Honour your father and mother

Br. MichaelDavide Semeraro

I have a very elderly and sick mother who practically “devours” all my free time and more. I love my job, and in my free time I would like to achieve so much more, as I have many interests. She is now in hospital undergoing a delicate operation, and I think she will be in the clinic for more than a month. I feel a great sense of liberation. I am ashamed of this, but it is a reality that I am facing, and I have a big question: is it right for me to give up everything to look after my mother? The idea of finding her an alternative accommodation makes me very uncomfortable, but I also know that the current situation is preventing me from enjoying life.

R.B.

God’s commandment obliges us to honour our father and mother. Honour implies affection and care, but it also requires us to be vigilant in practising orderly love. Caring for our parents in order to honour them because they gave us life cannot become a disorderly reversal of the flow of life, of which old age and death are a part. In short, honouring our parents must not prevent us from living our lives to the fullest according to the needs and possibilities of our life stage. Armed with this awareness, which combines intellectual clarity and moral responsibility, we should not be afraid to entrust our loved ones to competent caregivers, providing affection alongside the necessary care so that the elderly feel entrusted rather than abandoned. This sense of liberation should not create shame, but prompt reflection and decision-making.