the talk I was planning to give, he ended by saying, “I just saw on the website that you’re giving a talk to parents.”

“Tell them something—though what will they understand? They’re trying, but they’ve made a mess of it. If only they were ascetics, praying and keeping to their corner. But listen to me judging them, as though I were any better. Anyway, may they be well. Never mind. Everyone does what they can. Your blessing.” That is how this person ended his letter. I keep calling him a child, but did you notice that I haven’t told you his age? How old would you think he is? When he says, “We sit down to eat, I put food on my plate, and she comes over and adds more,” what age would you expect? And then he says they were eating somewhere and she told him, “Take off your jacket. It’s hot in here.” If you’re hot, take off your own jacket! What are you wearing?

Take off your own cardigan. Because you’re hot, I have to take off my jacket? Because you want more food, I have to eat more? Are you going to tell me how I feel when I’ve already had enough? At what age would you expect a parent to do these things? With a child, I’d say. Perhaps in primary school, maybe a little into secondary school. You would think it would stop around then.

At a very young age, you might say to your own child, “You’re cold,” or something like that. But do you know how old the person writing to me is? Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Can you imagine? That’s why they say that in Greece, in the end, a person, whether a man or a woman, has no parents.

Well... until they’re forty, and for as long as their parents are alive.

They call their children to check on them. Of course they care, but they’re showing that care in the wrong way. Then the child wants to leave, take to the streets, disappear somewhere, sleep on a bench, play the flute and collect a little money—anything to escape. He feels so much pressure that, as he says, he wanted to pick up the table and bring it down on her head. Don’t misunderstand him. He was speaking honestly to me. That was what he felt, and he said it. I don’t know whether sacred thoughts and deeds come to your mind when you’re angry, but when we’re angry, we often imagine punishing the other person, getting back at them, putting them in their place. That’s what this young man is saying: “I wanted to grab

the table and throw it, to make you see what your behavior is doing to me. Please, just leave me alone. You’re suffocating me. This isn’t love anymore.” Something has become unhealthy and confused, and it needs help. First, it needs awareness and understanding. The young man reaches the point of saying, “I feel I’ll go to Paradise just for enduring parents like this.” The pressure he endures is different from what children faced in the past, when they had to work from morning till night, in the fields or in workshops. The practical and physical hardship then may have been even greater. Children today really do have every comfort. Yet perhaps children back then had more freedom in some ways. They stood on their own feet. They felt they had a place in the world, a personality, and worth. Here, those things aren’t being recognized.

“Do you respect me at all? Do you understand that I have my own way and my own life? Please respect that.” “They’re trying,” he says, “but they’ve made a mess of it.” And I read again: “If only they were ascetics, praying and keeping to their corner.” Parents like ascetics, praying and keeping to their corner. Step back and pray for your child. Be sure that you’re helping your child a great deal. Raising children is very hard. Being a parent is a gift, and it calls for much illumination from God: knowing what to say at each moment and how to act. This is the path God has called you to, because perhaps you are suited to family life. Not everyone is called to it.

Some people can barely manage a couple of tasks or work with another person. They go to the supermarket and can’t bear to wait seven or ten minutes in the checkout line. How could they find the patient endurance to raise children over so many years? To care for them, feed and clothe them, think about them, handle their affairs, listen to their problems, take them to doctors, schools, enrollment appointments, sports and music lessons—and deal as well with difficulties involving health, emotions, money, or learning? It takes heroism. It is a miracle, a holy calling. Being a parent today is a great undertaking. So respect the life you’ve been given. Find joy in it, make good use of it, value it, and recognize what it is.

Find some calm, even while you’re concerned. Have concern, but have peace as well. What should concern you most, really, is that you’re not at peace.

In the confusion of our times, in this sea of difficult relationships, I’m not claiming I can find all the answers. But when panic takes hold of you, you make far worse mistakes. That’s what I mean. Step aside for a moment and examine your own character. Ask yourself: What am I doing in my family? What am I offering my children? What am I giving them? Have I attended to my own needs before trying to meet my child’s? What does a little flower need? Water, soil, sunlight, air, and room to grow. Then it grows, doesn’t it? Of course, it also needs to be safe. It cannot grow beside animals that will devour it. It needs safety. Do you have that sense of security within yourself?

Can you give your child the sense that there is a father and mother beside them who are steady and calm, who can let go and trust? A child deeply needs to see peace, gentleness, and calm on your face—the qualities we see in the faces of God’s children. You are children of God. And you, mother and father, are called to show your child, whether young or grown, something of the face of God the Father, who cares, who loves, who is tender, good, and wise. So when you are overwhelmed by anxiety, when your child at home does not feel...

safe and at peace within, a very basic need goes unmet. This is something fundamental. Then everything else is unsettled too.

