Since I seem to be on something of a roll with family stories…
My paternal grandfather was a lifelong Presbyterian. In Belfast, N. Ireland, however, his choice of a Roman Catholic bride proved highly objectionable to his family and he was shunned by them ever after.
Suffering from stomach cancer, he was reaching the end of his days. My grandmother prepared for his death in what now seems a rather extraordinary way. She went in search of the most narrow-minded Presbyterian Minister she could find.
As my grandfather was slipping away, she said to him, “Would you like me to get the Minister for you?” After replying in the affirmative, Granny called the bigot to come and visit with her husband. Afterwards, she said to him, “John, was that helpful to you?” My poor grandfather admitted that the Reverend had been of no great help. Granny pounced. “I know a lovely wee priest and he’d be happy to see you.”
The priest was ushered in and, hours before his death, my grandfather became a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
To her own dying day, Granny was fiercely proud that she’d snatched her husband from the jaws of Hell at the last possible moment!
Thank God for the passage of time, ecumenism and some sense of progress…
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
We have a few goldfield marriages that crossed the big divide in our family. (Sad thing is, some bitterness remains over some things even down to the present day.) But there is still something very humorous about your family story, despite the bigoted nature of the times that gave birth to it!
Margaret,
What, pray tell me, is a “goldfield” marriage?
Paul
Well, when the gold rushes happened in Australia, New Zealand and California around the 1860s, lots of men- including many Irishmen- left their homes to make it rich. Huge settlements sprang up, and there weren’t many women of marriageable age. My Swiss-Italian great-great grandfather married an Irishwoman who was born in Co Tipperary and who had emigrated to Australia as a toddler with her parents. That was a Very Catholic marriage. They switched across to NZ goldfields and never made it rich, but settled in a goldfields town to raise their family. My great-grandmother was their eldest, and when three months pregnant she married an Anglican who had come from Jersey in the Channel Islands- thus jumping the Faith Divide. She was from then on treated quite badly by her family. Her sister lived over the hedge from her, and would gossip over the fence, but never went into her house again.
I know that is such a sad back story of bigotry but I roared with laughter. Having spent last weekend with the whiff of west of Scotland bigotry in my nose, that struck a chord. I loved the last line “snatched her husband from the jaws of hell”. Classic!
Simon,
I’m glad you laughed. Better that than weeping!
Paul
Oh my! And that was the belief – God have mercy. It is a funny story, but yet a sad one.
However, I guess if those things had *not* happened, change might not have come for all of us. There is always a story, within the story, right?
That’s always a tough question, isn’t it? Is suffering a requirement for progress? Is it merely inevitable, even if it’s not necessary? Or is it something we could dispense with if more of us were wise enough to learn things any way but the hard way?
Fran,
Isn’t it amazing how often sad and funny go together?
Paul
As a Presbyterian pastor and Ignatian spiritual director and participant in ecumenical work, I’m sad to say that it’s still possible to encounter this sort of attitude every day. I have to laugh and admire your grandmother’s resourcefulness, though!
Robin,
I was very aware of you as I wrote this post and I thank you for your kind and gentle words.
I have also learned over the years that Presbyterian Church USA and the Presbyterianism of my youth are quite different animals.
Paul
LOLOL I bet they are!
Sly Granny! But they will always have thier way! Great story..even better when her grandson became a priest!
Annette,
Perhaps Granny was happy but, as my father reminded me on my ordination day, most of my relatives were spinning in their graves!
Paul
Paul,
My best guess is that when we go beyond, we know better. But now this is starting to make me sad!
Your grandmother must have been an amazing woman! I agree with Robin that there is still that attitude in some circles on both sides. When I began attending the Roman Catholic Church some well-meaning Protestant friends took me to what they considered the “best” Protestant church in Toronto in the hope that I would realize that I belonged there because they were concerned for me. Now that I am Catholic, there are some Catholics in my parish who worry about my family who are Protestant and are certain that my family members will be condemned to hell. These are well-meaning people on both sides who have a limited understanding of the grace of our Lord. On a brighter note, Catholics and Protestants at the Toronto School of Theology worshipped together yesterday praising our Lord in a very meaningful service at Regis College.
I did have a nun tell me once, in startled concern, that I was going to hell (because at 13 or so I had not been baptized; my father was very Anabaptist on that issue, although he probably would not have known to identify himself as such).
The Regis service sounds wonderful.
Robin, it was wonderful and you will be interested to know that the Presbyterians of Knox College led the worship. The closing hymn was one of my favourites “Be Thou My Vision” which was so appropriate in such a gathering.
Lynda,
“These are well-meaning people on both sides who have a limited understanding of the grace of our Lord.” Sadly, yes. I think our human nature doesn’t allow us to fully perceive how we live surrounded by boundless grace.
Paul
I really love these family stories.
