For Parents and Familes
Promoting
vocations in your family:
1.
Speak of Christ in the
home: Speak
often of Christ in terms that endear your children to him.
Let his name be part of the family vocabulary.
Talk about how your faith in Christ has impacted
your life and led you to where you are today.
2.
Carving out Family time
together:
In the midst of the
busy schedules, when do you gather as a family? How many
meals do you plan during the week to be together?
How do you make those meal times a special time to
be able to visit and to share?
What are some family activities or hobbies you can
do on the weekends?
How is Sunday different than all other days in your
family?
3.
Pray for your children’s
vocation: Pray
for your children and for whatever vocation God is calling
them to, and teach them to do the same.
The greatest and deepest wish of every parent for a
child is that he or she discovers and does God’s will for
his or her life.
This is your child’s greatest guarantee of
happiness, and your major concern.
Prayer is necessary, since there will always be the
tempting mirage of an easier way shimmering invitingly on
the horizon for your child.
4.
Pray as spouses for your
children: Find a
prayer that you can say as husband and wife asking the
Lord to consecrate your family to him and to the mission
he has for you.
Some couples compose their own prayer and pray it
regularly. If
a couple can pray together the witness of united prayer
speaks untold volumes to the children.
5.
Pray with your children:
Nighttime prayer is a natural time to teach prayer to
children and to develop in them this important habit.
When you pray the meal prayers, use a variety of
prayers and prayer forms including spontaneous prayers
from the heart. Teach
them how to bring their concerns and needs to Jesus in
prayer. They will learn only what you model for them.
Write a family prayer which can be said regularly
by the family when they pray. Use the liturgical seasons
of the year to bring added prayer to your home such as
during Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons.
6.
Teach Bible Stories:
Especially when the children are young introduce them to
the hundreds of stories in the Bible.
Begin with a children’s Bible and give them Bibles
through the years that correspond to their understanding
of the Faith. Let the Bible stories be the means to be
able to talk to your children about the virtues, right and
wrong, life and death, etc.
7.
Teach the Lives of the
Saints:
Help your children grow, according to their age, in
their relationship with God and knowledge of their faith.
The lives of the saints are a great source of
inspiration for children—and adults.
Celebrate the
patron saint days of your children.
Help them to know who their patron saints are and
the virtues which marked their lives.
8.
Teach Devotion to Mary:
Many families pray a decade or the whole Rosary as part of
their prayers at home.
Teach your children how the Rosary is like a photo
album of the life of Jesus, Mary, and the Apostles.
By meditating on the Mysteries we come to reflect
on the Mysteries of Jesus’ Life and Mission and how he calls us to an ever deeper
discipleship and mission with him in community with
others.
9.
Bless your children:
A custom we had as children was to have our dad
bless each of us children at night with holy water.
He would make the sign of the Cross on our forehead
with the words “God
bless you” and then he would say our names.
This ritual went on for many years.
You will find this a wonderful way of integrating
parental love and affection with spirituality.
It would also be good to have a holy water font
somewhere in the house where the children can bless
themselves and be reminded of their baptism and commitment
to Jesus.
10.
Speak to your children
openly about God’s Call for them in their lives:
Remind your children
often that God has created them in his image and likeness.
He loves them so much as his son or daughter.
As our Creator he designed each of us for a
purpose.
Invite them to pray about God’s Call for their career—what
they are to do with their life as well as their state in
life—whether God is calling them to Marriage, Single Life,
Priesthood, or Consecrated Life.
Teach them how to allow the Lord to make the Call
in our lives.
11.
Chastity formation:
Speak to your children about developing a deep reverence
for the way God has created us and our bodies.
Teach them about God’s plan for sexuality and for
marriage and family.
There are many resources available today.
Jason and Crystaline Evert have many resources
available in book form and online,
http://www.chastity.com
Christopher West has CD’s and books for young
adults and couples preparing for marriage.
Many young people wear chastity rings and have a
special service for this with their pastor.
