Bob and I have been parents for over 25 years. (Gosh, we’re pretty young there^.) Yet, we’ve learned a few things along the way. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find in my column today at CatholicMom.com…
The context for spiritual growth of children presumes that the parents enjoy a relationship with Christ and his Church, and are trying to grow in their faith as well as lead their families in the same.
The family of God is the Church at large, but it is built family by family. Vatican II dubbed the family “the domestic church”. Therefore, build your domestic church with the same care that you would create a home.
A Catholic life is more than “Church on Sundays”. It is a daily life, a way of being and a way of doing. A Catholic life is a response to the relationship we have as God’s sons and daughters – the rich heritage we gain in and through our baptism. A Christian life a witness to our identity; it is filled with virtue, especially the basics of faith, hope, and love. It is also a moral life that exalts the dignity of the human person and is, still, foundationally built upon the Golden Rule: Do to others, as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31.)
The Church considers you the primary educators of your children in matters of faith, not a Catholic school or a parish religious education class. If you look around, you can see that this is not a very popular responsibility, given the rampant neglect of this precious duty, but it does belong to you nonetheless. So even if you are the only parent on the block who believes this, it is worth doing, and worth encouraging the other Catholic parents you know to do the same.
Read the rest of Part 2 here, and find Part 1 here.
The Gohn’s at Kathryn’s commencement, 2012
