Passing On Our Faith

Now that I am a mom I realize that God has given me the huge responsibility of teaching my child to love Him and obey Him. No pressure!

In my desire to pass on my faith to my child, I look around for good examples who I can emulate. I know many Catholic families, but very few who have figured out how to keep their children in the faith. It seems I see three extreme examples. On the left, I see families who teach their children that all faiths are equal and their children get to choose which truths they can follow. I don’t like this approach because it is too relativistic for my taste and when I have seen children of these families grow up, they don’t bother to be Catholic anymore because why go to Church if it doesn’t matter in the end.

On the right, I see large traditional Catholic families. At first glance the families look like the model family of Catholic piety, but on closer inspection there are some serious problems. Usually these parents have so closely monitored and controlled what their children are exposed to that at the first hint of freedom their kids go crazy. How many of these kids have gotten pregnant and had rushed weddings? How many of these kids never grace a Church entrance again because they had their fill of religiosity and want nothing more of it. And before I get criticized, I lived with these people in college. I saw it up close and personal.

And then . . . there are the masses of Catholic families who yeah, they believe but their faith does not really impact their daily lives or decisions. These families contracept, they believe a woman has a right to choose, and they are not really big on tithing.

While I criticize all three of these examples, in a way I sympathize because from what I can see these families are trying to the best of their limited abilities to do what they think is the best way to go. And that is exactly in the place I find myself.

There is one Catholic family who I can think of who I really truly admire. The mom is a devout Catholic and her husband is not. They raised four children who all are passionate about their faith. Even though the husband is not Catholic he still attended services and supported his wife’s faith in their home. This mom is a daily communicant and active in lay organizations. She made sure her children were surrounded by devout Catholics. Education style? She homeschooled, but also placed her kids in public school. It seems as if there was a balance and feet on the ground. That is what I am looking for.

It seem if I can somehow mix the left’s respect for freedom and the right’s respect for absolutes, maybe I can find a balance in my own home.

One thing I can say, the other day I went out with a Catholic girlfriend and her kids and as we prayed over lunch I thought how nice it was that my daughter could see other kids who also crossed themselves when they prayed. On our speech trip, the family we went with are also Catholic and it was great my daughter could see others cross themselves and pray outside of a Church context.