Let us know if you want more information on this.
Speak with your young people about the challenges to
chastity in today’s world.
Take the time to be formed so that you can help the
young to be formed.
Chastity is the front line for young people.
If they get chastity right—they get dating
right—then they will get marriage right—then they will get
family right—then all vocations will prosper.
Ideas: dating prayers, writing a letter to future
spouse.
12.
Adult faith formation:
If we are thirty years old but have a faith knowledge at
the sixteen year old level, we cannot witness a living
faith to our children.
What spiritual reading do you do on a regular
basis? Books?
Periodicals? Diocesan
Catholic Times?
What is your strategy for personal formation for yourself
and your spouse?
As you develop yourself in your faith, you are
better equipped to be a spiritual model and leader to
influence the faith formation in your family?
13.
Enthrone your family and
home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
By having
a picture or statue of the Sacred Heart in your home you
witness your faith to those who come to visit, but more
than that you are reminded as a family that Jesus is the
center of your family.
It is common for families to have pictures of
family members displayed in their homes. The same should
be true about our spiritual family.
Place a crucifix in the rooms.
Have several statues of the Blessed Mother and the
saints throughout the house.
Give sacramentals and statues as gifts to your
children to mark special occasions.
14.
Teach your children to love
the Mass:
I cannot
remember a time in which my parents purposely missed Mass.
This witness impressed upon me that how essential
it is to come every Sunday to receive Jesus who said,
“Unless you eat my Body and drink my Blood, you have no
life in you.”
Even if you are on vacation, especially when you
are on vacation take your children to Mass.
Dorothy Day, who served the poor in this country
for forty-five years used to say that at Mass during the
Consecration it was as if the Lord was saying to her,
“This is My Body
broken for you.
Will you let your body be broken for Me and for
others today?”
At the Consecration of the wine it was as if he
said, “This is My Blood poured out for you.
Will you let your blood be poured out for Me and
for others today?”
If we understood the Mass from this perspective,
would we ever miss?
Or could we ever say it is boring?
15.
Adoration before the
Blessed Sacrament:
I was advised by Father
Burke when I entered seminary that I would find my
vocation in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
Mother Teresa taught her sisters to pray before the
Blessed Sacrament three hours a day so that, once filled
with Christ’s presence, they would bring Christ’s presence
to others. Our
lives are so full of busyness and distraction.
Model and teach your young people to listen to the
Lord in prayer.
Find time to make Holy Hours and to encourage your
children to make visits and to spend time before the Lord
in the Blessed Sacrament.
Come to Mass early with the family each week and
let the time before Mass be a quiet time with the Lord.
16.
Teach your children the
importance of conversion through regular Confession:
If a person cannot
apologize, it will be very difficult to grow in friendship
or intimacy with others.
Similarly, if we do not learn how to reconcile
ourselves with God through the Sacrament of Penance
(Confession), there is a level of intimacy with the Lord
which we will not attain.
Model for your children the need for this Sacrament
by your own practice.
17.
Pay special attention to
the use of media in the home:
How much television
is watched in your family?
How do you balance time with the media and time
with your family? How do you shape the way media is used
in your home rather than be shaped by the media?
What programs do you watch as a family? How do you
help your children to critique the values they are being
exposed to? How do you monitor the use of the computer and
internet?
Internet pornography tragically is becoming epidemic among
people of all ages.
Spiritually, it divides their hearts and they
cannot grow in prayer or friendship with the Lord thus
making it impossible to discern one’s vocation in life.
The media is a double-edged sword.
It can either help or hinder spiritual growth in
your family.
Don’t leave its effect to chance.
Talk about it, strategize and then carry out your
plan.
18.
Write a letter or card to
each of your children
at least once a year at a
special occasion in which you share with them your
unconditional love and also share something of your faith
and your prayer that they continue to listen to and follow
God’s call for them in their life.
19.
Aim High:
My father asked me in high school not to simply seek an
easy life. He
said, “Don’t ask God
for an easy life.
