Sarah’s Reviews > Saint Monica Club: How to Wait, Hope, and Pray for Your Fallen-Away Loved Ones > Status Update

“Sometimes. We can hear God’s word and almost fall apart at the beauty of it—until we have to live it.”

“Thee prodigal in your life might be the one to point out the weeds you don’t wish to see, and thus both of you can walk together toward Christ.”

“Becoming a faithful follower of Christ means falling in love. Given the myriad of reasons why a person might fall away from the Faith, it becomes the lover’s job to provide the reasons (without arguing) why one might fall in love with Christ.”

“God seems to teach us to hold on to the nails, not the hurt, and He uses our moments of grief to pierce us with grace.”

“There will always be a test. It will always be pass or fail, and your only job in these pop quizzes of life, whether at the dinner table or while listening to the car radio with your prodigal, is to respond with love and, if possible, humor.”

“Having a prodigal you love means more work, not less.

“Dropping to our knees and praying is active, deliberate work—work we’re required to do both as parents who promised at our children’s baptisms to bring them up in the Faith and as stewards entrusted with these talents we’re supposed to multiply.”

“Settling for a friction-free life, however, is a refusal to love that person or God enough to be willing to suffer.”

“When we love someone who denies, refuses, or ignores the Faith, our own faith is revealed. When someone we live leaves the Faith, we discover all the holes in our own hearts, all the ways in which we haven’t fully followed.”

“The trick when you have a spouse, friend, child, or relative you love who is far from the Church is—there is no trick. You witness to the Faith by your love, both for your loved one and for God. That’s it. That’s all. You get to be like the Church, like Christ; always proposing rather than imposing, hoping today, this time, the answer will be, ‘Yes.’”