Frances: Background

Now a grown adult, Frances still cannot tell her life story without beginning with the shape and form of her mother’s faith, for it profoundly shaped her childhood. The large, happy family at weekend mass was a jewel in her mother’s Catholic crown. Catholic school classes and rituals were nothing compared to her mother’s sense of morals and righteousness. There was no room for imperfection in her mother’s faith, which left Frances vulnerable to terrible patterns of secrecy and abuse as a young girl.

Since the perception of the family mattered most, Frances' mother couldn’t acknowledge and address the sexual abuse Frances experienced at the hands of her father and brother. Her mother had to have known, but her mother never said a word. At confession in the Catholic church, Frances constructed little sins to confess. All the while, she joined her mother in projecting piety during the day and suffered at night. Frances navigated through adolescence with depression and suicidal ideation, knowing that she wasn’t safe at home, but there was no other place she could turn.

Once she was college-age, Frances visited one of her older sisters over a weekend who now lived a few hours away. While with her sister, Frances attended the conservative Baptist church that her sister had recently started attending. When Frances' mother heard Frances' report from the weekend, her mother was furious. All the usual lines poured out of her mother’s mouth: “You should be ashamed of yourself.” “You should know better than that.” Her mother warned Frances that the devil had tricked her into going to a Protestant house of worship.

But the Baptist church intrigued Frances. The next time she visited her sister, she went to worship at the Baptist church again and came home to receive her mother’s ultimatum: “If you’re going to live here, you either go to the Catholic church with us or move out.”

Sexual abuse in the home had not triggered her mother’s passionate religious conviction. Neither was it abstaining from attending church. Instead, it was worshipping in a church outside of the Catholic Church, which her mother could not stomach. Frances' religious longing for a different tradition somehow got her mother to stand up for her faith, slewing out a storm of shame and judgment; all the while, her mother did not speak a word about her father and brother’s misdeeds.

Outside of her parents’ house, Frances began a new life as a young twenty-something: exiled from her family and desperate for healing from the toxic secret-keeping, trauma-denying, and religious perversion of her childhood. Ironically, her mother’s banishment got Frances to a safe place where she could finally start the journey toward healing. 

Frances is a profoundly brave woman who has spent the past three decades wading through her grief and heartbreak in therapy. As a pastoral counselor ordained in the Baptist tradition, she dedicated her life to being present to all those suffering in silence.

After years spent in service, Frances wonders what it looks like to move forward with her spiritual life now that her children are grown and have left home. Her history with the church is complicated, and she finds herself in a period of spiritual stagnancy. What does faithfulness look like after she’s survived so much?

Connecting points to put each story in the context of our current day (resources), scripture (lectionary), wise thinkers (worth reading), and your personal story (reflection questions).