Ask God for the Grace to do something difficult
with your life for him and for others.”
20.
Camps and Retreats:
As your children get into middle school, introduce them to
camps and retreats.
Young people need more and more integration of
faith with experience within a faith community.
In our Diocese we have the Adventure Camp and so
many other retreats and rallies for every age group.
These experiences help the young people to move
beyond the family and parish experience of Church and to
grow in their awareness that we are a universal Catholic
Church.
21.
Enable participation in
outreach, service, or missionary work:
This participation is very important for young
people. It is
here that they will see how much Christ and the Church
call them to move beyond themselves to serve the needs of
others. They
will begin to understand how much they have received and
how much they are being called upon to give in return.
This can include visiting the elderly in nursing
homes or helping aged relatives or neighbors.
Later this can include mission trips to soup
kitchens or other missions.
Through the Diocese there are mission trips to
Peru,
Mexico,
Lourdes,
Africa and more.
22.
All states in life are
essential to the life of the Church:
All vocations begin
with the family. There can be no priests or religious
without families.
Sacraments are essential for the spiritual life of
the family.
Without priesthood, there is neither Eucharist nor
Confession. Every man is called to fatherhood and every
woman is called to motherhood.
Celibates are not spiritual bachelors or
bachelorettes. Ask your pastor to speak about his
spiritual fatherhood.
Ask a religious sister to speak about her spiritual
motherhood.
Learn more about brothers, deacons, and the single life as
a life of mission and service.
23.
Don’t push, but don’t be
silent: Do not
push priesthood or consecrated life on your children, but
don’t be silent either.
Answer questions and at times, bring them up
yourself and raise possibilities, but do so always with a
sense of freedom and love.
Talk openly and support the possibility of your
child choosing to be a priest or sister.
Look for opportunities for your children to visit a
seminary or convent.
They can only learn to love that which they know.
24.
Speak positively about
bishops, priests, and consecrated persons:
Your respect for those in the Church will witness to your
children the need to respect those dedicated to God’s
service and to the spiritual mission of the Church.
We live in an era of anti-authority.
Showing respect to those whom God has given to
guide us in the Church will go a long way to teach your
children how to respect your own parental authority, as
well as to teach them how to place themselves under the
mission of God in their lives.
25.
Have a well-rounded concept
of the education of your children:
Do not neglect the formation of character,
self-discipline, human virtues, perseverance, and physical
health. You
are creating the fertile ground for God to act.
Besides faith, you will want your children to have
the strength of character to be able to do what might be
difficult, to overcome peer pressure, and to be faithful
to what is right.
26.
Develop the minds and the
sense of beauty and joy in your children:
This includes, but is not limited to, the knowledge of the
Catechism.
Help children develop their critical sense,
awareness of objective truth, and appreciation for music
and the arts.
Christ
asks you to be a holy parent, not necessarily a perfect
parent. Seek to sanctify your spouse and children by your
loving and nurturing—God will do the rest.
Trials will inevitably occur within your family.
You preach your most powerful sermons during times
of difficulty.
The saints have said that a holy family is a struggling
family. When
the Apostles were in the midst of the storm on the
Sea of Galilee, Jesus told them not to be
afraid. If we
have Jesus in our boat—home life—he will get us through.
Your witness of trust in those times will speak a
thousand words.
"...The modern world boasts of the
enticing door which says: everything is permitted.
It ignores the narrow gate of discernment and
renunciation. I am speaking to especially you, young
Christians.... Your life is not an endless series of open
doors! Listen to your heart! Do not stay on
the surface, but go to the heart of things! And when
the time is right, have the courage to decide! The
Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in his good
hands."
--Pope John Paul II
“Of my own free will, dear Jesus, I shall
follow You wherever You shall go
in search of souls at any cost to myself
and out of pure love for You.”
--Mother
Teresa
For more information
contact Father Hirsch at
jhirsch@dioceseoflacrosse.com
