""Are you coming to the 9 o'clock service with us?" I asked my 22-year-old son. It was a Saturday night, a month or so after he had moved home after graduating from college. "Actually, I'm going to check out the Catholic church," he replied. I paused. The fact that he wanted to attend the Catholic church was somewhat surprising, but not shocking. After all, his girlfriend of three years was Catholic. She lived a few hours away, having moved there to attend graduate school."
"When my son moved back home after graduating last spring, we welcomed this bonus time with him as we readjusted to sharing a house again. Gone was the gangly teen who left home at age 18, replaced by a young man focused on his new career. It struck me as surreal that we could chat about work like peers over the dinner table, then seconds later, I'd be nagging him to hang up his towel from the bathroom floor."
A son moved home after college and chose to attend a Catholic church instead of his family's Protestant congregation, surprising his parents and provoking feelings of disappointment and perceived rejection. The son had shown little interest in organized faith as a teen and did not engage with youth group or college fellowship listings. After college, influences including a long-term Catholic girlfriend and campus faith experiences led him to explore Catholicism. Parents adjusted to living together again, noticing adult maturity alongside lingering family dynamics. The parent's realization reframed the son's choice as independence and formation of his own spiritual path rather than estrangement.
Read at Business Insider
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