It Begins at Home

Faith starts in the home. If we truly care about our children then we must truly give them a firm foundation to stand on. What's firmer than a rock? Christ needs to be welcomed back into the hearts and homes of America (and the rest of the world for that matter). It all begins at home. It's not enough to send your child to CCD or Mass and not attend yourself. I mention this because it used to drive my former pastor crazy. People were constantly "dumping" their children at CCD and not attending Mass themselves or the family gathering sessions for faith formation. He was right, too. We'd see a number of folks dropping their children off  and walking over to Bagel Alley next door. No matter how many times he'd stress the importance of example they'd continue to do it. It frustrated him to no end. Not everyone did this of course but quite a significant number. The 9:00 AM Mass was deliberately lined up so that families could all attend Mass together and then walk over to the center for CCD for the kids and Bible Study for the adults. The church should have been packed, one would think, but it never was. And at one point Randy and I were the only two people attending the Bible Study class. 

They eventually made the family gathering sessions mandatory because barely anyone was showing up. Some folks thought this was over the top but how else could the priests and religious education teachers prepare the children for the Sacraments? As the head of Religious Ed. use to tell my mom and I all the time (when we were cleaning the center), "The parents need the classes almost as much as the children, if not worse."

I understand that we live in a very secular age and that this "secularization" of society has been catchy. Sort of like a virus that gets passed from person to person. But there's a cure for this virus and it begins in the home. 

Randy and I are far from being perfect parents but we are genuinely striving to give our child a firm foundation to stand on. Sometimes it feels as if we are constantly pushing against  waves of anti-Catholic sentiment or trying to swim through the morass of "junk" this secular society continues to toss at everyone but thankfully we can turn to the God who "walks on water" and trust Him to steer us in the right direction.

So how can families bring God back into their homes?

I thought this article gives a wonderful example on how to do this: The Domestic Church: 7 Steps to a Proper Catholic Home.