Catholic Virtue Series: The Faces of Caring

“Where have you been?” Those words always stopped me in my tracks when trying to sneak past my parents’ bedroom after a too-late night. I had to come up with a feasible explanation, something generally not forthcoming when I knew I had simply been careless about tracking time. I don’t recall my parents setting a curfew for me or my siblings. Instead, we were expected to be responsible enough to return home at a reasonable hour. The “where-have-you- been” question was a surefire way of knowing we had gone way past that deadline.

Someone once described parenting as a willingness to walk around with your heart outside of your body for the rest of your life. Once I reached the stage of asking my own children their whereabouts, I understood this in full measure. Imagining worst-case scenarios triggered more than one sleepless night. Even now, with both of them off on their own and living very responsible lives, my hearts skips a beat if I get a phone call or text at an unexpected hour. Any time they are in need my instinct is to race to their rescue, despite knowing this is neither warranted nor desirable. Sometimes we are called to care on the sidelines.

Taken to an extreme, caring can smother a child with over-protectiveness. Kept it balance, however, it is an essential companion to love. To care for an adolescent who resists your every effort, to sit by the bedside of an ailing infant that you cannot fix or heal, to watch your grown children embark on their own and know the struggles that lie ahead of them – all of these are profound lessons in caring that broadens an understanding of true love. To care for another is to attend to them – to their needs for both help and autonomy. Attentiveness helps us walk the fine line of caring out of genuine love and concern for the other, and allows them to take steps on their own without our need to interfere, advise, or correct. This way of caring is not just between parent and child, but within all interpersonal relationships.

As a Christian virtue, caring extends beyond our inner circles and out into the broader world, particularly towards those who are unable to fend for themselves. Jesus was a model care-giver. He was so attentive to the needs of others that he could pick a feeble voice out of a crowd in order to bring healing and comfort to a blind beggar (Mark 10:46-52). He was indiscriminate in his love, offering as much care to a prostitute as to a Roman centurion. He also knew the importance of withdrawing from continual care-giving in order to replenish himself through prayer. And he didn’t try to do it all himself, but drew his disciples into the same kind of ministry.

It is striking how two of the most potent images of God’s caring love in the Bible are grounded in parenting. Isaiah compares the love of God to a mother who could never forget her own child (Isaiah 49:15). Jesus tells of a father who welcomes his runaway son with a party. What comfort we can take in the care of a God who, even when we stray, attends to our needs with open-hearted love.

Bright Ideas

• Talk with your family or class about people who are in need of care – those who are sick, poor, homeless, or grieving. How might you attend to their needs through prayer or outreach?

• Download my Prayer for a Caring Heart, and use it in your parish or home.

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