Keeping the faith isn't always easy

Church is supposed to be that place where everyone feels welcome and you should feel at peace and refuge. But during the past few years as my son has gotten older, I sometimes feel a bit of dread every Sunday morning. It’s not necessarily my fellow parishioners that cause that dread but myself. That’s because Michael is nearly 14 and almost as tall as I am doesn’t have the best church behavior. It’s not like he’s driving cars along the pews like he did when he was 4 or crying like he did as a baby, but in a place where people are usually quiet and reverent, he’s just being Michael. That means he leans against me at times when the priest is talking, he rocks back and forth during the readings and he always disappears for a good 10 minutes to the bathroom.

Michael pays attention and understands what’s going on at church, but it’s so hard for him to keep his body relatively still for an hour. Yes, there is some movement, but not much!

While sitting in church, I wonder what the people behind us or next to us must be thinking. Autism is an invisible disability. You can’t usually tell someone is autistic just by looking at them. For a while, we tried sitting near the back of church so fewer people would notice us, but Michael likes to sit near the front. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about what other people may be thinking while I’m at church, but I can’t help it. I just don’t want people to think poorly of him (or let's be honest -- my mothering skills).

Now that his sister serves at mass and my husband ushers, it’s sometimes just the two of us in the pew and I feel the spotlight is on us – and him – more. I just sometimes wish we were invisible, but I know too that it’s important for Michael to keep going out in the community – both for us and other people so they can what people with autism are really like.