Thoughts on the Solemnity of St Peter and St Paul.

Children, they bring love and light into our lives, such joy…frustration too. Sometimes parenting can feel difficult especially as children grow into their own..as my older two are now, who dare not breathe near each other, swinging from moments of silliness and friendship (pictured) to moments of seeming disdain for one another (about three seconds after this picture).

Love and hatred between siblings, I feel in our home two sides of the same coin at the moment, and something we are navigating as parents on a daily basis. Almost like a referee in a match. How we work out our differences in this world, how we see the common good in each other despite those differences is such an important part of being human, of building relationships and of growing in love and respect for someone for who they are, and who you are not.

Discipline a word which in the modern world we so often attribute to punishment, control and chastisement actually has its origins in discipulus, the Latin word for pupil, which also provided the source of the word disciple (albeit by way of a Late Latin sense-shift to “a follower of Jesus Christ in his lifetime”).

The age old saying your children so what you do and not what you say. Never more so an appropriate term when it comes to modelling behaviour.

Ironically today thinking about this we celebrate the solemnly of St Peter and St Paul in the Catholic Calendar. St Peter and Paul, the two foundational leaders of the Catholic Church share this day. There is some humour and irony in that given their somewhat rocky relationship, St Peter was an uneducated fisherman, he was bold and sometimes impulsive in his behaviour, St Paul was a Pharisee, a scholar who went on to travel the world spreading the news of Christianity. They had their differences just as my children do, but in their shortcomings they always looked back as disciples to the teaching of Christ - reminding them of their shared values, goals and nature.

So today on this feast day - of an unlikely pair, I hold space for myself and for you the parent out there, who may be holding space for your children who like mine are not always friends but love each other all the same.