If a child cannot settle down and feels conflict, tension, and turmoil at home, that child cannot grow in a healthy way. Children need unity. They need to feel that their home is united, a place where they can come in and feel at ease, without arguments and shouting. They also need consistency. We must do what we say we’ll do. Our words and actions must agree; otherwise the child becomes confused. “My mother promised she’d buy me that phone, but she didn’t. When I brought it up again, she said, ‘Oh, stop it. I only said that so you’d leave me alone at the time.’”

That’s inconsistency, isn’t it? When you aren’t consistent, your child no longer knows what to expect from you. Your behavior seems unpredictable, as though you were drunk. In a child’s mind, A leads to B and B leads to C. There is a pattern they can follow. When that pattern breaks down, the child becomes confused and afraid.

When that child grows up and goes out into the world, home has taught them to expect setbacks and surprises at every turn. They cannot face life with the confidence to say, “I’ll manage; things are going well.” They are afraid of where the next blow might come from. They feel that something might strike them on the head or trouble their soul, because that is what they learned at home. They cannot relax.

And these things, you know, aren't things you can just tell your children. You can't sit them down and say, “Now I'm going to teach you, say, how to be calm.” You show them through your behavior, your smile, even the way you pick up the bread and break off a bite to eat your meal. You tell your child not to smoke because it harms their health, but then send the child to buy cigarettes for you because you're an adult. That is inconsistent. So you see, the issue isn't the child. The issue is you. “Tell me something to say to my child. What book should I read about my child?” Don't read a book about the child; read the child instead. Pay attention to the child's soul; it is speaking to you.

Your child is the best book you can read. Look closely and see what your child is telling you. Their eyes show their uncertainty. Their expression says, “Dad, you’ve confused me. Mom, you’ve let me down. You’ve frightened me. You’ve shaken my confidence. I don’t know where I’m going, who I am, or what I want.” The greatest gift you can give your child is your own growth, your own steadiness, your own sense of worth before God: knowing that you have worth and a grounded sense of who you are. When a child sees parents who are strong and humble, people with courage and hope,

a deep sense of responsibility, a healthy spirit, an appetite for life, energy for what comes, and a smile even in the face of problems, that helps the child. Of course there will be difficult moments too. If you appeared strong all the time, it would be an act, as though you were playing a part. You are human. Your child may sometimes see you panic, feel afraid, lose your footing, or waver in your faith. But let those be moments, and acknowledge them. Show your child what real life looks like: “My child, I’m struggling too. I’m trying too. You saw how shaken I was yesterday. Later that night, I thought about it again and remembered that God will not abandon us. I’m sorry my behavior unsettled, troubled, and frightened you.”

That is how things are.

Honesty, this genuine and sincere way of behaving, does not frighten a child. Do not be afraid to make a mistake at home. Do not be afraid to let your child see you at a moment when you have failed. That is not what will shake them. What shakes a child far more is hypocrisy, falsehood, and inconsistency when they become habitual, deliberate, and unrepented. Does a child need parents who are infallible, always at the top? That is not what we are saying. You will make mistakes. In fact, that helps teach your child that mistakes are part of life. Your child did not learn to write their first letters correctly all at once.

They made mistakes and scribbled on the page. So do you. You, their father or mother, are also a grown child who makes mistakes in life. That is nothing frightening. If your child says something about it, you can say, ‘My child, when you were little, I held your little hand to help you write A and B. Do you know how many scribbles you made? I did not reject you, because I knew you were a little child. And before God, I too am a child, trying to become a better person. I am giving it my honest best.’ That matters greatly. It matters greatly for your child to see you in difficult moments, but also in peaceful moments, full of trust, calm, and security in your thoughts about God.

as you face problems and wonder about your future, your work, building your home, or the loan you still have to pay off, let your child see that hope comes through in the end: ‘We will manage. God will provide. Of course we will find a solution. We will not let this overwhelm us.’ You can shape your character a little in this respect. Focus on thoughts that strengthen your faith in God and your trust in the power of the Lord, our Most Holy Theotokos, and our Saints. That is a great gift to your child, a great help. When you give in to fear, you undermine the very foundation of your child’s sense of security. You do them harm. And there is something else...

Well... Vasilis, I think you have already learned what I am talking about from your own home. Yours really is a loving family, and you have known its beauty. You have told me stories about it, and I can testify to it now: beautiful family moments, wonderful parents, brothers and sisters who are close. That is why your music is so beautiful too, Vasilis Chatzinikolaou: balanced, strong, hopeful, solid, poetic, and gentle all at once. How do you manage all that?

Let me give you the program’s email address: atheata.perasmata.gr. The station’s telephone number is 4118602.

4118640. Thank you. Thank you very much for the messages you send and the calls you make. The program is rebroadcast late at night on one day of the week. In a few days it will also be online, so you can listen again whenever you like, in your own time.

