EMBRACE THE CHAOS | KAIROS GLOBAL | JULY 2024

Author:  Fr. Michael Weibley

Intro: Fr. Michael Weibley, O.P. tells us to embrace, together with God, the chaos in our families, for it is in doing so that we embrace love.

Every time I enter my older sister’s home I’m hit with an intense wave of chaos, and that’s a good thing. My sister and brother-in-law have six beautiful kids, five boys and one little girl, the youngest of the bunch. When you cross the threshold of their front door you are immediately met with noise, playful roughhousing, board games, and a mom and dad who are doing a great job holding it all together. There’s laughter and joy, and sometimes tears of sadness—not everyone can always get what they want and there’s the occasional bump on the head from after a round of wrestling. There is usually some laundry that needs to be washed and more that needs to be folded. There is usually some food that needs to be cooked for the next meal. There is usually some homework that needs to be done. There is always a bunch of Legos and other toys scattered around. There might be some crayon markings on the walls and a few things might be broken. It all might look like chaos. It all might look like love. 

Every time I enter my older sister’s home I meet chaos but I also meet love. My sister and brother-in-law do a remarkable job holding things together in their home of six kids and it is because in the chaos there is a great deal of love. There is nothing fake about this home. There is nothing but the family being itself and each member being themselves, never trying to be some other false image of the family. Society might say that a family is supposed to look a certain way, that the home is supposed to be this way and not that way, and that you are only supposed to have a certain number of children, etc. All things my sister and brother-in-law have baulked at. Why? Because they know in their home chaos is also a form of love, where older brothers watch out for their younger sister, where each kiddo takes turns helping with chores, where sons and a daughter learn from their parents about what it means to sacrifice and what it means to be loved, and where a family learns how to pray together. 

Too often we can have a false image of holiness, as if everyone and every family is supposed to look like a pristine, glossy holy card. All halos and bright smiles, no suffering and certainly nothing chaotic and out of order. But life is anything but that. Life is full of twists and turns, adventures and detours, stumbling blocks and finish lines. Life is never going to turn out how you plan it, especially family life. There’s always going to be a bit of chaos in a true home and that is where true love is found. So why not embrace it? 

Sure, there is always room for improvement in a family. Who would not want to be a little more organised and be a bit more efficient? Who would not want to have more to relax a bit? But the embrace of the chaos that the Lord affords is what is life-giving for a family. What I see even more than chaos in my sister’s family is an embrace of God’s loving Providence, as my sister always tells me, ‘This is my way to holiness!’ 

Family life is chaotic. Embrace this reality, not in reluctance and angst but in a loving acceptance that everything is in God’s hands, that everything is guided by him for the good of others, and that he is present amidst the mess of our lives. Our Father in heaven loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten Son into the mess and chaos of our world. God is not afraid of a little mess and disorder. He came into our mess and disorder to let us know he’s there with us and to provide us with a pathway forward through his death and resurrection. When we look around the world today, we still see a mess and disorder, and in many families that is still the case, the difference is whether a given family embraces the chaos with God or without. That makes all the difference. 

When I see my sister and brother-in-law striving to love their kids, teaching them to pray together as a family, making sure they are at Sunday Mass every week, driving them to this and that, and making sure each of their kids gets the attention they need I see a chaotic love because they are doing it with God. I think this is exactly what God wants for his families: to embrace the chaos with him because he came to be in the chaos with them. 

So, if you are upset about some of the chaos of your home and with your family, I invite you to recalibrate your heart to an embrace of the chaos, a chaos that is imbued with the presence of God and just might be your way to holiness. 

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Fr. Michael Weibley, O.P.

SS. Philip and James Rectory

Baltimore, MD 21218