And as much as I could love to blame the uncharitiable minister and credit the wee priest (I loved that detail!) for this deathbed conversion, I imagine a lifetime of love between your grandfather and your Catholic grandmother & the rest of your family probably had more to do with his being “snatched from hell.”
Your grandfather sounds like an extraordinary man, accepting his family’s rejection for marrying the woman he loved, and then staying firm to his family’s religious beliefs, despite what must have been intense presure — if perhaps also sublte, as this story suggests — from your Granny and her family. I don’t know if I could have been as strong.
Thank God, indeed, for ecumenism.
Denise,
It’s funny, but until you mentioned it, I never really thought about the fact that my grandfather lost his entire family when he married my grandmother.
His parents and siblings lived in the same city as him year after year and yet he had zero contact with them. He didn’t even know when his parents died…
Wow. Heavy.
Paul
What a terrible loss for all of you, to be disconnected from an entire part of your family due to religious hatred and rigidity. It must have been so difficult for him, to have to build a new life without the support of his family of origin and not to be able to share his new family with them.
My father used to say; “you choose your friends (and spouse) but your family you have no say in.” He/we had a similar experience in that his family never accepted my mother. My father’s first marriage was annuled. His family being the broad minded folk that they were disowned him and, when he subsequently married my mother many years later, would have nothing to do with her or us when we arrived on the scene. The only time I actually had a conversation with his brother was the night of my mother’s death. He turned up with his daughter-in-law (presumably as his bodyguard) to “pay his respects.” God was, without doubt, guiding me that night because I have no idea how I didn’t lay the man on his backside.
As a child I assumed that there had been a big argument between my father and his siblings and that it had never been resolved, although I was not told what the source of the disagreement was. I finally discovered the truth about my father’s first marriage on the night of his death. My mother had been dead for nearly ten years at that point and, going through his papers, I found a copy of their marriage certificate which gave their respective status as spinster and marriage dissolved. A couple of phone calls and the full story came out. Shock doesn’t really cover the emotion my sister and I felt but at least it explained some of the back story of our childhood.
Anyway, what my family experience taught me was that having a loving family is a wonderful thing but not having one doesn’t necessarily kill you. It can make you stronger and feel truly blessed if those who are around you love you and support you for who you are.
I will never understand the logic of keeping the first marriage a secret though. Different times I guess.
Our family tree is full of infamous conversion stories where the convert was the trickster but my favorite is of my great-great grandfather. He was a staunch protestant who had fathered, much to his shigrin, a christian brother and 2 ursline nuns. Late in life he decided to join the church. He quietly met with the local priest and converted without ever discussing it with his wife. He then horrified her by joining the communion line on Easter Sunday. Legend has it that he was a daily mass attender from that day until he died but no one is quite sure how long it took her to forgive him for not telling her of his intentions.
Maura,
I love this story but I’m sure his wife was totally annoyed with him!
Paul
I feel like you are saying that the only right way is to be Catholic and if you are not Catholic, you are going to hell.
Stephen,
I don’t believe this conversation was meant to be about who is or isn’t going to hell. I’m pretty sure there will be more than a few catholics who will have choosen that fate for themselves just as there will be many of other faiths found at the eternal banquet with God.
Perhaps is it more a reflection on our throughly human ( and thus somewhat imperfect) desire to be united with our loved ones on more levels than common family or society. When we share our deepest beliefs with someone we naturally feel that we will have a deeper common bond with them, whether or not that is reality. My husband and I often joked when doing PreCana that inspite of sharing the same religion you might call ours an interfaith marriage because we interpret and interact with our common faith in ways that are as unique as we are.
Personally I have always felt that God knows the path on which to place each person so that they encounter Him and will respond to Him to the best of their ability and according to their individual gifts.
Beautifully put.
Stephen,
For the record, I believe that Hindus, Jews, Christians, Agnostics, Atheists and every other kind of people are loved unconditionally by God and that God desires them to know the joy of Heaven (even though we can’t conceive what it will be like).
I also believe that if I’d been born in, say, Saudi Arabia, I would be a Muslim and I think God would have no problem with that so, no, you don’t have to be Catholic in order to avoid hell… or enter heaven.
Had my grandmother not acted the way she did, I believe my grandfather would have gone to heaven. I just hope that I get to meet him some day.
Paul
Following the death of our ambassador to Libya, we attended an ecumenical prayer service for peace. In attendance were people of all faiths : Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish. To be united in a common plea to God in that way, not divided by religion, but one bonded by hope for all humanity, has been one of the most moving experiences of my life! A point where there’s no turning back. A time to fall in love with all of my fellow humans. A chance to taste the love our Creator surely has for each and every one of us!
I love grandmother stories. And this is a winner. Tanks, Paul.
Mike,
A fairly eccentric thing to like… but I’ll take your thanks.
Paul
What a beautiful story….the faith of your grandmother…so strong, yet gentle in her witness allowed your grandfather to be open to receive this gift, as he prepared to transition from this life to the next.
God is so good…all the time! Thank you for sharing!