Thank you so much for the messages you send, and especially for your kind words about the book we published. It contains seven episodes of our program, Unseen Passages, in written form, with an accompanying CD and the texts of the talks. One of the talks is about the relationship between parents and children, and how it can become a little better. Now you might say, ‘You talk about these things, but you do not have a family of your own. Do you have children of your own to raise?’ A mother once went to a psychologist, and he talked to her and talked to her and talked to her. He put her in her place. At the end she asked him, ‘Do you have children yourself?’ The psychologist said, ‘No.’ ‘Ah, all right, I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘I will not listen to you. I will find a psychologist who also has children, so we can talk properly, because you will not understand me.’ In the end she went to another psychologist, and he told her much the same thing, because the question is not simply whether or not you have children.

The question is how honestly you seek to understand what is really happening in your home. What a beautiful thing it is to learn to love your child unconditionally, without bargaining or setting terms. ‘My child, I love you whatever you do, however you are, however you behave, and however you speak to me. There are many things about you I do not like. I do not like your hair, your grades, your torn trousers, or the five hundred earrings, two hundred rings, and all those bracelets you wear. But you are more than your ring or your earring. You are more than your grades. Your grades are one part of your life; they are not who you are.’

‘You are a person, and I love you. I love you whether you get a perfect twenty or not. Of course I want you to get a twenty. I hope you do, and that is why I work hard and pay for your school and tutoring and everything else. But my love does not depend on that twenty. Even if you bring home a twenty, I love you because you are my child. You are a creature of God, a person distinct from me, and you too have a sacred purpose in this world. I love you if your marriage takes root and all goes well, and I love you if your marriage runs into difficulties. I will not take it as a blow to my pride or worry about my standing with the relatives, the neighbors, or the people in our building. I will not start saying, “You have disgraced me.” My own embarrassment is not the first thing I care about. What matters to me is my relationship with you. I love you

with everything you carry, within you and around you, whatever that may be.’ There is a great difference between loving someone only when all is going well and loving them however they are. Your child is not your property, but a fellow traveler through life. Think of it before God. If God appeared and asked us, ‘Who are you?’ we would say, ‘Your children, Lord.’ I would say it, and my child would say it too. Son and daughter, father and mother would all say before God, ‘We are all Your children, Lord.’ So what are we to one another? Brothers and sisters. Our souls are like brothers and sisters. On this earth we are called father, mother, son, daughter, nephew, niece, and cousin, but we are brothers and sisters. Your child was born of you and truly is your child. Yet before God, that child is not your property. Your child belongs to God and is going toward Him. That is the purpose.

We are here to learn unity, love, forgiveness, and how to make room for one another in our hearts. We must respect one another, enter into one another’s heart and soul with love, and feel united while still giving one another the space that freedom needs. Yes, a child’s behavior can sometimes be very trying. A mother told me that her older child was hitting the younger one, and she did not know what to do. ‘Can you give me some advice? The older one grabs the little one and beats them badly. If I scold the older child, they get jealous and upset, thinking I do not love them. If I leave it alone, the younger one gets hurt. What should I do?’ Yes, that behavior is very trying. But make this distinction within yourself and say, ‘My little child is having difficulty

with their behavior, but I love them as a human being, as a person of worth, as a distinct person, as a soul.’ ‘I love you, but I have a problem with your behavior.’ Do you see? ‘What you are doing frightens me. I love you, but I am afraid when you are out at night, and I need to tell you so. I love you, but what you said a little while ago hurt me. My child, you treated me unfairly.’

‘I feel hurt by that. I love you, but I need to say it. I love you, but I am angry about what you did. I asked you to be quiet so I could sleep, and you made noise. I asked you to clear the plates, and you did not. I asked you to pick up the clothes you left lying around, and you did not. I love you very much, but I am very upset, and there will be a consequence. I still love you. I will always love you.’ You can color

everything you do, every word you say, and every gesture you make with love.

A person is more than their behavior. There is something deeper within them. Our behavior changes from moment to moment according to how we feel, our temptations, our anger, the passions, and the things that influence us. Are we going to judge a person by that alone?

That is what I wanted to say. And as for the words you say to your child, do not wound them with your words. Some parents say things you may have said yourself, perhaps more often when your children were little. Thankfully, as the years passed, you realized it and stopped. They say, for example, ‘You are a bad child.’ The child is not bad; the act was wrong. Dear little George did something wrong when he broke the glass. My good child did a bad thing, yes, but the child is good. George is still a good child even if he breaks every plate and dish in the house. We should not give a child the message, ‘You are a bad child.’ So many parents say it...

A child associates the word ‘bad’ with something deeply unpleasant, ugly, and dirty. So they begin to feel that they themselves are bad: ‘I am a dirty person in this world.’ Other parents say, ‘You are going to be the death of me. You will make me ill. You will be the death of me.’

You are putting the thought of death into your child’s mind and connecting it with who they are, as though they could cause someone to die. That is unbearable for a child. No, these are not trivial things. Someone will say, ‘Now you are picking over little words. This is exaggerated. You are analyzing everything too much.’ It is not like that. You say these things because you do not understand the weight words carry. Children take what we say to them literally.

If we tell them, ‘I love you,’ they feel loved. They do not think we are fooling them. If you say, ‘You are a bad child. Daddy does not love you. Mommy does not love you,’ the child believes it.

A child takes it seriously. “Why did I ever have you? Why did I get married, get myself into all this, and have children?” Those words sink into a child’s subconscious.

That is how the atmosphere at home becomes strained and unpleasant. The children grow confused and hurt. The parents get upset, then they quarrel with each other, and their relationship as a couple begins to falter. Add a little poverty and financial trouble, and the complaining starts again. If there is no place for God, prayer, love, church, or Holy Communion, things grow worse still. You hardly know where to begin putting things right, which hole to plug first, which fire to put out. Then someone calls and says, “Father, we’re separating. He’s sleeping on the sofa, and in two weeks he’ll leave. We’ll be on our own.” My dear people, why?

And what will you say to the child? Forgive me. I am not trying to make you emotional or turn this into something gloomy. You can stay as firm as a rock, make your decision, and go your own way, wherever your heart desires. But how did things come to this? How did this family life, this relationship, begin, and how did it end up here? It is a shame. I think that, for most couples, there could be a way back to each other: a way to fit together again, make amends, heal the wounds, and find balance. It can happen. Divorce is not inevitable. Problems can be resolved, but it takes work. It takes work, reflection, care, and self-knowledge.

It takes humility, resolve, and a willingness to pay the price. It costs you something. You cannot simply drift through life doing whatever you please. You have to make a serious decision to work hard, to sacrifice, to say, “I’m going to keep trying.” It takes sacrifice: doing what your wife asks sometimes, and your wife doing what you ask. That grates against the ego, which always wants independence and rebellion. Yet the same ego that makes you suffer now will go on making you suffer afterward. Just keep that trap in mind. If you cannot find a way to live together in the home you have now, I do not know whether another choice will bring you what you are looking for. Of course, I am not saying this is true in every case. Somewhere else, two people might be very well suited, and everything might be blessed, ideal, even perfect. But there is no guarantee.

What I mean is that you carry the problem within you. If your character truly needs work, shaping, and renewal, then whatever next step you take in life, after those first months when everything seems perfect and rosy, when you are walking on air and seeing stars of joy and happiness, the darkness may begin there too. We cannot escape the lessons God gives us in life. Through marriage, through family, and through children, you will learn a great deal. You will grow wise and mature. You will learn how to live. And when you have learned how to live, the Lord will take you to where life truly is, and you will live forever. You will have been enriched here on earth. You will have learned lessons

about working together, unity, humility, love, and God’s help. Isn’t that how things are? It is. Each of us has our own struggles, and we keep trying. Our time has passed, and I have not said everything I wanted to say. But this subject never ends: the relationship between parents and children, and the relationship between the parents themselves.

I may have confused you by stepping into your home like this. Forgive me. I know you do not want outsiders involved in your family problems and private affairs. I know you feel that you are the one who runs your home. I did not come to force anything on you or take charge. I came as a friend, simply to offer a blessing: may Christ dwell in your home and in every room, above all in the heart of each person who lives there. May Christ move among you, drive away evil spirits, sorrow, depression, discouragement, the troubles that weigh you down, and the demons that cloud your mind, and give you abundant light. I pray that Christ’s breath may fill your home, and that from his mouth may come light, love, refreshment, warmth, and whatever you need at any moment. May he clear your mind so that you can see plainly who is beside you: angels. May you see that your wife is an angel and a support to you,

that your husband is your joy, your helper, your support, the leader who supports you in life and gives you courage, strength, confidence, and security. Your children are little angels too. And all of you go hand in hand to meet God, both in this life and in the next. In a few years, all these troubles will have passed. Do you know why? Well, may you have strength as you continue your struggle. I pray that what is troubling you will be resolved this week. I pray that, through your prayers, God will soon give you the solution you are waiting for, an answer and illumination for the dilemma you face, so that you may have joy. You have reason for joy: the sun is still there, shining outside. Whether you can see it today where you are, whether it is hidden behind clouds or on the other side of the earth, the sun is there.

God says to you, “I, the Creator, make such radiant creatures so that you may understand something of my own radiance, my warmth, and my love, take comfort, and keep going.” So may you have strength and continue on your way. We will be together again next week. Please join me then. Once again, something you bring to me will give me a subject to think and speak about. Rejoice!